For decades, people around the world have been encouraged to take responsibility for recycling plastic trash. By doing so, people can have a positive impact on the environment, but it excuses the companies that make the harmful plastic in the first place.
A report from the Center for International Environmental Law has revealed the legal means to hold corporations accountable.
What's happening?
In June 2024, CIEL published research into the plastic industry's role in pollution, as well as which laws could be used to penalize them. Some cities, such as Baltimore, have already begun filing lawsuits against plastic producers, the Guardian reported.
The CIEL report says that plastic production has risen from two million tons in 1950 to 460 million tons in 2019, even though plastic producers found out in the 1950s that plastic doesn't break down. In 1969, they were even talking about how plastic builds up in the environment.
Nevertheless, plastic producers fought every attempt to limit or ban plastic production. Instead, they lobbied for an emphasis on recycling.
The plastic industry is even responsible for a plastic package numbering system that "resembled the 'chasing arrows' recycling symbol" and therefore misled the public into thinking those materials are equally recyclable, the Guardian noted. In reality, while many other conventionally recycled materials such as aluminum and glass do recycle well, plastic is extremely difficult to recycle. Most ends up in a landfill, an incinerator, or the environment.
This isn't the first time the plastic industry has been accused of deception over plastic pollution, either.
Why is the ongoing production of plastic a problem?
The CIEL detailed a number of ways that plastic impacts people, which the plastic industry knew about. Plastic in gutters and storm drains clogs them and causes more flooding. Taxpayers have to fund plastic cleanup, especially in local waters.
And there's so much plastic in the environment now that humans can't help eating it — roughly one credit card's worth per week, according to data cited by the Guardian. Those tiny pieces of plastic are believed by researchers to be harmful, and there's no good way to avoid exposure.
"We're in the midst of a population-scale human experiment on the impacts of multigenerational toxic exposures," said Carroll Muffett, one of the authors of the report and the president of CIEL. "Plastics are at the epicenter of that."
Alyssa Johl, the vice president of the Center for Climate Integrity, said the global plastic problem has been "created and perpetuated by a decades-long campaign of deception" from plastic producing companies.
What's being done about this plastic deception?
The report pointed out several laws that could hold corporations accountable, the Guardian reported. Public nuisance laws could cover the actual harm being done; product liability laws could establish that the manufacturers are legally responsible; and consumer protection laws could be used to address deceitful marketing.
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