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As the world strives to wean itself off fossil fuels, oil companies have been turning to plastic as the key to their future. Now even that's looking overly optimistic.
The global crackdown on plastic trash threatens to take a big chunk out of demand growth just as oil companies like Saudi Aramco sink billions into plastic and chemicals assets. Royal Dutch Shell Plc, BP Plc, Total SA and Exxon Mobil Corp. are all ramping up investments in the sector.
Renewed emphasis on recycling and the spread of local bans on some kinds of plastic products could cut petrochemical demand growth to one-third of its historical pace, to about 1.5% a year, said Paul Bjacek, a principal director at consulting firm Accenture Plc.
Maybe they can convince consumers to accept clamshell packaging for everything.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Thursday June 06 2019, @10:24AM (2 children)
So how does the leatherback get into landfills hundreds of miles away from any ocean? Just curious how that's supposed to work.
Meanwhile I bet we see far more plastic in the oceans from failed recycling efforts (such as the US and Europe shipping via water their waste plastic to the developing world in order to check that box).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 07 2019, @06:12AM (1 child)
Believe it or not, landfills sometimes slide into the sea. There's a particularly picturesque area in Bolivia where there's a big splash of colour on the shore of Lake Titicaca, and if you get close, it turns out it's a 100 year old midden that then got the last 50 years of trash piled on, and the latter trash is jam packed with colourful plastic, and the whole shebang slid down to the water's edge.
Then there's leeching, were eg. downstream water tables from older landfills will be unsafe for well water due to lead and mercury (and other stuff), and generally those flow out to the ocean over time (more for the hydrocarbons which float, but whatever).
Then there's birds. Did you know that seagulls love to pick up trash and move it? There was a hilarious article about some bald eagles doing the same in the NW USA.
I could go on.
> Meanwhile I bet we see far more plastic in the oceans from failed recycling efforts
Meanwhile I see you provide no evidence whatever for this idea. Cool idea! But you're bullshitting and looking stupid.
Your inability to imagine things (eaily imagined things!) doesn't make those things impossible, or untrue.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 07 2019, @02:27PM
And what evidence really needs to be presented to support the claim that the developed world ships a massive amounts of waste plastic elsewhere via boat? Well, there's the recent story [soylentnews.org] about US recycling so deeply impacted by China ending the receiving of US plastic waste (all shipped by boat BTW) that a bunch of urban recycling programs outright ended. That indicates both problems I claimed, that lots of plastics for recycling were being shipped by boat, which is a significant source of ocean-based plastic and then gets dumped in China or elsewhere in the developing world, which is another significant source of ocean-based plastic.