Donate Bitcoin

Donate Paypal


PeakOil is You

PeakOil is You

Big Oil Is in Trouble. Its Plan: Flood Africa With Plastic.

Discussions about the economic and financial ramifications of PEAK OIL

Big Oil Is in Trouble. Its Plan: Flood Africa With Plastic.

Unread postby BrianC » Wed 02 Sep 2020, 16:43:02

Big Oil Is in Trouble. Its Plan: Flood Africa With Plastic. (nytimes.com) 145
Posted by msmash on Monday August 31, 2020 @07:21PM from the closer-look dept.
Confronting a climate crisis that threatens the fossil fuel industry, oil companies are racing to make more plastic. But they face two problems: Many markets are already awash with plastic, and few countries are willing to be dumping grounds for the world's plastic waste. The industry thinks it has found a solution to both problems in Africa. From a report:
According to documents reviewed by The New York Times, an industry group representing the world's largest chemical makers and fossil fuel companies is lobbying to influence United States trade negotiations with Kenya, one of Africa's biggest economies, to reverse its strict limits on plastics -- including a tough plastic-bag ban. It is also pressing for Kenya to continue importing foreign plastic garbage, a practice it has pledged to limit. Plastics makers are looking well beyond Kenya's borders. "We anticipate that Kenya could serve in the future as a hub for supplying U.S.-made chemicals and plastics to other markets in Africa through this trade agreement," Ed Brzytwa, the director of international trade for the American Chemistry Council, wrote in an April 28 letter to the Office of the United States Trade Representative. The United States and Kenya are in the midst of trade negotiations and the Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta, has made clear he is eager to strike a deal. But the behind-the-scenes lobbying by the petroleum companies has spread concern among environmental groups in Kenya and beyond that have been working to reduce both plastic use and waste. Kenya, like many countries, has wrestled with the proliferation of plastic. It passed a stringent law against plastic bags in 2017, and last year was one of many nations around the world that signed on to a global agreement to stop importing plastic waste -- a pact strongly opposed by the chemical industry.

https://news.slashdot.org/story/20/08/3 ... th-plastic
BrianC
Peat
Peat
 
Posts: 90
Joined: Tue 03 Mar 2020, 13:49:10

Re: Big Oil Is in Trouble. Its Plan: Flood Africa With Plast

Unread postby Plantagenet » Wed 02 Sep 2020, 17:46:07

Plastic is bad in so many ways.

There is a real opportunity here for African countries to make a difference in the global war on plastic.

Banning plastic imports and banning the use of plastic bags is a good start---but just a start.

Next, African countries should take steps to REPLACE plastic bags with something biodegradable and organic.

Imagine shopping bags made out of palm leaves, or wooden shopping carts made by hand from local trees.

Or perhaps people could just go back to carrying things on their heads, like they did before there were plastic bags.

Sometimes the change we need is to go back to the old sustainable way of doing things.

Image
Plastic bags? We don't need any stinking plastic bags in Africa. In Africa women use their heads to carry things.....

Cheers!
Never underestimate the ability of Joe Biden to f#@% things up---Barack Obama
-----------------------------------------------------------
Keep running between the raindrops.
User avatar
Plantagenet
Expert
Expert
 
Posts: 26616
Joined: Mon 09 Apr 2007, 03:00:00
Location: Alaska (its much bigger than Texas).

Re: Big Oil Is in Trouble. Its Plan: Flood Africa With Plast

Unread postby REAL Green » Fri 18 Sep 2020, 04:11:52

“Invention captures harmful car tyre dust, wins UK award”
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-envir ... KKBN2673O6

“Tiny particles of rubber from tyres are responsible for nearly half of road transport particulate emissions, according to the UK government, and they are the second largest source of microplastic pollutant in oceans after single-use plastic. “Everyone focuses on air pollution being directly from the engines themselves and coming out of the exhaust pipe,” Hugo Richardson, one of four members of The Tyre Collective, told Reuters in London. “But what people don’t necessarily recognise is that tyre wear is a huge contributor to that, and that’s partly down to its microscopic size and the fact that you don’t obviously see it all the time.” The award-winning solution was to capture tyre particles at source by fitting a device that wraps closely around the edge of the tyre and using electrostatics and the aerodynamics of a spinning wheel to collect particles as they are emitted…“These (tyre) particles are actually small enough to be inhaled,” said Siobhan Anderson, a member of the Innovation Design Engineering programme offered jointly by Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art. “So they can cause different lung diseases and developmental issues and they also enter our water and eventually make their way through our food chain and come back to us.” Each time a vehicle brakes, accelerates or turns a corner, the tyres wear and tiny particles become airborne, producing half a million tonnes of tyre particles annually in Europe alone”
realgreenadaptation.blog
User avatar
REAL Green
Heavy Crude
Heavy Crude
 
Posts: 1080
Joined: Thu 09 Apr 2020, 05:29:28
Location: MO Ozarks

Re: Big Oil Is in Trouble. Its Plan: Flood Africa With Plast

Unread postby jedrider » Fri 18 Sep 2020, 12:17:19

Plastic water bottles.

I miss the days when it was just coke bottles that we worried about.

The Gods must be Crazy

It's on YouTube to watch, for free!
User avatar
jedrider
Intermediate Crude
Intermediate Crude
 
Posts: 3106
Joined: Thu 28 May 2009, 10:10:44

Re: Big Oil Is in Trouble. Its Plan: Flood Africa With Plast

Unread postby REAL Green » Fri 25 Sep 2020, 06:49:15

“Plastic pollution: Washed clothing's synthetic mountain of 'fluff'”
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54182646

“When you add it up, the total amount of synthetic microfibres going into the wider environment as we wash our clothes is an astonishing number. US scientists estimate it to be 5.6 million tonnes since we first started wearing those polyester and nylon garments in a big way in the 1950s. Just over half this mass - 2.9 million tonnes - has likely ended up in our rivers and seas. That's the equivalent of seven billion fleece jackets, the researchers say. But while we fret about water pollution, and rightly so, increasingly this synthetic "fluff" issue is one that affects the land…The reason? Wastewater treatment works have become very good at catching the fibres lost from washing machines. What's happening is those captured fibres, along with biosolid sludge, are then being applied to cropland or simply buried in landfills.”
realgreenadaptation.blog
User avatar
REAL Green
Heavy Crude
Heavy Crude
 
Posts: 1080
Joined: Thu 09 Apr 2020, 05:29:28
Location: MO Ozarks

Re: Big Oil Is in Trouble. Its Plan: Flood Africa With Plast

Unread postby evilgenius » Wed 28 Oct 2020, 19:38:44

REAL Green wrote:“Plastic pollution: Washed clothing's synthetic mountain of 'fluff'”
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54182646

“When you add it up, the total amount of synthetic microfibres going into the wider environment as we wash our clothes is an astonishing number. US scientists estimate it to be 5.6 million tonnes since we first started wearing those polyester and nylon garments in a big way in the 1950s. Just over half this mass - 2.9 million tonnes - has likely ended up in our rivers and seas. That's the equivalent of seven billion fleece jackets, the researchers say. But while we fret about water pollution, and rightly so, increasingly this synthetic "fluff" issue is one that affects the land…The reason? Wastewater treatment works have become very good at catching the fibres lost from washing machines. What's happening is those captured fibres, along with biosolid sludge, are then being applied to cropland or simply buried in landfills.”

What else are you going to do with it? I think it's common practice to dump sludge at landfills. Well, some landfills. I don't think it's allowed everywhere.

I mention it because it kind of forms a boundary to your argument. The arguments over why and why not have probably already been argued. I don't know what they are, I just saw where common practice forms a boundary because common practice will always be subject to the law. It can get skirted, but not forever.
User avatar
evilgenius
Intermediate Crude
Intermediate Crude
 
Posts: 3729
Joined: Tue 06 Dec 2005, 04:00:00
Location: Stopped at the Border.


Return to Economics & Finance

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 46 guests