Who's to blame for our trash problem?
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Messages surrounding trash and waste management often focus on what consumers are doing wrong, or what individuals can do to help minimize the amount of waste that ends up in landfills or pollution hotspots.
It’s true that every little bit adds up, both in our negative actions, such as tossing a plastic water bottle, and our positive ones, such as composting. They all have an impact on the overall level of waste.
But to truly reduce our trash and solve the problem of waste, systemic change is required, and that involves examining the contributors at the root of the issue.
The problem with plastics
Much of our trash issue revolves around single-use plastics, which are easy to use, cheap to make, and are a durable material that will hold up to whatever task you need, be it a chip bag or a water bottle. Our reliance on them is understandable—single-use is advertised as easy clean-up. Pack a yogurt for lunch and simply toss the container when you’re finished. The silver lining is that most of these single-use containers are recyclable. (Remember to rinse them out and make sure they get placed in a recycling container and check recycling guidelines in your area before recycling single-use plastics).
But the truth is, sometimes throwing something in the trash is the only option for people—or not even an option. The United Nations Environmental Programme estimates around two billion people have no form of waste collection, and three billion people have no disposal facilities, leaving waste to be dumped in uncontrolled sites or burned.
Our lives are shaped around convenience, leading most of our products to be designed for easy disposal. Unfortunately, these convenient, disposable items become litter more often than not. A new study in Science Advances found that the U.S. generated 46 million tons of plastic waste in 2016 but less than 10% is recycled.
According to National Geographic, the U.S. makes up only 4% of the global population but generates 17% of plastic waste globally. There’s an obvious imbalance in those numbers, but where does the blame lie and what can we do?
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The blame game
Fingers point every which way when it comes to our plastic pollution problem as individuals and companies try to dodge responsibility. Corporations pay for advertisements telling consumers that the individual is responsible for the level of plastic pollution around the world. Consumers look to companies who produce the plastic for solutions.
Even countries play the blame game: China is blamed for the plastic waste, and then the blame shifts to the U.S. It’s the responsibility of developing countries, and then the blame shifts to focus on the wealthier countries.
In a way, everyone is correct. Let’s look closer at who has the most impact on waste production:
Consumers. Individual consumers do have a responsibility to cut down on single-use plastic consumption and lower the levels of trash that they produce. Up to 3% of plastic waste in the U.S. was littered in 2016, adding up to about 1.25 million metric tons.
Corporations. Companies are also responsible for huge amounts of waste, especially through single-use plastics. Break Free From Plastic determined the top ten corporations that can account for most of the plastic pollution. The top three corporations—Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Nestlé—are responsible for 14% of (branded) plastic pollution globally.
Countries. When examining plastic waste in various countries, China is the world’s biggest manufacturer of plastic, but the United States generates more plastic waste. But the story isn’t so simple—The U.S. only recently reduced the 50% of recyclable plastic it ships overseas. Why ship plastic waste? To provide plastic scrap for China and developing countries that lack waste management and recycling infrastructure.
Everyone has an impact, and therefore change is required on every level. But researchers have found that corporations are responsible for the highest numbers of plastic waste.
The same big brand names have been named top plastic polluters worldwide, for the third year in a row. In the U.S., up to 2.24 million metric tons of trash were added to the environment in 2016, and more than half of that was near coastlines and therefore close to the ocean. One truckload of trash ends up in the ocean every minute.
Even if everyone makes sustainable choices in their personal life, corporations will still be polluting our planet. It’s time to demand that companies stop producing single-use plastics. If changes are made to packaging, resources are reused or designed for recycling, a local economy is built for recycling, and corporations are held accountable, we can get rid of our trash problem.
Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash
What can we do?
While our trash problem requires large-scale systemic change, it does require your help. Here’s where you can start:
Support organizations that advocate for waste management solutions, like Greenpeace and Break Free From Plastic.
Hold companies accountable. Greenpeace and Break Free From Plastic have a hashtag #IsThisYours to use while tagging the brand or company whenever you find a piece of their plastic where it does not belong.
Push for policy change or take action to turn your school or community plastic-free. Break Free From Plastic has suggestions on their Take Action page.
Look into your favorite brands and see what they are doing to combat plastic pollution. If they need to be doing more, reach out and let them know.
In order to bring about change, we need to make sure we are holding corporations accountable for their role in plastic pollution and advocating for a cleaner environment.
+7 References
“Global Waste Management Outlook.” United Nations Environmental Programme, https://www.unep.org/resources/report/global-waste-management-outlook
Law, K., Starr, N., Siegler, T., Jambeck, J., Mallos, N., & Leonard, G. (2020, October 30). The United States’ contribution of plastic waste to land and ocean. Science Advances, https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/6/44/eabd0288.full.pdf
“U.S. generates more plastic trash than any other nation, report finds.” National Geographic, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/us-plastic-pollution
“The Brand Audit Report.” Break Free From Plastic Movement, https://www.breakfreefromplastic.org/globalbrandauditreport2018/
“These 10 companies are flooding the planet with throwaway plastic.” Greenpeace, https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/18876/these-10-companies-are-flooding-the-planet-with-throwaway-plastic/
“These are the companies that produce the most plastic.” ZME Science, https://www.zmescience.com/science/these-are-the-companies-that-produce-the-most-plastic/
“The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the future of plastics.” World Economic Forum, http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_New_Plastics_Economy.pdf
“Littering Is a Big Problem, but Who's Really to Blame?” Treehugger.com, https://www.treehugger.com/littering-big-problem-whos-really-blame-4854782
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