You're Being Lied To About Ocean Plastic | Truth Complex | Business Insider

Summary

Dieses Video skizziert die Wahrheit über Plastik im Ozean, widerlegend den populären Darstellungen des Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Es entlarvt die Verwendung von Falschfotos und betont, dass 75-86% des Makroplastiks aus der Fischereiindustrie stammt. Die Debatte, ob das Ozeanplastic überhaupt gelöscht werden sollte, wird dargelegt, ebenso wie die Herausforderungen der Mikroplastik und die Bedeutung einer Reduktion der Plastikproduktion. Es wird auch auf die Bedeutung einer Verringerung der Plastikchemikalien und Verbesserung der Recyclingsysteme hingewiesen.

Takeaways

• 🌊 Der sogenannte 'Große Pazifische Müllhaufen' ist kein riesiger Müllberg, sondern ein schwimmender Plastikschwamm.
• 🗺️ Viele der verbreiteten Bilder des Müllhaufens sind gefälscht oder zeigen Mülldeponien an Land.
• 🎣 Eine Studie von 2022 ergab, dass 75% bis 86% der Makroplastik im Müllhaufen von der Fischereiindustrie stammt.
• 🌱 Es gibt eine Debatte darüber, ob der Müllhaufen überhaupt gereinigt werden sollte, da er Teil des Ökosystems geworden sein könnte.
• 🦐 Forscher haben auch Mikroorganismen entdeckt, die Plastik fressen können, obwohl dies in kleinen Mengen der Fall ist.
• 🏖️ Bilder des Müllhaufens, die oft geteilt werden, stammen tatsächlich von einem摄影师Caroline Power, die sie 2017 nahe der Küste von Honduras aufgenommen hat.
• 🚯 Die meisten Plastikmüll in der Umwelt kommt nicht von Einzelpersonen, sondern von schlechtem Abfallmanagement.
• 📊 Gemäß OECD sind 82% der Makroplastikverschmutzung durch schlecht verwalteten Abfall verursacht.
• 🥤 Coca-Cola und 56 andere Unternehmen sind für die Hälfte der weltweiten gebrandmarkten Plastikverschmutzung verantwortlich.
• 🔄 Die Wiederverwendung von Plastik ist wichtig, aber sie kann nicht der einzige Lösungsansatz sein, da weniger als ein Fünftel des im Meer befindlichen Plastiks überhaupt recycelbar ist.
• 🔵 Mikroplastik ist ein großes und komplexes Problem, das durch verschiedene Quellen wie Textilien, Reifen und sogar Farbe verursacht wird.

Q & A

Was ist der Große Pazifische Müllball und wo befindet er sich?

Der Große Pazifische Müllball ist ein Schwerpunkt von Plastikmüll im offenen Ozean, wo man keine Landnähe sieht. Er ist kein großes, sichtbares 'Müll-Insel', sondern eher ein großer, sich drehender Vortex aus Plastik.

Wie sieht die Realität des Großen Pazifischen Müllballs aus und warum werden oft falsche Fotos verwendet?

Die Realität des Großen Pazifischen Müllballs ist weniger spektakulär als oft dargestellt. Er ist eher dünn am Rand und besteht aus einem schwachen Plastikvortex, der sich jedes Jahr bewegt. Falsche Fotos werden verwendet, weil die Realität nicht so auffällig aussieht und weniger Aufmerksamkeit erregt.

Welche Branche ist nach einer Studie für den größten Teil des Makroplastiks im Müllball verantwortlich?

Laut einer Studie von 2022 stammt 75% bis 86% des Makroplastiks im Müllball aus der Fischereiindustrie.

Warum gibt es eine Debatte darüber, ob der Müllball überhaupt gereinigt werden sollte?

Einige Experten argumentieren, dass Plastik im Ozean Teil des Ökosystems geworden ist und dass etwa 100 Arten auf Plastik leben können. Daher könnte die Reinigung das Ökosystem stören und schützenswerte Lebensformen bedrohen.

Was sind die Hauptquellen von Mikroplastik und wie werden sie oft falsch dargestellt?

Hauptquellen von Mikroplastik sind nicht nur die Verwertung von Kleidung und Pflegeprodukten, sondern auch Reifen und Farbe. Sie werden oft falsch dargestellt, indem man den Fokus auf das Verbrennen von Plastik oder auf Müllverbreitung durch Einzelpersonen legt, statt auf systemische Ursachen.

Wie ist die Rolle von Recycling in der Bekämpfung von Plastikverschmutzung im Ozean?

Recycling ist wichtig, kann aber nicht die Lösung für das Plastikproblem im Ozean sein, da weniger als ein Fünftel des im Ozean endenden Plastiks überhaupt recycelt werden könnte. Es ist ein Teil der Lösung, aber wir brauchen auch eine Verringerung des Plastikverbrauchs.

Wie beeinflusst der Plastikkonsum und die Plastikproduktion die Plastikverschmutzung?

Plastikproduktion und Plastikkonsum sind eng mit der Menge an Plastik, das im Ozean landet, verbunden. Je mehr Plastik produziert wird, desto mehr Plastik endet im Ozean.

Was ist die Rolle der fossilen Brenngasindustrie in der aktuellen Plastikverschmutzung und -politik?

Die fossile Brenngasindustrie ist stark involviert, da sie auf Plastik für ihre zukünftige Wachstumsplanung setzt. Sie versucht, Fortschritte bei der Reduzierung der Plastikproduktion zu verlangsamen und hat Einfluss auf politische Verhandlungen.

Wie kann die Plastikverschmutzung effektiv bekämpft werden?

Um die Plastikverschmutzung effektiv zu bekämpfen, müssen wir die Plastikproduktion reduzieren und die Chemikalien, aus denen Plastik hergestellt wird, vereinfachen. Dies würde nicht nur die Sicherheit verbessern, sondern auch das Recycling effektiver machen.

Was zeigt die aktuelle Situation der globalen Verhandlungen über die Reduzierung der Plastikverschmutzung?

Die globalen Verhandlungen zeigen, dass es große Herausforderungen gibt, die Plastikproduktion zu reduzieren, da einige Länder und Industrien dagegen sind. Es wird diskutiert, ob Plastikproduktion reduziert werden sollte, um das Recyclingsystem effektiver zu machen.

Outlines

00:00

🌊 Die Wahrheit über Plastik im Ozean

Dieser Absatz stellt die Missverständnisse über den Great Pacific Garbage Patch und die Herkunft von Ozeanplastik in Frage. Elizabeth, die Sprecherin, erklärt, dass das Bild eines riesigen Müllinseln im Ozean oft irreführend ist und dass die meisten Bilder, die dazu verwendet werden, gefälscht oder aus anderen Kontexten stammen. Sie betont, dass die Herkunft des Plastiks nicht die ist, von der wir ausgehen, und dass wir die Schuldigen oft falsch beurteilen. Die Wahrheit ist, dass der Großteil des im Patch gefundenen Plastiks von der Fischereiindustrie stammt. Die Diskussion um die Bereinigung des Patchs ist umstritten, da einige Experten argumentieren, dass das Plastik Teil des Ökosystems geworden ist und dass seine Entfernung die Umwelt stören könnte. Es wird auch erwähnt, dass Mikroplastik eine vernachlässigte Quelle von Umweltverschmutzung darstellt.

05:02

🚯 Plastikmüll und die Rolle des Einzelnen

In diesem Absatz wird auf die irreführende Betonung des Einflusses des Einzelnen auf den Plastikmüllanstieg hingewiesen. Elizabeth deutet darauf hin, dass die Betonung von Verbrechen wie dem Wegwerfen von Plastik in den Medien oft die Verantwortung auf Einzelpersonen abwälzt, anstatt auf systemische Ursachen zu schauen. Sie zeigt, dass nur ein kleiner Prozentsatz des Plastikmülls auf dem Land durch Unachtsamkeiten wie das Wegwerfen entsteht, während der größte Teil durch schlechte Abfallverwaltung stammt. Die Betonung auf das Recycling als Lösung wird kritisiert, da die tatsächlichen Recyclingraten niedrig sind und die Industrie weiterhin auf unkontrolliertes Plastikkonsumieren setzt. Es wird betont, dass wir sowohl Recycling als auch eine Reduzierung des Plastikkonsums brauchen.

10:02

🔍 Mikroplastik - ein komplexes Problem

Dieser Absatz konzentriert sich auf das Problem des Mikroplastiks, das in Milliarden von Teilchen existiert und schwer zu quantifizieren ist. Es wird erwähnt, dass Mikroplastik aus verschiedenen Quellen stammt, darunter Textilien, Reifen und sogar Farbe, die in Gebäuden verwendet wird. Die Herausforderungen bei der Messung und Schätzung von Mikroplastik werden diskutiert, und es wird darauf hingewiesen, dass neue Quellen entdeckt werden könnten, die noch größer sind als die bereits bekannten. Es wird betont, dass die Farbe von Plastik eine Rolle bei der Geschwindigkeit spielt, mit der es in Mikroplastik zerfällt, und dass die Industrie dazu angeregt wird, weniger farbige Additive zu verwenden, um das Recycling zu erleichtern.

15:03

🌍 Die globale Herausforderung der Plastikreduktion

In diesem letzten Absatz wird die politische und wirtschaftliche Dimension der Plastikverschmutzung thematisiert. Es wird beschrieben, wie die Verhandlungen über globale Abkommen zur Reduzierung der Plastikproduktion von Ländern, die auf fossile Brennstoffe angewiesen sind, behindert werden. Es wird darauf hingewiesen, dass die Industrielobby in diesen Verhandlungen überwiegend vertreten ist und dass die Reduzierung der Plastikproduktion als zentrales Ziel verfolgt wird. Es wird auch die Notwendigkeit diskutiert, die Chemikalien in Plastik zu reduzieren und die Produktion auf nachhaltigere Ebenen zu bringen, um das Recycling effektiver zu machen. Die Aussage der Dow Chemical Company, die ihre Produktion von Polymeren für Einwegverpackungen nicht reduzieren will, unterstreicht die Herausforderungen, denen wir gegenüberstehen.

Keywords

💡Großes pazifisches Müllfeld

Das große pazifische Müllfeld ist ein Schwerpunkt des Videos, das ein enormes Gebiet im offenen Ozean beschreibt, das mit Plastikmüll gefüllt ist. Es ist ein Symbol für das Problem des Meeresplastiks und wurde oft mit falschen oder manipulierten Fotos in der Vergangenheit dargestellt. Im Video wird darauf hingewiesen, dass das Müllfeld nicht so aussieht, wie es oft dargestellt wird, und dass die meisten der veröffentlichten Bilder manipuliert oder irreführend sind.

💡Makroplastik

Makroplastik bezieht sich auf Plastikteile, die größer als 5 Millimeter sind. Im Video wird erwähnt, dass eine Studie von 2022 ermittelt hat, dass 75% bis 86% der Makroplastik im großen pazifischen Müllfeld von der Fischereiindustrie stammt. Dies widerlegt die gängige Ansicht, dass das tägliche Haushaltsplastik die Hauptquelle für das Müllfeld ist.

💡Mikroplastik

Mikroplastik umfasst sehr kleine Plastikteilchen, die oft aus größeren Plastikteilen stammen, die im Meer zerfallen. Im Video wird darauf hingewiesen, dass Mikroplastik ein schwer zu quantifizierendes und weit verbreitetes Problem ist, das viele verschiedene Quellen hat, darunter Textilien, Reifen und Malerei.

💡Fischereiindustrie

Die Fischereiindustrie wird im Video als eine der Hauptquellen von Makroplastik im großen pazifischen Müllfeld identifiziert. Es wird betont, dass der Fokus oft auf Verbrauchern und Müllern liegt, während die Fischereiindustrie, die für einen großen Teil des Mülls verantwortlich ist, oft übersehen wird.

💡Müllverwaltung

Müllverwaltung bezieht sich auf die Systeme und Praktiken, die dafür zuständig sind, Abfall zu sammeln, zu sortieren und zu entsorgen oder zu recyceln. Im Video wird kritisiert, dass schlechte Müllverwaltung ein Hauptproblem ist, das zu Plastikverschmutzung im Meer führt, und dass es oft auf individuelle schlechte Entscheidungen reduziert wird, anstatt auf systemische Ursachen.

💡Recycling

Recycling wird als eine mögliche Lösung für das Plastikproblem im Video diskutiert. Es wird jedoch betont, dass Recycling aufgrund der Tatsache, dass nur ein kleiner Teil des im Meer vorhandenen Plastiks recycelt werden kann, nicht ausreichen wird, um das Problem zu lösen. Es wird auch darauf hingewiesen, dass die Betonung von Recycling die Verantwortung von Unternehmen abwälzt, die oft für Plastikverschmutzung verantwortlich sind.

💡Plastikproduktion

Plastikproduktion ist zentral für das Video, da sie direkt mit dem Anstieg von Plastikverschmutzung im Meer in Verbindung gebracht wird. Es wird argumentiert, dass eine Reduzierung der Plastikproduktion notwendig ist, um das Problem effektiv zu bekämpfen, was jedoch von einigen Ländern und der petrochemischen Industrie behindert wird.

💡Plastikverbrauch

Plastikverbrauch bezieht sich auf die Menge an Plastik, die von Verbrauchern verwendet wird. Im Video wird darauf hingewiesen, dass der unkontrollierte Plastikverbrauch zu einer Zunahme von Plastikverschmutzung beiträgt und dass eine Reduzierung des Plastikverbrauchs ein wichtiger Schritt zur Lösung des Problems wäre.

💡Plastikverschmutzung

Plastikverschmutzung beschreibt die Belastung von Meere und Ökosystemen durch Plastik. Im Video wird Plastikverschmutzung als ein komplexes und dringendes Umweltproblem dargestellt, das viele verschiedene Ursachen hat und für das eine Vielzahl von Lösungsansätzen erforderlich ist.

💡Plastikrecycling

Plastikrecycling ist der Prozess, bei dem Plastik nach seiner Verwendung erneut verwertet wird. Im Video wird betont, dass Recycling wichtig ist, aber nicht ausreichen wird, um das Problem der Plastikverschmutzung zu lösen, da die Menge des recycelten Plastiks nicht mithalten kann, mit der Plastikproduktion und -verbrauch steigt.

💡Petrostaaten

Petrostaaten sind Länder, die große Reserven an Erdöl und Erdgas haben und diese Ressourcen für ihre Wirtschaft und Exporte nutzen. Im Video wird darauf hingewiesen, dass einige dieser Länder den Fortschritt bei Verhandlungen über die Reduzierung der Plastikproduktion behindern, da sie auf die Weiterentwicklung der Plastikindustrie angewiesen sind.

Highlights

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is not a visible 'trash island' near land.

Many images associated with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch are actually fake or misleading.

The plastic in the ocean largely comes from the fishing industry, not household waste.

Guilt-mongering about plastic use has not effectively addressed the plastic-pollution crisis.

There is an ongoing debate about whether it's beneficial to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Plastic in the ocean can become a part of the ecosystem, serving as a home for various marine species.

Coastal areas are often more polluted than the garbage patch itself.

Mismanaged waste, not littering, is the primary source of ocean plastic pollution.

Only a small percentage of plastic pollution comes from littering.

Recycling alone cannot solve the ocean plastic crisis due to low global recycling rates.

Recycling is not a complete failure; it's part of the solution when combined with overall plastic reduction.

Microplastics are a significant and growing problem, originating from various sources.

Tires are a major, often overlooked, source of microplastic pollution.

Paint, particularly its plastic content, is an underestimated source of microplastics.

Plastic production is predicted to triple by 2060, exacerbating pollution issues.

A UN resolution aims to end plastic pollution, focusing on reducing plastic production.

Petrochemical and fossil-fuel-industry lobbyists are influencing global plastic reduction negotiations.

Reducing plastic production and simplifying plastic chemicals are key demands from scientists and activists.

Transcripts

Elizabeth: When many people hear about ocean plastic,

it's usually in the context

of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The idea that there was this giant trash island

in the ocean was one of the things

that got so many people paying attention

to ocean plastic in the first place.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is in the open ocean.

You cannot see land anywhere nearby.

So when you see pictures like this,

where there's clearly mountains

or maybe islands in the background,

that is obviously not the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

And then when you start looking,

you see that the majority of these are fake.

Most of these are probably honest mistakes,

but then there are other ones

which are obviously Photoshopped, like this one,

which is clearly just using

a picture of a landfill or something.

The question here is,

what does this thing actually look like

if it doesn't look like any of this

and why is everyone using photos of it

that are of something else?

These photos are just one example

of all the things we get wrong when we talk about the patch

and about ocean plastic in general.

The plastic isn't coming from where you think,

we're blaming the wrong people for it,

and there are devastating sources of microplastics

that hardly anyone is even talking about.

I've spent the last few months diving into the research

and interviewing experts, and I'm here to tell you

that you're being lied to about ocean plastic.

So, what does it actually look like?

Well, in short, news sites and blogs use fake photos

because the real thing just isn't that exciting to look at.

It's this giant swirling vortex of plastic,

it thins out at the edges, it moves every year,

and plastic is constantly being added to it.

It was talked about as another shame-on-us kind of thing,

and it was assumed that it must be

all of our daily household plastic

that was in the garbage patch.

Reporter: It's called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

It's mostly plastic, pooling what we all throw away.

Basically, the framing was like, "We've all been bad,

and now there's this big patch here."

A study from 2022 looked at the macroplastics,

the stuff bigger than 5 millimeters, in the garbage patch,

and found that 75%, up to 86% of it

was from the fishing industry.

I think a lot of news coverage

probably thought there was no harm

in laying on a little bit of guilt about plastic

because we all do buy and use it every day,

but guilt-mongering like that can still be dishonest,

and making people feel defeated does not help.

We've been doing that for a while now,

and it has not addressed the plastic-pollution crisis.

When I first started talking to experts about this,

I encountered one thing I really was not expecting.

There's actually a debate going on

over whether we should clean this thing up at all.

Once it is in the ocean,

it is connected with marine life,

and it's too late to remove it.

That's Martin Thiel.

He might have a bit of a bold take on this,

but he's not alone in thinking that at a certain point,

plastic becomes part of the ecosystem.

Once we throw away plastic, it's not ours anymore.

And other life absolutely colonizes that plastic.

Some studies have shown that nearly 100 species

can live on plastic and make that plastic their home.

And so being careful about how we clean that plastic up

is really important to protecting

and preserving the ecosystem.

More research has actually come out

about the garbage patch being teeming with life

and actually that coastal species

are hitching a ride all the way to the garbage patch

and then thriving there.

Scientists have also found plastic-eating microbes

that can turn polyethylene into CO2,

although in small quantities.

That said, it's not a settled question yet.

Some plastic leaches toxic chemicals.

Some of it gets eaten by animals

and contaminates the entire food chain.

We don't fully understand the trade-offs

between leaving plastic in ecosystems versus taking it out.

Anyway, back to those photos.

If the pictures we keep seeing are not of the garbage patch,

what are they?

The two most widely shared images of the patch

are this one and this one.

A photographer named Caroline Power

took those off the coast of Honduras in 2017.

So this particular crisis was actually close to land,

not far out to sea.

In reality, the garbage patch

is less polluted than many coastal zones.

Which might actually be good news

because researchers also think it's more effective

to clean plastic from coastal areas

than from garbage patches that are far out to sea.

It's actually really interesting

that the fervor over ocean plastic,

the panic about it started with the garbage patch,

because the garbage patch is kind of this exceptional thing.

It's mostly fishing gear, it's far out to sea,

it's difficult to clean, and it's really not representative

of the ocean-plastic problem as a whole.

Closer to shore, you see more of what you'd expect:

water bottles, wrappers, all kinds of consumer packaging.

But how it actually gets there is often misrepresented.

When you Google,

"How does so much plastic end up in the ocean?"

the main result you find over and over again is littering.

To show you what I mean, here's an educational video

from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Dianna: Where does marine debris come from?

Marine debris comes from many different sources

and enters the ocean in many ways.

Intentional littering and dumping

are a big cause of marine debris.

Sometimes the trash goes directly into the ocean,

like when beachgoers don't pick up after themselves.

And there are other examples of this all over the internet.

So, this page for example, it's called

"How Does Plastic End Up in the Ocean?"

And the No. 1 reason it puts

is that we're throwing plastic in the bin

when it could be recycled, and No. 2 is littering.

Both of those are just not a majority of the problem here.

This is the European Environment Agency, and it says,

"Poor waste management and careless littering on land

are two of the main causes of the problem."

Littering is responsible for a very small percentage

of the overall plastic in the environment.

Based on this graph from the OECD,

you can see littering is this teeny-tiny blue bar here,

and mismanaged waste, not including littering,

is this massive one at the bottom.

Mismanaged waste includes all the things

that end up either in illegal dump sites

or burned in the open

or in the rivers or oceans or wherever.

The focus on littering specifically,

it's an easy answer because obviously there's nothing wrong

with discouraging people from littering,

but it focuses on individual people's bad choices

rather than systemic forces that are basically

flushing plastic into the ocean every minute.

Mismanaged waste includes everything

that escapes formal waste systems.

So they might end up dumped, they might end up burned,

they might end up in the environment.

We're not even talking about landfills here.

If it's landfill, that's managed waste.

According to the OECD,

82% of macroplastic leakage into the environment,

so that's land, air, and sea,

is the result of mismanaged waste.

Putting so much emphasis on individual choices

also takes the pressure off of the companies

whose products so often become plastic waste.

We know from beach-cleanup data

that Coca-Cola has been the No. 1 plastic polluter

for six years in a row, producing 11%

of all the branded plastic pollution found on beaches.

And just 56 companies are responsible

for half the world's branded plastic pollution.

So, I read Coca-Cola's sustainability report,

and most of the emphasis

for their solutions is on recycling.

So is recycling the key

to stopping plastic from getting in the ocean?

Spoiler alert: no.

But it's more complicated than you might think.

We know at this point that big lies

were told about recycling, and they were told

because the plastics industry had a PR problem.

In 1969, there was a quote

from the American Chemical Society saying,

"It is always possible that scientists and engineers

will learn to recycle or dispose of wastes at a profit,

but that does not seem likely

to happen soon on a broad basis."

And, boy, were they right.

Globally, recycling rates are less than 10%,

and they've been stuck that way for decades now.

Keep in mind,

the amount of recycled plastic we make globally

has quadrupled in 20 years.

We're recycling more than ever, it just can't keep up.

I think we need to show a graph here.

So, if you look at what goes into the ocean,

items that actually have a chance of being recycled

are hard plastics made of just one thing.

This report calls them rigid mono-materials,

but you can see they make up just 18%

of plastic leakage into the ocean.

These other two massive categories,

they make up a vast majority of the plastic in the ocean,

and those are just not widely recyclable items.

You might hear people say

that they're technically recyclable, the technology exists,

but it's just not economically viable,

and it's not being done at a large scale.

So the industry has known at this point

that mixing together different types of plastics

makes them unrecyclable.

They've known it for more than 50 years,

and they've just kept doing it.

But either way, what we're looking at is less than a fifth

of ocean plastic having even the potential to be recycled.

So graphs like this really brought it home for me,

that this is one of the biggest lies

about the ocean-plastic problem,

is that somehow we can recycle our way out of it.

When such a tiny fraction of what's going into the ocean

is even maybe recyclable,

we need to talk about different ways to solve this problem.

Recycling was doomed to fail

because it was given an impossible task,

and the impossible task was to just keep up

with limitless plastic consumption.

However, it's not exactly completely fake either,

and that's something I'm encountering more and more

in my everyday life when I talk to people about this.

There's been so much coverage of recycling being a scam

that people think it doesn't matter at all,

that they shouldn't even try.

The reality is that headlines saying recycling is a scam

or totally fake are misleading.

You know, it gets framed as an either-or.

Either we only need recycling

and only recycling will fix this problem,

or recycling won't fix this problem at all

and we should absolutely give up on it.

And I quite simply disagree.

It is not an either-or, it is a yes-and.

Yes, we need recycling, and we need overall reduction.

One of the reasons recycling hasn't worked so well

is because of low collection and sorting rates,

and convincing people that it's totally fraudulent

will just make that problem worse.

So, PET, plastic No. 1,

and HDPE, plastic No. 2,

are legitimately recyclable.

Though the rates of plastic recycling

for all plastics is less than 10%,

for those two plastics, it's closer to 30%,

and we could double that in the US

by just doing a better job collecting plastics.

We just need to stop thinking

that recycling plastics gives us license

to consume as much as we want

and stop accepting the industry line

that it's perfectly circular.

It's meant to be a last resort

for plastics we can't eliminate,

and it still comes with some environmental trade-offs.

There is no hiding the fact that our recycling system

is not working very well right now,

but that doesn't mean we should give up on it.

If anything, it means that we need to invest in it

and make it work.

As you can see, this is messy.

We want magic pills and silver bullets,

a perfect solution for all these problems,

and that's just not going to happen.

And it's about to get messier,

because we need to talk more about microplastics.

So, microplastics are incredibly hard

to wrap your head around.

They see numbers in the billions

and they're measured in terms of particles,

and it's just sort of impossible

to envision what that even means or how bad it is.

From Europe, so much microplastic goes into the environment

that it's the equivalent of everyone in Europe

throwing one grocery bag into the ocean each week.

Then, in the US, it's triple that number.

Though microplastics are 11% of all the plastic

that goes into the ocean each year,

when you look at just high-income countries,

that number goes up to 62%.

Scientists keep finding them in new places,

and then that makes the news,

and now it's in the news cycle so much

that it's almost become kind of a meme,

with people joking about, like, microplastics for dinner

and whatever you might see.

So, for a while we were thinking maybe the main problem here

was polyester and plastic clothing,

but then we started having more data come out about tires.

The tires on cars shed microplastics like crazy.

Estimates vary, but tires can shed between 10% and 16%

of their weight over their lifetime.

That means each tire on a car loses a kilogram,

or 2 pounds, of tire dust over its lifetime.

We also know that the heavier a car is,

the faster its tires wear down, which means

the more microplastics go out into the environment.

So that means, like, the big SUVs,

Americans tend to drive really big cars,

those are creating higher numbers of microplastics.

It's estimated that 9%

of all plastic pollution going into the ocean is from tires,

and right now there's just no way of catching it.

So, textiles remained a problem.

Then we added tires to the list.

But the craziest thing is that after that, a report came out

that said that there was a new source of microplastics

we hadn't been calculating correctly

and that if their math was right

it created more microplastics

than all the other ones combined,

more than tires and personal-care products

and clothing combined, and that source is paint.

So according to this report,

about 40% of paint ends up in the environment,

and the craziest thing is that

37% of paint is plastic polymers.

Like, the composition of paint is plastic.

We're painting our walls with plastic.

When I heard that lots of microplastics came from paint,

I had assumed it was mostly from ships,

but actually marine sources were not even a majority

of the microplastics that end up in the environment.

And a lot of it is from buildings.

About half the paint applied

in European lower-income countries

will eventually leak to the environment.

That is mind-boggling to me.

All these things are basically modeled estimates.

It's really difficult to measure microplastics,

so people end up doing this sort of

complex mathematic modeling to figure out

how much paint gets shed off of these everyday objects.

Even if this estimate is wrong

and it's half that or a third of that,

paint is still a huge source of microplastics

in the environment that's been wildly underestimated.

Ultimately, the disconcerting vibe that I get

from all of this is that we know

there are huge sources of microplastics out there,

but we could discover a new one tomorrow that's even bigger.

There are also a whole other type of microplastics

that come from things already in the ocean breaking apart.

A recent study found that the color of the plastic

actually makes a big difference

in terms of how fast that happens.

So red, green, and blue plastics

become microplastics much faster

than clear, silver, or black.

Removing pigments from plastic

would also make them much easier

and more valuable for recyclers.

But of course, mixing red caps

and green bottles and all of that

would mean brands giving up some of their brand power.

So now we're getting to the really big questions.

How do you compel massive institutions

that benefit from plastic to change their ways?

Over the years, we've seen both governments and corporations

make pledges to reduce their plastic footprints.

Over five years, there was a 60% increase in these pledges,

and in that same time, a 50% increase in plastic pollution.

That's nuts. A 50% increase in five years?

These pledges simply haven't worked.

Plastic use is still set to triple by 2060.

At this point, it might seem hopeless,

but we're actually in a pivotal moment.

In 2022, UN member states passed a resolution

very ambitiously called End Plastic Pollution.

For the past few years,

they've been working on a global treaty.

I've spoken to independent scientists

who are at these negotiations,

and they all talk about the same thing,

reducing plastic production.

This may seem painfully obvious,

but we have to go through the data a bit

because it's been weirdly controversial for a long time now

to say that plastic production

leads to more plastic pollution.

If you map out plastic production since 1950

and map out the amount of plastic

going into the ocean since that time,

you get two lines that track each other very closely.

And this is true even for individual brands.

A 2024 study found that the more product

that Coke, Pepsi, Nestlé, and other companies made,

the more of their branded trash washed up on beaches.

Even though making less plastic

seems like a really clear answer,

this idea is still tearing apart these negotiations.

There is a big group of countries

supporting the obligations to reduce plastic production,

but we also have a very small group of countries

that are stalling progress in these obligations.

And this small group of countries are the petrostates.

People think that we are negotiating a waste treaty,

but in reality,

we are negotiating the future of fossil fuels.

The Center for International Environmental Law,

where Daniela works, analyzed the guest list at these talks.

They found petrochemical and fossil-fuel-industry lobbyists

outnumbered scientists at these talks, sometimes 3:1.

These industries are fighting hard because

they're counting on plastics for their future growth.

The fossil-fuel industry is using all types of tactics

to intimidate and to harass.

So, as soon as we landed in Ottawa in April,

we started to see billboards all over the city

defending plastics, and with kids in a hospital

with masks of plastic for oxygen, which, we are clear

that we're not targeting these kinds of elements

with our ads for production reduction.

Inside the talks,

industry reps don't want to talk about lowering production.

They want to talk about recycling and waste management.

Of course recycling is important,

and we don't want to say that we don't need recycling,

but if we want to make recycling

something that actually works,

we need to bring production to more sustainable levels.

There's no way that recycling is going to keep up

with the levels of production that we have today.

Every scientist and activist

that I've spoken to about this issue wants two things:

to reduce plastic production

and to simplify the chemicals that go into plastics.

There are about 16,000 chemicals used in plastics today,

most of which are not regulated by international law.

And getting that number lower could not only improve safety,

but also make recycling much more effective.

I don't know how this is all going to turn out

or if plastic production is actually going to go down,

but I do know Dow, a chemical company

and one of the world's largest suppliers of the polymers

that go into single-use plastics,

seemingly doesn't have plans to slow down anytime soon.

Dow call: Plastics right now, PNSP,

silicones, and coatings,

I think we have a pretty good line of sight.

Since 2019, we've seen a 20% increase

in volumes in plastics.

I think plastics is going to continue

to see solid volumes,

and we've got cost advantage.

So the long-term trends for plastics say

the growth is going to continue to be there.

If you're wondering where I got all this information,

check out the link in the video description.

I'm sharing a reading list of all the reports

that I used to put this together.

And for more "Truth Complex,"

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