As the plastic industry is putting forward
an image of itself as environmentally friendly and our suppliers and their distributors are
using this to feel that these products are solutions not problems, we will look
at how plastic is created. Plastic can
be transparent, have a nice feel and be hygienic but looks can be
deceiving. While it might seem with all
the environmental concerns that plastic may be a thing of the past, in the US,
for instance, there is $164 billion being invested in new plastic production
facilities[1]Much of the plastic is sourced from fracked shale gas. As this increase in supply needs to be sold,
the US now ships gas to Europe where, for instance in Scotland, there has been
a huge increase in plastic production. However, all this fracking is causing
environmental and social problems. In, her article, Drilling and Consent, [2] Ellie
Bastian notes how in the US, 650,000 school children live within a mile of a
fracked well, while the industry itself and a republican majority senate
committee in Colorado voted to defeat a motion to widen the required
distance. She writes how problems from
fracking wastewater and evaporation pits kill half a million birds a year while
also contaminating the land and nearby streams.
This wastewater is also a chemical soup containing heavy metals and
radioactive material amongst other chemicals.
 |
| (Fig 2) Oklahoma Earthquakes 2018 - Sept 2019 |
 |
| (Fig 3) Oklahoma Earthquakes 1980s |
In his article “Oklahoma earthquakes and
the price of oil” [3] Travis Roach writes that earthquake activity in Oklahoma
is 300 times the historical average and is mainly the result of fracking
wastewater injection. The Federal
Reserve Bank of Cleveland [4] did a report on the effect of earthquakes on
house prices in Oklahoma and found that there were increased insurance costs
due to homeowners having to cover for earthquakes which were not needed before and
that in the worst affected areas there were house price falls of between 3.4%
and 9.8%. In an article on Psychosocial
Impact of Fracking [5], Hirch et al note that fracking usually happens in
poorer areas, thus worsening the quality of life for those who have a lower
quality of life index anyway. They describe
the effects of ‘negative externality”, meaning that those living in fracking
areas are paying an additional cost for the activities of others, costs which
impact their social life, the community, tourism, conservation and
agriculture. They cite a couple of
studies which showed a “collective trauma” and “widespread social stress” as a
result of fracking.
Meanwhile, the oil industry news site,
oilprice.com, reports that the benefits outweigh the negatives: that gas is
clean, with little groundwater contamination and environmental consequences and
concludes that shale gas is needed for energy security, economic prosperity and
a cleaner environment. The author
wonders why people are not demanding that cars be banned considering the
slaughter on the roads instead of protesting about fracking.
The industry is now promoting itself as
clean and environmentally caring.
Plastic is recyclable and now there is an increasing amount of biodegradable
plastic coming onto the market. This is
quite a controversial issue as there is still a lot of debate about whether the
products are actually biodegradable. The Oxo-Biodegradable Plastics Association
[6] acknowledges the existing problems with plastic, such as the 150,000 tons
dumped in European seas each year which decompose into microplastics, but claim
that the solution is to redesign plastic itself. This is normal LDPE, which has chemical
additives that allow it to be broken down by micro-organisms combined with
oxygen. They will not breakdown, for
instance, while buried in a landfill as they need oxygen and the right type of
micro-organism or fungus to decompose.
While the plastic industry extolls the virtues of oxy-biodegradable
plastic, Recycling Magazine [7] reports that Spain, France and Italy have already
banned oxo-degradable plastics. There is
a lot of lobbying going on from the industry who have heavily criticised the EU
over the proposed ban as part of the EU single use directive and lobbying by
the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. We do
have a publisher who sends us journals with a message on the address slip
informing us that the plastic used is biodegradable. Technically it is, but we
are unable to place it in a suitable situation where this will occur.
We did suggest to some of our suppliers
that a paper envelope might be a better alternative to plastic, and there was a
commitment from one publisher on that, but at quite an additional cost. Then there is the environmental cost of
paper. Is it as clean as it looks? It appears not. In his
article The Environmental Sustainability of Paper [8], Smith outlines some of
the problems such as the heavy use of chemicals including “chlorine, mercury,
absorbable organic halogens, nitrates, ammonia, phosphorus, and caustic soda”,
the pesticides used on forests, the wastewater issue, that it takes 17 watts to
produce 1 piece of paper. The American Chemical Association in a paper titled
Plastics: An Energy-Efficient Choice [9] claimed that in 1990 alone the use of
plastics versus alternatives resulted in enough energy savings to provide power
for 100,000 homes for 35 years. However,
paper is actually bio-degradable, and is made from renewable resources
something the petro-chemical industry cannot say.
So, a journey that started off as a
suggestion to use a more sustainable option for the supply of journals turned
into an investigation into fracking, earthquakes, oxy-biodegradable plastics,
the paper industry and the logistics of journal distribution. Though the distributors claim to be
eco-friendly, they are foregoing other, more environmentally friendly,
materials because plastic is cheaper, we have seen that there is are hidden
costs. There is the cost of pollution caused
by fracking, the reduced value of a family home in Oklahoma, the social cost
paid by low income families, the collective traumas affecting communities,
earthquakes, environmental problems.
Paper too has problems but seems to be the lesser of two evils. Could
going completely digital be the solution. However there are the associated
problems of server farms gobbling up electricity…….
It would ease the problem if our refuse
collection service accepted LDPE plastic for recycling but at the moment it is
not recycled. The Irish Independent [10]
reported that the government wanted to ban non-recyclable plastic by 2030. Government targets for 2030 include “ensuring
that all plastic packaging is reusable or recyclable.” Can we presume that this means that there
will be recycling facilities for LDPE?
Should we be moving away from the petro-chemical industry and forgetting
about plastic products regardless of whether it is recyclable or not? Why should we need to wait until 2030?
While a small library on its own might not
be able to have much leverage to achieve this type of change, as we have seen
in the case of TUDublin City Campus Aungier Street, perhaps on a higher level,
on a consortium level of some sort, it might be possible to pressurize
suppliers now. An additional factor
might be to use the greater economies of scale to bring down the additional
cost of non-plastic wrapping.
 |
| (Fig 4) TU Dublin Compostable packaging screenshot |
We
can see that TUDublin used compostable wrap, with recycling instructions, for
their student welcome pack. It can be
done and, after all, the suppliers and distributors of journals will have to
change anyway. So why not start now?
References:
- Centre for Environmental Law: How
Fracked Gas, Cheap Oil, And Unburnable Coal are Driving the Plastics Boom.
- Minnesota Law Review (2017) Drilling
and Community Consent: How Oil andGas Boards Can Address the Public Health
ThreatsPosed by Fracking / Ellie Bastian
- Energy Policy(2018) Oklahoma
earthquakes and the price of oil/ Travis Roac
- Ron Cheung, Daniel Wetherell, and
Stephan Whitaker (2016) Earthquakes and
House Prices:Evidence from Oklahoma
[Federal Reserve Bank of Cleaveland Working Paper 16-31]
- International Journal of Mental Health
Addiction (2018) Psychosocial Impact of Fracking: a Review of the Literature on
the Mental Health Consequences of Hydraulic Fracturing / Jameson K. Hirsch
& K. Bryant Smalley & Emily M. Selby-Nelson3 & Jane M.
Hamel-Lambert & Michael R. Rosmann5
& Tammy A. Barnes6 & Daniel Abrahamson6 & Scott S. Meit & Iva
GreyWolf &Sarah Beckmann9 & Teresa LaFromboise
- Oxo-Biodegradable Plastics Association
(2019) Comments on the Ellen MacArthur Foundation
- Recycling Magazine (2019:2) ECHA
withdraws its intention to restrict Oxo-degradable plastic under REACH
- Graduate Studies Journal of
Organizational Dynamics (2011): The Environmental Sustainability of Paper /
Richard Smith
- The American Chemical Association: Plastics:
An Energy-Efficient Choice [https://plastics.americanchemistry.com/Plastics-An-Energy-Efficient-Choice/]
- Irish Independent 16/09/2019 Plastic straws, cups and cutlery to be
banned by minister /Caroline O'Doherty.
Images:
Fig 1: Eadaoin Ryan, TUDublin, Aungier Street Library.
Fig 2 and 3 : Govt. of Oklahoma, United
States.
Fig 4.
Still from video curtesy of Brian Gormley, TUDublin.
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