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Why Everything You’ve Heard About Plastics Is Wrong

by Francis Menton
November 17, 2021, 10:47 AM
in News and Opinion
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A
10

plastic bags shoppingBy now you must have noticed how many of the big news stories that have political significance to the left, and are hyped for months or years (or even decades) on end throughout the mainstream media, turn out to be false. …snip…

One that I had paid little attention to up to now was the narrative about the evils of plastics — that they cause terrible pollution problems, that they have accumulated in vast amounts in the oceans, that they kill sea creatures by the millions, that they accumulate forever and never degrade, and so forth.

While I haven’t been paying attention, this narrative, like so many others, has swept to universal acceptance in progressive precincts, which of course includes my own New York City.

It was a couple of years ago, as this anti-plastic narrative gained traction, that plastic straws first began to disappear from New York City restaurants, generally replaced by paper straws that are much less pleasant to drink from.

And the campaign against plastic convenience items has only accelerated. A ban on single-use plastic bags in grocery stores was enacted to take effect in March 2020.

That ban got delayed by litigation, but the state prevailed, and enforcement has gradually kicked in over the intervening period.

Today, if you go to a grocery store, the formerly standard plastic carry-home bags are gone. You will need to pay to get a paper grocery bag, or alternatively, pay even more for a “reusable” bag made of some kind of textile.

The disappearance of plastic straws in restaurants has been gradual, but according to this article in the Daily News, an actual ban took effect just a couple of weeks ago on November 1 of this year.

So clearly, there must be something really horrible about these plastic bags and straws, and probably everything else made of plastic. At this point, it’s one of those things that everybody just knows.

I thought it was time to learn something about the issue, and therefore when the Competitive Enterprise Institute invited me to an online presentation today on the subject, I signed up.

The main presenter was a guy named Chris DeArmitt. DeArmitt calls himself a “plastics materials scientist,” and he has made a detailed study of the relative environmental impacts of plastic versus other alternative materials for applications including bags and straws, as well as other things such as textiles and cars.

DeArmitt also has a recent book by the title “The Plastics Paradox,” and a website called plasticsparadox.com.

And of course, it turns out that plastic bags and straws (as well as many other items made of plastic for many different applications) have minimal environmental impacts, and most importantly, have far lower environmental impacts than any reasonably available alternatives for the applications in question.

DeArmitt points out that there is a formal method of analysis of environmental impacts called “life cycle assessment,” or LCA, that takes account of all of the environmental impacts of the use of a given material for a given application at all stages of the process, from extraction through disposal.

And there are dozens upon dozens of environmental LCA studies of plastics versus other materials, among which there will be multiple studies for any application you can think of.

So consider the situation as to plastic bags. DeArmitt:

Lifecycle assessments (LCA) are the only internationally accepted method for comparing the environmental impact of materials and products. They are used by governments, companies, and environmental groups, including Greenpeace and are independently audited. The LCA method takes into account all the energy, materials, water, emissions, and so on associated with the manufacture and disposal of a product. No tool is perfect, but LCA is by far the best, most widely-accepted way to see what is really green.

DeArmitt found some 24 LCA studies considering the subject of environmental impacts of plastic bags versus alternatives. The results:

LCA analyses are done by government agencies in the US, Canada, UK, Australia and Denmark. They all agree that the single-use polyethylene bags we use today have much lower environmental impact than potential replacements such as bioplastics, paper, unbleached paper, cotton or organic cotton. . . . To replace plastic bags with paper bags requires 2.7x more energy, 1.6x more carbon dioxide emissions, and 17x more water usage. It has also been estimated that replacing the plastic bags in the EU would require cutting down an astonishing 2.2 million more trees per year and require 60 000 Olympic swimming pools more water.

Here are some conclusions from the above:

I was surprised to find that our traditional PE and PP bags are far greener than the alternatives that are being thrust upon us. That means that the bans being implemented are actually harming our environment. . . . I was also deeply disappointed with the so-called environmental groups. I had assumed that they had done their homework and given us good advice. After all, they collect millions in donations and have had decades to find the best path forward. How is it that with all that funding they did not find ten minutes to type “LCA plastic bag” into Google? Why are they advocating bans that harm our planet? It makes me seriously question their competence and motives.

DeArmitt has generated enormous amounts of information that can keep you busy learning about the environmental benefits of plastics for as long as you have time available.

For example, plastic beverage bottles are far lighter than glass, leading to large savings in energy consumption for transportation. And similarly, plastic components in cars and trucks are also far lighter than the alternatives, leading to much less energy consumption in the use of the vehicles.

The big mystery of the campaign against plastics is the seeming religious zeal of the big environmental groups and of the mainstream media in the efforts to get rid of them.

Could it really just be that they are too lazy to “find ten minutes to type ‘LCA plastic bag’ into Google,” and if they did that they would promptly come around to rationality?

Unfortunately, I think that DeArmitt is deceiving himself there. When a religious or quasi-religious cause is in play, the human mind quickly becomes impervious to rational thought and appeals to evidence.

That’s the essence of progressivism. I don’t expect the return of plastic bags or straws any time soon.

Read more at Manhattan Contrarian

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Comments 10

  1. Spurwing Plover says:
    4 years ago

    Our town has Recycle Bins which take Alunimum,Glass(Colored and Clear)as well as #1 and #2 Plastics

  2. Ariane says:
    4 years ago

    Incineration is rejected by Greens. They say it produces toxic gases. However, incinerators can be designed to produce gas levels that are below the stringent levels demanded by the EU. Still Greens reject incineration. It seems that Greens like problems but not solutions. Maybe there are some mental health issues…

    • Sonnyhill says:
      4 years ago

      I used to live a mile from the world’s largest pile of used tires, 14 million of ’em. The owner had a plan to burn them with modern technology, to generate electricity. Toronto said No! No! No!.They must be recycled as rubber.
      Nobody wanted recycled tire rubber. Stalemate.
      One night, an Indigenous youth walked into the place with some gasoline and lit the place. Yup, the tires burned in the dirtiest way possible. The punk got 2 years less a day in a reformatory school. I hear that today, used tires are generating electricity.

  3. Tom says:
    4 years ago

    …”the media and activists are impervious to rational thought”…that applies to everything as well as the plastics issue. They are mostly trained/indoctrinated puppets incapable of independent thinking. Most dangerous to all humanity.

    • Sonnyhill says:
      4 years ago

      That’s the product of modern indoctrination, um, education .

  4. James says:
    4 years ago

    The problem with plastic is that it was thrown away with no attempt to recover, burn, recycle or whatever; so ended up in the sea. Forty years ago I saw beaches in the Med completely covered with plastic refuse – this floats so storms bring it ashore. Glass, Al, Cu and Fe waste have value, so have always been recycled. Domestic plastic waste is no different, but has to be collected and if it has no value except as fuel, it can only be burnt. But there we come up against regulations on smoke quality, CO2 etc, and no one wants incinerators near their backyard. So Europeans shipped it off to Asia; the Asians dumped it in the sea, and now it comes back. Legislators knew that everything produced, whether a can of paint, drugs or ships, sooner or later has to be destroyed or reused; but did not act to do so, and even enacted law making it impossible.

  5. Fagina Gara Agara says:
    4 years ago

    How quaint that the MSM generously informs us

    THAT WE HAVE BEEN LIED TO

    most especially when they can no longer defend the lie

    How Nice Of Them

    How COMMUNIST Of Them

    of course, we’re supposed to forget of their

    TREACHORY

  6. Spurwing Plover says:
    4 years ago

    Like with all the other Bans inspired by the Eco-Freaks is all based upon Junk Science and Politics like with Pesticides it seems to me the biggist pests are the Back to Nature Wackos who are trying to force the rest of us to do and think and live as they do

  7. MCPR says:
    4 years ago

    Whenever we read something in our area of expertise in the media, we think “wow they’re reporting that wrong.“ Then we go on to read things about which we are not expert, and we don’t stop to think that those are probably just as wrong. I know I am guilty of that.

    • Sonnyhill says:
      4 years ago

      I’ve asked myself the same question, and it’s a good one.

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