GOP: Asia must cut plastic waste
But curbing ocean litter could impact U.S. firms
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans are urging President Donald Trump to take steps to pressure China, Indonesia and other Asian countries to reduce the amount of plastic they are dumping into the ocean, as political pressure grows to reduce plastic waste and adds more uncertainty to the outlook for Texas petrochemical companies and oil and gas producers.
Legislation that seeks to reduce the growing volume of plastic waste floating in the world's oceans has widespread support in the Senate. A similar measure has already passed the House.
“Importantly, it encourages the Trump administration to pursue international agreements with regard to this challenge,” Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said at a hearing Wednesday. “Talking to the senior members of the administration they're already there.”
Roughly 8 million metric tons of plastic end up in the ocean each year, according to the environmental group Oceana.
That threatens marine animals and sea birds that can get caught up in plastic nets or six-pack containers or mistakenly eat pieces of plastic thinking it to be food.
It has become an increasingly sensitive political issue, with even the American Chemistry Council, the plastics industry's chief lobbying arm, calling it a “huge problem.”
Asia and particularly China are large and
growing markets for the Gulf Coast petrochemical industry, which has invested tens of billions of dollars in new and expanded plastics and chemicals plants aimed primarily at exports.
But as cities, states and countries around the world ban the use of single-use plastic items such as straws and shopping bags, U.S. plastics manufacturers, which are centered on the Gulf Coast, face an increasingly uncertain outlook.
The situation also poses risk for the oil and gas industry, which is increasingly looking to plastics as an area of growth, to make up for what some economists predict will be shrinking demand for gasoline in the decades ahead as countries move to reduce carbon emissions. Plastic manufacturing relies upon large supplies of oil and natural gas as feedstocks.
So far, Republicans are focused on improving recycling and waste collection efforts, particularly in Asia, rather than reducing consumption of plastics..
“Plastic is crucial in virtually every aspect of modern society,” said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
“That doesn't mean plastic should end up in our rivers in our lakes in our steams and oceans.”
China, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam are responsible for between 55 percent and 60 percent of plastic waste in the ocean, according to a 2017 study by the Ocean Conservancy. But, scientists say, no country is without fault when it comes to the increase in plastic waste.
Coastal areas in the United States generate more plastic waste than any country in the world, said Kara Lavender, an oceanographer at the Sea Education Association.
Most of that waste ends up in landfills and recycling center, but not all.
“Because of the sheer amount of plastic waste we create, even the small amount that is accidentally lost, or intentionally littered, adds up to a large amount available to enter the ocean,” Lavender testified Wednesday. “Not creating the waste in the first place is a higher level strategy.”