Fortune - 04.2020

waste shipped by the boatload from across

the world. And we saw how the consequences

of the broken plastics economy spill over into

waste dumps, container dockyards, private

homes, and out into the ocean.

F

OR HALF A CENTURY,

plastics have seen rocketing

growth, for good reason:

They are cheap, lightweight,

and virtually indestructible.

“There’s a great future in plastics,” a nervous

young Benjamin Braddock (played by Dustin

Hoffman) is told by a would-be mentor in

the 1967 movie The Graduate. Acting on that

tip would have yielded spectacular returns.

Global production soared from 25 million

tons a year in 1970 to more than 400 million

tons in 2018.

Behind this polyethylene deluge is an

economic colossus: a global plastics market

worth about $1 trillion last year, according to

U.K. data analysts the Business Research Co.

Demand for plastics has doubled since 2000

and could double again by 2050. “We have

a growing middle class around the world

that needs to improve their quality of life,”

says Keith Christman, managing director of

plastic markets for the American Chemistry

Council, an industry organization whose

members include major producers like Dow,

DuPont, Chevron, and Exxon Mobil. “Plastic

is a part of that.” You can find plastic not just

in your water bottles and sandwich bags, but

in sweatshirts and wet wipes, home insula-

tion and siding, chewing gum, tea bags, and

countless other items.

Concerns about plastic have often been

eclipsed by debates over carbon dioxide

emissions. But the two are closely interlinked,

with plastic production emitting considerable

greenhouse gases itself. Now the world has

fully awakened to the plastics crisis. Images

of turtles choking on drinking straws or

dead whales with stomachs engorged with

plastic junk have gone viral—signifiers of the

8 million tons of plastic disgorged into oceans

every year. (The UN Environment Program

estimates that by 2050, the oceans will con-

tain more plastic than fish.) The human toll

END OF THE LINE

Shahid Ali (right)

and a coworker at

BioGreen Frontier,

one of scores of

recycling factories

that popped up

in Malaysia after

China banned

most plastic waste.

Estimated number

of U.S. short tons

of virgin plastic

produced in 2018

SOURCE: UC–SANTA

BARBARA BREN SCHOOL

OF ENVIRONMENTAL

SCIENCE & MANAGEMENT

500

MILLION

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