California Subpoenas Exxon for Details on Role in Plastic Pollution

[SunSeeker]

California Attorney General Thursday announced an investigation to fossil fuels and the petrochemical industry for allegedly exaggerating the role of recycling in curbing global plastic pollution and exacerbating the crisis.

Attorney General Rob Bonta said his office subpoenaed Exxon Mobil for information relating to the company’s alleged role in defrauding the public and exacerbating plastic pollution. The office did not specify which other companies it is investigating. Exxon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

When state and local legislatures began considering bills restricting or banning plastic products in the 1980s, fossil fuel and petrochemical companies launched an “aggressive” and “deceptive” campaign to convince the public that they could mitigate the waste problem through recycling, which the industry knew was not true, Bonta said in a press release.

“For more than half a century, the plastics industry has waged an aggressive campaign to deceive the public by perpetuating the myth that recycling can solve the plastics crisis,” Bonta said. “The truth is that the vast majority of plastic cannot be recycled.”

https://newsquick24.com/business/california-sues-exxon-for-details-on-role-in-plastic-pollution/

[Emile]

1. Oil based plastics are destroying the planet. We use to have biodegradable cellophane

and somehow that was even replaced with plastics.

[SunSeeker]

2. I had no idea cellophane was biodegradable.

Yes, we got rid of a lot of things that could have helped the environment, like electric trolleys (the old Red Cars) here in Los Angeles.

[Emile]

3. It is biodegradable and made from natural sources like wood. I think all

the cellophane plants in the US are closed now and replaced with oil based plastics. What a shame. I remember when I was a kid a loaf of bread wrapped in biodegradable cellophane. We were ahead of our times and didn't know it!

[Celerity]

4. Is Cellophane Better Than Plastic? Mr. Green unwraps an unlikely answer

https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2017-6-november-december/ask-mr-green/cellophane-better-plastic

Q: Hey Mr. Green! I have seen cellophane used as food wrappers and containers for years. What to do with it? Can it be recycled? Is cellophane more ecofriendly than plastic wrap and plastic bags?

—Janice in Albuquerque, New Mexico

A: Cellophane is derived from natural sources such as wood, while plastic wrap is made from oil. Unlike plastic, cellophane can't be recycled, but it is biodegradable, so it can be composted or sent to a landfill in the regular garbage.

That doesn't mean it's ecofriendly. In addition to using wood as a raw material, cellophane production requires toxic carbon disulfide. Also, cellophane could end up releasing methane, a powerful global-warming gas, if lodged in a landfill that lacks a methane recovery system.

So it's not easy to pick a winner in this dreary packaging duel, especially when we toss out such a staggering amount of plastic bags and wraps instead of recycling them. (Most recyclers don't want this plastic mixed in with the rigid kind because it strangles their sorting machinery.) Only about 12 percent of all U.S. plastic bags and plastic-wrap packaging is recycled, which means that millions of tons are simply thrown away or incinerated. The consumption rate of plastic is hundreds of times that of cellophane, and the sheer volume of waste is overwhelming. The World Economic Forum has predicted that if we don't stop chucking so much, plastic will outweigh fish in the oceans by 2050.

snip

[SunSeeker]

5. "...plastic will outweigh fish in the oceans by 2050."

Now THAT is fucking depressing.

[Celerity]

6. Yes!