Along the banks of the Mississippi River, right before it spills out past New Orleans into the sea
lies Cancer Alley. An 85 mile strip of shoreline where residents are contracting cancer at
astronomical rates. But this isn’t a phenomenon based in genetics or some cruel twist of fate.
Cancer Alley is the product of environmental pollution. And today we’re going to figure out
exactly where this pollution is coming from. This is the story of plastics, the harm they cause,
the industries that create them, and how that 85 mile strip of Mississippi
shoreline and other areas like it are suffering because of them.
This video is sponsored by CuriosityStream,
which now comes with Nebula for free when you sign up using the link in the description.
What’s Plastic? If you walk into your kitchen,
pretty much everything, in some way or another, has encountered plastic. The plastic bags you
stuff into a drawer, your favorite cup and even the package keeping those blueberries fresh. But
despite plastic’s ubiquity, we often forget where it comes from. Indeed, when it comes to plastic
our efforts seem to be much more focused on what happens after we use it than before we use it.
So first, let’s understand how plastic gets made. It all starts here… or here.
That’s right, plastics are basically just fossil fuels in solid form. In fact, 99% of plastics are
made from chemicals rooted in fossil fuels. The plastic creation process begins with crude oil,
coal, or natural gas, which is then refined and distilled or “cracked” into usable chemical
compounds such as Ethylene or Benzene. Of course there are certain plastics that are the product of
recycled goods, but as I’ll get into that later. The key thing here is that the plastic that we use
so heavily is really the same as the petroleum we put in our cars or the natural gas we use
to heat our homes. Which is one of the reasons why the fossil fuel industry loves plastics.
Fossil Fuels Love Plastic
With the compounding economic, pandemic, and environmental crises bearing down
on the fossil fuel industry, Big Oil seems to be in trouble. BP reported losses of $5.7 billion
in 2020, while ExxonMobil lost a staggering $22.4 billion. It was truly a crushing year
for the fossil fuel industry, and yet oil and gas executives still seem optimistic.
Exxon says it hopes to grow by 4% each year, and part of their scheme to achieve that growth
involves, “one word: plastics.” Indeed, plastic seems to be the fossil fuel industry’s escape plan
from the transition to a zero carbon world. We’re now witnessing Big Oil pour resources into new
plastic factories. North of Corpus Christi, Texas, ExxonMobil secured hundreds of millions of dollars
in tax breaks to build a natural gas distillation or “cracking” site to produce plastics. Shell has
also put its faith in plastics, investing in a multi-billion dollar ethane cracking factory
on the Ohio River in Pennsylvania, which, when finished will churn out 1.6 billion metric tons
of plastic pellets every year. Chevron’s building a new plant, and so is Saudi Aramco. All told,
the fossil fuel industry announced 333 chemical and plastic projects from 2010 to 2018. Greenpeace
Executive Director, Annie Leonard, explains this obsession with plastic in a PBS Frontline
report: “Because single-use plastic is their plan B. They're not going to be able to continue
to drill that oil and gas and burn it for energy anymore, because the climate can't sustain it. So
this is their lifeline. They are going to double down on single-use plastic like we have never
seen.” And all of this new plastic infrastructure means increased production and ultimately a
barrage of emissions, because alongside the physical pollution of plastics littered in our
waterways and immediate environments, plastic causes a colossal greenhouse gas problem.
The Real Impact of Plastic
Back in Cancer Alley, despite community organizing and some small victories,
things are looking worse. Yet another plastic factory is trying to make its way through the
permitting process, and considering the region’s and the country’s history of complete disregard
for the health and well-being of the low-income communities of color that live in the area,
the construction of this heavily polluting factory comes as no surprise. Cancer Alley
is the product of the environmental racism that pervades the U.S and the world. “I have a hundred
people in the meeting. Has anybody in the room had anybody in the house died? Everybody stands up.”
When the factories surrounding these communities break up natural gas and crude oil into usable
compounds for plastics, rubber, or fertilizer they also release tons and tons of highly
toxic carcinogenic compounds into the air. As a result, the EPA told one town in Cancer Alley,
St. Johns Parish, that they faced the highest risk of cancer in the country. But even if they
somehow escape the grips of cancer residents like Marilyn Francois can barely breath taking out the
trash: “I went out to take out some trash. By the time I left from the trash can back in the house,
I was breathing hard. And I knew it was something in the air.” But the creation of plastics is not
just a local problem it’s also a global one. A comprehensive report on plastic creation worldwide
reveals that if the industry continues with business as usual, by 2050 plastics will create 56
billion metric tons of greenhouse emissions, which is 10–13 percent of the entire remaining carbon
budget. The report goes on to say that the plastic and petrochemical industries’ current plans “to
expand plastic production threaten to exacerbate plastic’s climate impacts and could make limiting
global temperature rise to 1.5°C impossible.” All told, Carbon Tracker estimates that for
every metric ton of plastic created, $1000 in externalities like health and environmental
destruction are also created. Essentially, even before plastics reach our shelves and get thrown
into our seas, its impacts are massive and fossil fuel companies are to blame.
Recycling Is a Sham
Right about now, you might be thinking, “well I guess that means that I should recycle more,”
but here’s the thing, that is exactly what the fossil fuel industry wants you to do. In
fact for well over forty years the plastic and fossil fuel industries have poured millions of
dollars into marketing campaigns shifting the blame away from industry and onto the consumer:
“People start pollution. People can stop it.” “And now, I’m what I’ve always wanted to be”
“Remember, a lot of the plastic packaging that you have in your kitchen is recyclable.” The reality
is that only 9% of recycled plastic actually gets recycled, and that’s because the majority
of the plastic we use, while theoretically recyclable in the lab, is just too costly to
recycle in practice. That’s right the majority of the plastics you’re throwing in your recycling bin
end up in the landfill. If you think this isn’t the fault of the plastics industry,
you might be surprised to find that those little triangles on the back of your container are not
a sign of their recyclability, they instead are a system that helps identify what kind of
plastic the container is made out of. In fact, the plastics industry used this similar triangle logo
to trick customers into thinking their plastic was recyclable: “That code was a numbering system
put inside the well-known symbol for recycling, the chasing arrows. The problem, recyclers said,
is that it left the impression that all those kinds of plastics were actually being recycled.”
As a result, recycling plants are inundated with non-recyclable plastics, while consumers continue
to buy and recycle thinking they’ve avoided plastic’s impact. In short, by placing the
emphasis on recycling, which happens after the plastic has been made and the profits pocketed,
the fossil fuel and plastic industries could get people to buy more by assuaging consumer guilt
about pollution. Or, as the head of the Society of the Plastics Industry puts it, "If the public
thinks that recycling is working, then they're not going to be as concerned about the environment.”
A Different World
There is some hope though. Carbon Tracker predicts that demand for plastic won’t match up to what
fossil fuel companies predict, and reveals that the plastics industry is ripe for regulation
that can squeeze fossil fuel industries even more. But, the key thing here is that that won’t happen
unless we mobilize. And no, I’m not talking about straw bans, I made a whole video about
why they’re ineffective and ableist. What needs to happen is a re-envisioning of how our packaging
and production systems work. As individuals, especially in countries like the United States,
especially for the elite which generate disproportionate amounts of waste and emissions,
it is important to think hard about our relationship to consumption. But of course
reducing consumption, plastic or otherwise, is a difficult prospect in a world that has plastic
wrapped everything. Nowadays you can’t even buy lettuce without buying plastic, which means that
the path towards de-centering plastic has to focus on changes along systemic lines. Corporations need
to cease these destructive practices and the people and governments have the power
to force them to do that. On the policy level this means not subsidizing new plastic plants
and requiring companies to pay for or internalize the environmental and social costs of plastics,
including the costs that have already been incurred by people in areas like Cancer Alley.
But until the fossil fuel industry is forced to reckon with the immense harm it’s caused,
it will continue to hold onto plastic for dear life.
Now you may still be thinking, well if not plastic than what else? What sort of plastic
alternatives are available right now? I’ve uploaded an extended version of this video
that dives a bit into plastic alternatives on the streaming platform my creator friends and I built
called Nebula. The bonus content replaces this ad because there aren’t any ads on Nebula. And
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CuriosityStream is the go to streaming platform for thousands of top tier documentaries,
like Bag It, a documentary all about plastic bag waste and the global plastic crisis. And because
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