Plastics, Industry, Nonprofits and Thoughts on Solutions from A UNEP 
Land Ocean Connections Conference

Posted on: October 8th, 2013 by Stiv Wilson

Last week I had the pleasure (and pain) of representing The 5 Gyres 
Institute at the second UNEP Global Land Ocean Connections conference in 
Montego Bay, Jamaica. The pleasure came from meeting with an 
international coalition of groups all devoted to solving the marine 
eco-disaster that is plastic pollution. The pain came from being trapped 
in a hotel looking at an ocean that I desperately wanted to swim 
in–after all, that’s why I do what I do; I love being in the ocean. 
Inside, marathon meetings were norm, working roughly 12 hour days trying 
to build a global framework for dealing with upstream sources of plastic 
pollution. Topics included emerging technologies– incineration, cradle 
to cradle recycling, community engagement and plastic to fuel processing.

What was missing was a conversation on source reductions– that is, as 
global society, using less plastic. One of the largest issues we face 
with persistent plastic pollution is that we keep using more of it, 
despite new technologies aimed at dealing with it, end of life. Every 
year, more ends up in the environment, and it doesn’t go away. As an 
NGO, or as environmentalists in general, we’re often accused of being 
anti-business. Being considered pro-business, as of now, means being 
pro-business as status quo. In a breakout session, David Osborn, UNEP’s 
Coordinator for Ecosystems Management played devil’s advocate asking the 
question to stakeholders, “Why would industry want to be a part of The 
Marine Litter Partnership?” Indeed, the very partnership we were all 
there to build a framework for. But the problem with this exercise is 
that it’s predicated on the fact that industry is fueled by growth, and 
if you make plastic, that means you need to make and sell more. I’m 
afraid that where we are right now is already over the edge to some 
degree– we can’t necessarily worry about the health and welfare of a 
polluting industry over the damage done to the environment. Plastic is a 
great material, but single-use plastic is a huge area of growth for the 
industry, and I’m afraid that we need to see business get worse for 
these producers, not better if we’re going to begin to tackle this 
problem. If you’re trying to support industry growth and keep plastic 
out of the environment, you’ve got a contradiction in terms with the 
existing mechanisms we have for stopping pollution. A full scale 
paradigm shift in how the business of plastic works is what we need. And 
maybe that means not making some of it. Maybe that means getting resin 
makers to divest in producing virgin material and invest in recycling 
that which they’ve already made. That’s an important distinction– the 
guys that make the stuff by and large don’t recover or reprocess it. 
Seems to me like shifting focus from production to recovery and 
recycling a bit might make a big difference.