Plastic products are a major component of daily life. From bicycle helmets and automotive airbags to medical products and food containers, plastics are essential to keeping you safe. While living without plastic seems practically impossible, increasing plastic usage globally significantly impacts the environment. Plastics kill wildlife, poison the air and water, and cause other environmental injustices, so the plastic problem needs to be addressed quickly.
With an awareness of the failings of current efforts to solve the plastic problem, the world will turn its gaze toward Ottawa, Canada, this month, which hosts an intergovernmental meeting known as INC-4 that hopes to secure a legally binding agreement to resolve plastic pollution. Recognizing that so few countries have solid goals to limit or reduce plastic waste, the need for more rigorous and practical approaches has become paramount.
Despite being the world’s third-largest plastic producer, the CEO of Dow, Jim Fitterling, vocally champions a solution that will eliminate plastic pollution from the plant by creating a socially inclusive economy for plastics that recognizes the critical role these materials play in daily lives while also ensuring a low-carbon future. While this may seem impossible, this CEO believes it is achievable and that the INC-4 meeting could develop an agreement that could be a significant force for positive change. But for change to happen, Fitterling believes some key details must be prioritized.
Firstly, the agreement will need to drive innovation through design, which means that there must be an understanding that a circular ecosystem is required from the start. Plastics cannot reasonably go anywhere, but they can be designed and used more sustainably in a way that doesn’t negatively impact the environment. This means that innovative designs need to be prioritized, focusing on high-performance plastics that use fewer raw materials while ensuring maximized durability, reusability, and recyclability.
This leads to a second key issue for this agreement to succeed: promoting more environmentally sound recycling methods currently under development and helping bring these methods to scale. Countries can have a greater positive impact on solving the plastic problem by setting recycled content requirements that enable waste to be sorted more quickly and put back into use. Current recycling methods can turn some plastic into various things, from fleece jackets to waterproof fencing, but developing methods need to evolve and offer additional ways to transform waste.
The third priority is developing and securing a more socially inclusive financial and risk model that can power the circular plastics economy. Change is costly, but building more self-sustaining and modern waste systems worldwide will also create new and better jobs and upgrade waste management infrastructure in parts of the world that need it.
Plastics are needed for survival. There isn’t much way around that, but how plastic moves throughout its life cycle can be changed to preserve its benefits while eliminating waste. Fitterling has had many conversations with colleagues in this industry, excited by the high level of agreement in solving the plastic problem.
