The Race to use Recycled Plastics
Plastic pollution, along with climate change, has become this generation’s most dire problem. Although there is an increasing awareness surrounding it through Millenials and GenZ today, throwaway culture is still the most persistent in the Western world.
Looking at it from Maria Mies’s myth of catching-up development, polluting industrialized nations have exploited other developing and underdeveloped nations for their own excess economic profit. Products that are made out of recycled products and marked as ‘sustainable’ is a prominent example of overdevelopment in already industrialized societies that leads to more economic and natural exploitation of people in vulnerable societies (Mies). Arguably, new consumer products made out of recycled plastics do not address the problem of plastic pollution at its core but help to sustain the plastics industry instead.
It is alarming that there is a relatively big social consensus that recycled plastic is cool and okay to use, but ‘virgin plastics’ are not. (Also, why are new plastics called ‘virgin’? This goes back to the age-old tradition of shaming women’s sexual desires, and many other taboos which is a topic for another time). The Fast Company article in focus for this paper expostulates that since fast fashion and conventional plastic products are under scrutiny, companies are trying to make products out discarded plastics to look more ‘sustainable’ (Segran). The author of the article firmly believes that “recycling plastic won’t save us,’’ which is a view I strongly agree with as well. Although clothing made from recycled plastics is a profitable market, the recycled plastic (rPET) that these companies use is cheaper than virgin plastic. Since the inception of plastics in the 1900s, billions of products have been used and discarded that will probably live for decades to come.
Currently, in the US, only 9% of these plastics are recycled, and less than 30% of plastic water bottles are recycled (Segran). The fashion industry is trying to get its hands on a limited number of recycled plastics from water bottles, but there is no incentive to recycle PET bottles and few people follow the proper recycling procedures. As a result, many of the recyclables end up in landfills instead of going to facilities in a country that struggles to maintain their recycling endeavors. This becomes a problem, especially when beverage companies like CocaCola pledge to adopt at least 50% recycled content in their packaging by 2030 (Corkery).
It has been studied that bottle bills work, like in Hawaii, however beverage companies have shut down multiple strides taken in the US to adopt the same bill. Companies are opposed to it because it would end up causing them a lot more money.
Neither is there a system set in place to incentivize the use of recycled products by the very companies who claim to use it nor does it seek to solve the problem of plastic pollution. The market for recycled products is simply not big enough, but apparently the demand and popularity of recycled products seem to be on the rise. However, one could argue that repurposing plastics and giving them a new life to be used longer than originally intended is a good thing and that it has the potential to limit the production of new plastics. For example, Patagonia uses fleece made out of recycled plastics turned into microfibers that are lightweight, waterproof, and offer synthetic insulation.
The most pressing argument for this to which Mies would agree to is that it is highly unclear what type of plastics are recycled, and many of them can be harmful to use especially when we eat, wear, and drink out of them. This could jeopardize the health of vulnerable people such as pregnant women, children, and the elderly in society. Also, the myth that recycled plastic is better is inaccurate, as “new plastic still tends to be cheaper and higher quality and can also be sourced with much greater consistency” (Adkins) when companies look at it from a business standpoint. Also, both the plastic water bottles and clothing have to be sorted by type and fiber respectively before they can be used. The Ellen McArthur foundation highlights that “Less than 1% of the fiber used to produce clothes is recycled into new garments” (Chauduri). Therefore, we need to find new ways to revamp what we use and cut the production of existing plastics and lean off from our dependency on fossil fuels. In her article, Sasha Adkins describes how “Recycling does not reduce demand for new plastic but it instead makes the extraction of fossil fuels more profitable” (Adkins). This is because most of the fossil fuel extraction takes place at the expense of vulnerable societies. While some might argue that those vulnerable people also receive benefits, Mies would argue that they face the brunt of the problems much more than industrialized societies. J Spencer Atkins’ definition of the principle of Beneficiary Pays also extensively applies in this case, which states that when an individual is conscious of how industrialization is hurting those in developing countries, it “becomes a prima facie duty to compensate those who are hurt most” (286). However, the fast fashion industry and beverage companies while making some slow strides towards improvement still continue to mostly act with a highly capitalist and dominating agenda. Monetary gains come first as they continue to voluntarily stay blinded for the adverse consequences they project on underdeveloped societies.
In conclusion, the act of repurposing used plastic in new consumer products is not going to save us but rather just continue to seek to keep the plastics industry up and running. And while plastics are lighter, cheaper, and more convenient to use many times, Mies would argue that our society and specifically the West is exploiting developing and underdeveloped societies for their own overdevelopment. Mies analyzes the practice of industrialized nations for the means of overdevelopment, while Atkins brings forward a consciousness to help, and/or relieve the suffering caused by those same colonizers. He emphasizes that conscious souls have more of a duty to compensate those who are most affected. As a result, and in the light of the arguments set forth, we should firstly, reuse what we have, secondly refuse what we do not need, and lastly reduce the waste we do end up producing.
Citations:
Chaudhuri, Saabira. “Fast Fashion Leads to New Recycling Effort.” Wall Street Journal, Oct 03, 2019. ProQuest, http://flagship.luc.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/2300016242?accountid=12163.
Corkery, Michael. “Beverage Companies Embrace Recycling, Until It Costs Them.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 4 July 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/04/business/plastic-recycling-bottle-bills.html.
Segran, Elizabeth. “Recycled Plastic Isn’t Going to Save Us.” Fast Company, Fast Company, 13 Nov. 2019, https://www.fastcompany.com/90429087/recycled-plastic-isnt-going-to-save-us.
Mies, Maria, et al. “The Myth of Catching up Development .” Ecofeminism, 13 Mar. 2014, https://sakai.luc.edu/access/content/group/PHIL_287_01E_3211_1196/Course Readings/Mies, The Myth of Catching Up Development.pdf.
Atkins, J Spencer. “Have You Benefited from Carbon Emissions? You May Be a ‘Morally Objectionable Free Rider.’” Environmental Ethics, vol. 40, 2018, https://sakai.luc.edu/access/content/group/PHIL_287_01E_3211_1196/Course Readings/Atkins, Have You Benefited from Carbon Emissions.pdf.
