Bloomberg Editorial: Plastic Invades Ocean; technology can help

Some eight million metric tons of plastic waste enters the ocean every year, the equivalent of one garbage truck every minute. At current rates, the seas could have more plastic than fish by mid-century.

An international treaty to address this disaster is welcome, and states at the United Nations Environment Assembly agreed to craft one this week. But businesses and policymakers shouldn’t wait to start tackling the crisis head-on.

As things stand, the picture is bleak. Every minute, consumers buy a million plastic-based beverage bottles and use trillions of plastic bags each year, not to mention an immense amount of polyester and other synthetic textiles.

Less than a tenth of all that material is recycled. Companies and governments have promised to reduce and reuse more, but even if those targets were met, they would only reduce plastic flowing into the ocean by 7% by 2040.

Plastic is also affecting the climate. By poisoning essential wildlife, it inhibits the ocean’s ability to act as a natural carbon sink.

Plastic demand drives significant use of oil, natural gas and coal, with petrochemicals expected to account for a third of oil demand growth between now and 2030. That will significantly reduce the global carbon budget and threaten efforts to prevent temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees.

So what can be done?

First, it is important to recognize that this is a global problem that requires a global solution. The UN process is off to a promising start: Nearly 200 countries agreed yesterday to work towards a treaty that would eventually ban plastic pollution. The United States must show leadership in this process by setting ambitious goals, encouraging other member states to comply, and offering generous support to developing countries that lack adequate waste management systems.

A reasonable goal for the process would be to set global production limits for non-recyclable plastic and phase out the pernicious single-use kind over the next few years. This is no small challenge, given how widely this material is used and how critical it is in emerging markets, where it helps provide clean water and protection from contaminants.

The key will be to combine such restrictions with fiscal measures (either incentives or penalties) to ensure that existing plastic stays in use for longer, while simultaneously supporting research into alternative materials and recycling systems. Governments should aim to make inventive replacements for plastic, made from shrimp shells, corn, algae and other materials, more cost-competitive.

They should also fund more research on the dozens of mitigation technologies now being studied, from “interceptors” solar-powered plants that collect pollution from rivers before it reaches the ocean, to specially designed enzymes that rapidly break down plastics into their constituent chemical compounds.

In the meantime, it is fair to expect a greater degree of responsibility from manufacturers, who are well aware of the damage their products can cause. For starters, they should be required to phase out toxic additives and increase the levels of recycled content they use.

They should be encouraged to simplify complex multi-layer packaging, which hampers recycling efforts even in developed markets like the United States. They must also work with world governments to channel financial and technical support to poorer nations to improve waste collection and landfill management.

The good news is that consumer-facing companies are already moving in the right direction, bringing more transparency into plastic consumption. Investors, alert to the risks posed by polluting products, should demand uniform disclosures on plastic content, just as they have done for carbon.

Transparency, especially when it comes to ordinary buyers, can often encourage quick turnaround. Companies like Bacardi Ltd., which is experimenting with a new type of plastic bottle that can break down in a matter of months, given the right conditions, deserve credit for their innovative ways to solve the problem.

The emergence of plastic has been building up for years. Unfortunately, time is a luxury that the world does not have to try to solve the problem. The sooner these efforts begin, the better.