Plastic is choking the life out of our planet.

Plastics have become a hot topic. News stories about plastic on beaches and in the oceans abound, and policymakers have begun to respond with bans or limitations on plastic bags and single-use plastic items. But the plastics industry is fighting back, arguing that plastics are indispensable, and that the real problem is littering consumers and poor waste-management systems. According to the industry's talking points, bedridden hospital patients and the elderly depend on bendy straws, and phasing out shrink-wrap on vegetables will lead to a foodspoilage disaster. No one doubts that waste management in much of the developing world - and even in many richer countries - needs to be improved. Governments urgently need to invest in better waste-collection and processing systems. But the rich world also must stop exporting its worthless plastic waste to poor countries for so-called 'recycling'. All too often, the trash that Europeans and Americans sort and separate into different bins ends up in containers bound for Southeast Asia, to be picked up by underpaid workers in hazardous conditions.

Ultimately, much of it ends up in dumpsites or waterways anyway. More to the point, the flood of plastic into our natural systems is linked directly to the other forces that are destroying our environment, decimating biodiversity, fuelling climate change, and depleting natural resources. That is the main finding of the Plastic Atlas, recently published by the Heinrich Boll Foundation and the Break Free From Plastic Movement. As the Atlas - a compendium of facts, figures, and background information on the synthetic polymers that have become an integral part of our lives over the last 70 years - makes clear, the plastics industry has been selling us a false narrative. The plastics crisis is much more than a waste-management problem. The real story starts as soon as oil and gas are extracted from the ground, and continues long after plastic waste enters the ocean and other ecosystems. Not only is plastic production a...

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