Speaker 1: The International Solid Waste Association estimates consumption of single use
Speaker 1: plastic may have grown two hundred and fifty to three
Speaker 1: hundred percent in America since the pandemic begins.
Speaker 2: The resurgence of the thin, single use truly single use
Speaker 2: plastic bags is astonished.
Speaker 3: And is concerned New York's plastic bag ban is not
Speaker 3: being enforced.
Speaker 1: The lost full implementation was first delayed in February by
Speaker 1: a court challenge.
Speaker 4: And then COVID hit, so the thirty day delay became
Speaker 4: a sixty day delayed to the ninety day delays. The
Speaker 4: pandemic has led to a lot of confusion about whether
Speaker 4: it's safe to bring reusable bags into grocery stores. While
Speaker 4: some stores allow them, others.
Speaker 5: Don't, But single use plastic is also surging in other ways.
Speaker 5: Deliveries wrapped in plastic have soared. Coffee shops like Starbucks
Speaker 5: have temporarily stopped filling we Use A cups, and some
Speaker 5: US cities and states suspended or postponed fans on plastic
Speaker 5: shopping bags. The plastics industry has lobbied for these rollbacks,
Speaker 5: arguing that single use plastic is the safest material to
Speaker 5: protect people from COVID nineteen.
Speaker 4: It probably comes as no surprise to you that the
Speaker 4: pandemic spurred a massive uptick in plastic. If you were
Speaker 4: here in the US, you almost immediately saw it everywhere.
Speaker 4: Plastic bags back at the grocery store, plastic wrapping on everything,
Speaker 4: the masks, the gloves. But what you might not have
Speaker 4: known was just how intentional that was on the part
Speaker 4: of the industry, just how ready they were to deploy
Speaker 4: a strategy that would increase the use of plastic. If
Speaker 4: there's one thing I've learned from covering the fossil fuel
Speaker 4: industry and its various forms over the last twenty years,
Speaker 4: it's that they are prepared for absolutely everything. Shell actually
Speaker 4: invented something called scenario planning back in the late eighties
Speaker 4: and early nineties. Now all the oil companies do it,
Speaker 4: and lots of other industries too. It's basically what it
Speaker 4: sounds like, brainstorming all the possible future scenarios and making
Speaker 4: a plan for each of them. No industry is better
Speaker 4: at it than the fossil fuel industry, which is why
Speaker 4: they always seem to have a response ready for everything.
Speaker 4: When COVID nineteen first started to really take hold in
Speaker 4: the US back in March twenty twenty, I started scouring
Speaker 4: all my usual sources for evidence of the industry's response,
Speaker 4: and sure enough, the American Petroleum Institute and the American
Speaker 4: Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, the two main trade groups for
Speaker 4: the industry, were immediately with politicians asking for regulatory rollbacks
Speaker 4: and other types of support. The API tackled everything from
Speaker 4: pipeline permitting to emissions regulations, while the AFPM focused on
Speaker 4: all the rules that would affect the buildout of plastic
Speaker 4: manufacturing facilities. But they also set their sights on getting
Speaker 4: rid of something that's been bugging the industry for years,
Speaker 4: plastic bag bands. As you heard at the top of
Speaker 4: the episode, there was some concern early on that people
Speaker 4: might spread COVID by bringing their bags to the grocery store.
Speaker 4: We just didn't know how the virus was spread at
Speaker 4: the time, and the industry pounced on that confusion and
Speaker 4: the fear that accompanied it, and they pushed this idea
Speaker 4: that plastic bags were somehow safer than reusable bags, that
Speaker 4: somehow the virus wouldn't live on them. It was sort
Speaker 4: of a miracle for the industry when they were starting
Speaker 4: to worry that plastic demand would actually not ever be
Speaker 4: quite what they wanted it to be. Here comes a
Speaker 4: way to increase that demand exponentially.
Speaker 3: Well, I think what we're seeing is just how much
Speaker 3: the industry is relying on plastics to save it going forward.
Speaker 4: This is Carol Muffett, President and CEO of the Center
Speaker 4: for International Environmental Law. You heard from him earlier this
Speaker 4: season too.
Speaker 3: The industry has, on the one hand, been working on
Speaker 3: an array of regulatory rollbacks, on working to close down
Speaker 3: public opposition in public participation in decisions affecting a lot
Speaker 3: of its operations. But on the plastic side, it's gone
Speaker 3: still further and is actually seeking to exploit the current
Speaker 3: crisis to say that the world needs.
Speaker 6: To be using more, not less, plastic.
Speaker 3: And it's doing this at a time where, again, even
Speaker 3: before the crisis began, you had major producers of plastics
Speaker 3: residents acknowledging that the industry's two hundred billion dollar investment
Speaker 3: in infrastructure had been overly optimistic, that capacity was being overbuilt,
Speaker 3: that prices for plastic resins and demand for plastic goods
Speaker 3: were not growing at anywhere near what the industry had
Speaker 3: been assuming it would.
Speaker 4: Imman Westervelt, and this is drilled. We're continuing part one
Speaker 4: of season six to day plastic pipelines. If you missed
Speaker 4: the first two episodes, go back and start there. Our
Speaker 4: story today the industry's COVID strategy. Did it work? Did
Speaker 4: COVID save plastic? That's coming up after this quick break.
Speaker 4: We heard in episode one of this series that plastic
Speaker 4: was a way to make up for money that fracking
Speaker 4: was not making. But there's another side to the explosion
Speaker 4: of plastics over the past decade. It's the oil industry's
Speaker 4: escape hatch.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: Expiration spend is down seventy five percent from the peak,
Speaker 7: seventy five percent over seventy five percent, and I don't
Speaker 7: see it going up from that point. I see it
Speaker 7: going down.
Speaker 4: This is Bernard Looney, CEO of BP, talking about peak
Speaker 4: oil in twenty twenty.
Speaker 7: So I think life has changed over the last couple
Speaker 7: of years, but it is important to acknowledge reality, and
Speaker 7: that's what we've done.
Speaker 4: Peak oil is the term that's used to talk about
Speaker 4: this point where global oil demand will take a downward
Speaker 4: turn and never really bounce back. And oil companies have
Speaker 4: been seeing that point coming for a while in their
Speaker 4: projections and annual reports. They've been talking about a decrease
Speaker 4: in fossil fuel use in transportation and residential areas, but
Speaker 4: they've also been talking about this other area where revenues
Speaker 4: are going to increase, petrochemicals, especially plastic. And keep in mind,
Speaker 4: while we have solar and wind as replacements for fossil
Speaker 4: fuel energy in homes and cars, there aren't a ton
Speaker 4: of great replacements for petrochemicals. That's one part of the
Speaker 4: reason that the industry is banking on them. Here's Kingsmill Bond,
Speaker 4: an analyst with the nonprofit Carbon Tracker who's been researching
Speaker 4: the petrochemical industry over the last few years.
Speaker 8: Plastics was always like something that you did on the
Speaker 8: with your on on the side once once you use
Speaker 8: the primary use of oil in transportation other areas, so
Speaker 8: it's quite surprising that it's shot up the agenda. And
Speaker 8: pretty much, as you say, what's happened over the last
Speaker 8: few years is that all of the other growth drivers
Speaker 8: of oil have kind of fallen by the wayside. So
Speaker 8: cars used to be one of the four big growth vectors,
Speaker 8: and and and as cars gone more efficient and electric
Speaker 8: vehicles coming to the mix, people and now said, well,
Speaker 8: you know, even the IA is now saying, actually, we've
Speaker 8: probably reached peak demand for oil from cars, and then
Speaker 8: the same thing's starting to happen with trucks. And obviously
Speaker 8: in recent months, the COVID crisis has taken the steam
Speaker 8: out of the the third big pillar, which was airlines,
Speaker 8: and like petrochemicals, has become a kind of mantra for
Speaker 8: the oil industry that thank goodness for petro chemicals because
Speaker 8: you know, that's where all the growth lies. And it's
Speaker 8: quite interesting if you if you take the data now
Speaker 8: from VP and the i A, probably the two leading
Speaker 8: forecasters of the entire system, then from our calculations, about
Speaker 8: half the growth of oil demand in the next twenty
Speaker 8: years in the i A numbers is actually from plastics.
Speaker 4: So plastic is the savior for the fracking guys and
Speaker 4: the oil guys. That's a lot writing on plastic demand
Speaker 4: staying high and growing, which is why when COVID hit
Speaker 4: it looked like a golden opportunity. Here's Carol Muffett again.
Speaker 3: So what we're seeing in the face of COVID is
Speaker 3: the industry trying to exploit this crisis in two very
Speaker 3: distinct ways. First is to secure additional government investments and
Speaker 3: additional regulatory rollbacks to make these projects move forward. And
Speaker 3: the second is the push to exploit the idea of
Speaker 3: COVID to argue not only against bands on the single
Speaker 3: used to disposable plastics that many countries were moving forward with,
Speaker 3: but also to argue that the world should be wrapping
Speaker 3: ever more items in plastic packaging in the name of
Speaker 3: hygiene and and public safety. And there's a remarkable there's
Speaker 3: a remarkable instance of this where you have an industry
Speaker 3: representative actually fantasizing, and I'm using this word very advisedly,
Speaker 3: fantasizing that they'll be able to get the public to
Speaker 3: rep bananas and apples in plastic packaging in the name
Speaker 3: of hygiene and fighting the COVID pandemic. And I think
Speaker 3: that that is a testament to how overly optimistic the
Speaker 3: industry is about how.
Speaker 6: It's going to be able to exploit COVID nineteen to
Speaker 6: fill that gap in plastic demand.
Speaker 4: Trade groups like the FPM and the American Chemistry Council
Speaker 4: moved quickly to push out studies to state governors and
Speaker 4: to the media showing that reusable bags might be COVID
Speaker 4: spreaders governors in some conservative states main I'm looking at
Speaker 4: you actually moved quicker to ban reusable bags grocery stores
Speaker 4: and toss plastic bag bands. Then they did to implement
Speaker 4: social distancing and masking guidelines. All of those studies were
Speaker 4: industry funded, most of them were a decade or more old,
Speaker 4: and none of them showed anything at all about the coronavirus.
Speaker 4: One literally looked at a single reusable bag that someone
Speaker 4: had vomited next to solid science there but the lack
Speaker 4: of evidence did not stop the industry from succeeding in
Speaker 4: its goal, at least for a while, which had some
Speaker 4: environmental advocates worried the shift away from disposable bags was
Speaker 4: a hard one behavioral change.
Speaker 3: The industry's goal is clearly to reverse a behavioral shift
Speaker 3: that was starting to really take root and grow.
Speaker 4: But six months or so into the pandemic, the messaging
Speaker 4: around plastic bags stopped working so well. Stores started to
Speaker 4: allow reusable bags again, and it didn't take long for
Speaker 4: consumers to get back on board with it. The dream
Speaker 4: of wrapping every piece of fruit in plastic never materialized.
Speaker 3: The challenge to face and the reason they're likely to fail,
Speaker 3: is that the opposition is coming not only from consumers,
Speaker 3: but increasingly from the communities who are on the front
Speaker 3: lines of build out of plastics, who are working to
Speaker 3: stop these plants from being built, increasingly from investors who
Speaker 3: are increasingly skeptical about about the prospects of.
Speaker 6: Sinking money into this industry.
Speaker 3: Clearly, the industry's goal is to see this opportunity to
Speaker 3: trigger a short term increase in packaging that takes advantage
Speaker 3: of fear. The problem that they face is that fear
Speaker 3: is momentary.
Speaker 4: The pandemic isn't quite over yet. But what the early
Speaker 4: numbers are telling us is that the industry's COVID strategy
Speaker 4: did not work. They were able to drive a momentary
Speaker 4: spike in demand, but as Muffett predicted, it was in
Speaker 4: fact momentary, and according to carbon tracker analyst Kingsmill Bond,
Speaker 4: although the pandemic drove demand up in some areas, it
Speaker 4: actually drove it down in others, so much so that
Speaker 4: it canceled out the increase the plastic needed for new cars,
Speaker 4: for example, or planes, and that actually made for an
Speaker 4: overall decline in demand for plastic. Here's Bond explaining the
Speaker 4: impacts of that decline.
Speaker 8: What's the impact on plastic demand of increasing demand for
Speaker 8: medical plastic for ppeus and gloves and stuff. And then
Speaker 8: what's the impact of lower demand because of the economic shocks.
Speaker 8: So we're buying less cars and we come to the shops,
Speaker 8: so we're buying less less clothes, and because you use
Speaker 8: a thousand times or more plastic in a car to
Speaker 8: what you use in a mask, the actual impact is
Speaker 8: to have a four percent decline day estimate in plastics
Speaker 8: demand this year, and not to state the obviously a
Speaker 8: four percent decline in demand and a four percent increase
Speaker 8: in capacity to you know, things looking quite ugly.
Speaker 4: So the industry continued to build out more plastic manufacturing
Speaker 4: capability and it anticipated an increase in demand, but instead
Speaker 4: there's been a four percent decrease in demand at the
Speaker 4: same time that we've seen a four percent increase in
Speaker 4: capacity last and eight percent gap between supply and demand,
Speaker 4: which is a pretty big gap. The industry, of course,
Speaker 4: still thinks it's going to close that gap.
Speaker 9: Do you think that even before this pandemic that they
Speaker 9: are also just sort of convinced in their abilities to
Speaker 9: create demand where there is then that like they just
Speaker 9: figured that they would that they would find a way.
Speaker 3: I think that is certainly the case, and I think
Speaker 3: it is the case for the very simple reason that
Speaker 3: for decades that strategy has worked.
Speaker 6: That strategy has been effective for decades.
Speaker 3: This is an industry that has been very good at
Speaker 3: creating consumer demand, creating markets where they didn't exist, for
Speaker 3: products that people weren't looking for and didn't necessarily need.
Speaker 3: And so it's you know, it may come across as
Speaker 3: over confidence, but it's overconfidence been built on decades of
Speaker 3: an industry effectively exploiting its understandings of consumer behavior.
Speaker 4: For decades, the fossil fuel industry has successfully told one
Speaker 4: story that it simply supplies a demand that you are
Speaker 4: the one buying and using its products. So if you're
Speaker 4: worried about the impacts of those products, all you need
Speaker 4: to do is reduce your consumption. And don't get me wrong,
Speaker 4: it's absolutely necessary for individuals to reduce their carbon footprints,
Speaker 4: especially those of us in the global North, and especially
Speaker 4: the wealthiest individuals. But that action in the absence of
Speaker 4: regulating supply will never work because the industry doesn't just
Speaker 4: respond to demand. It works really hard to generate.
Speaker 3: It's pervasive and It's a corrosive myth, this this idea
Speaker 3: that oil and gas companies and plastics producers are just
Speaker 3: producing their products because.
Speaker 6: The demand is there.
Speaker 3: When you look behind that, what you find is, in truth,
Speaker 3: these companies have, you know, very detailed strategies to create
Speaker 3: the demand. And nowhere is that clearer than in the
Speaker 3: context of plastics. You know, there's no other commodity where
Speaker 3: that story of we've got we've got a product, we
Speaker 3: need a market for it is clear. And we're seeing
Speaker 3: that with the massive buildout of new infrastructure for plastics
Speaker 3: here in the US, not because we need it, there's
Speaker 3: a glut of plastics on the market, there's no excess demand,
Speaker 3: but because there's all of this cheap natural gas, and
Speaker 3: so the industry builds out this infrastructure and then looks
Speaker 3: to persuade young people to buy more plastics, or increasingly,
Speaker 3: to persuade the Global South to buy more plastics, all
Speaker 3: while blaming the Global South and Asia for the plastics crisis.
Speaker 3: I think one of the starkest ironies in our work
Speaker 3: on plastics has actually been seeing simultaneously Exon and the
Speaker 3: oil industry and the American Chemistry Council saying yes, plastics
Speaker 3: is a problem, but the problem is originating in China
Speaker 3: and Asia. And on the other hand, finding a speech
Speaker 3: from a vice president of Exxon Mobile delivered in China
Speaker 3: saying Asia needs more plastics and we Exon Mobile want
Speaker 3: I help you make them. And for anyone who has
Speaker 3: worked for as long as I have in the climate context,
Speaker 3: that story that blamed China, story that blame the individual,
Speaker 3: blame the consumer, story is very very familiar.
Speaker 4: Can people do? How are folks like Diane Wilson and
Speaker 4: Texas Sharon Levine in Louisiana managing to successfully fight back?
Speaker 4: And what can their fights tell us about the global
Speaker 4: push to tackle this problem? That story next time, next
Speaker 4: time on drilled.
Speaker 1: The twenty million that we put into this co op
Speaker 1: was a chance at reviving our to be auson.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's going to devastate it.
Speaker 4: I mean I think for a long time we're just
Speaker 4: going to be playing whackamall with facilities that have already
Speaker 4: been proposed. Wow, okay, so there's already twelve other industrial.
Speaker 9: Sites in Saint James Parish.
Speaker 2: Right, and more being proposed, like including SoC We's even
Speaker 2: a methanol another pet can facility just Downriver from Formosa.
Speaker 4: Drilled is an original production of the Critical Frequency podcast Network.
Speaker 4: The show is reported, written, and hosted by me Amy Westervelt.
Speaker 4: Our producer this season is Juliana Bradley. Our editor is
Speaker 4: Julia Ritchie. Our theme song this season is Death Song
Speaker 4: by be Beeman. Additional music for the season composed by
Speaker 4: Elliott Peltzman. Our artwork for the season is done by
Speaker 4: Matthew Fleming. Our First Amendment attorney is James Wheaton at
Speaker 4: the First Amendment Project. You can find additional reporting and
Speaker 4: photos for this season on our Twitter feed at We
Speaker 4: Are Drilled, or online at drillednews dot com. If you're
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