97 Alice Mah transcript

Interview Transcript

Provided by AI. Please add 3:43 mins for the finished episode

Catherine Weetman  00:03

Alice, welcome to the circular economy podcast.

Alice Mah 

Thank you. It’s great to be here.

Catherine Weetman

Yeah, and thanks for joining us today. And I really got a lot out of your book plastic Unlimited, which I came across from a sort of left field source when you were on a, a BBC Radio four programme, aimed more at sociology. So it was a surprise to hear you talk about plastics on that. And that really got me intrigued. So I got in touch. And here we are. And what I’d like to do today is go through some of the, the myths around the plastic and petrochemical industries, and see if we can bust a few of those because, as you explained in the book, an awful lot of communications about plastics are not quite what what they would seem to be. So could we start with the the sort of the central framework, if you like that, the way the plastic petrochemical sector is influencing how we think about plastics to start with, first of all, that plastics can support a netzero economy.

Alice Mah  01:16

Thank you. I mean, this has long been a theme within the plastics and petro chemical industry that that plastics are good for the climate because they’re lightweight, because they save energy. And they’re, you know, backing a lot of the new technologies, for example, they’re in solar panels, they’re in the wind turbine blades. And some of the major petrochemical companies such as INEOS, is behind creating green hydrogen to as the solution. So they very much have positioned plastics as as being the sort of like it or not material that will help us in the transition. The problem with that is, you know, many fold. I guess the main issue is that 99% of plastics are made out of fossil fuels. That doesn’t look like it’s going to change anytime soon. So plastics themselves are fossil fuels. They’re one of the biggest contributors to the climate crisis. The plastics and petrochemical industry together are the largest industrial consumer of fossil fuels. And they’re the third largest industrial emitter. And what’s even more astonishing, I think, is that plastics are predicted to basically be the saviour of fossil fuels through the energy transition, because they’re predicted to be the biggest driver of oil demand by the International Energy Agency. And that’s because of those promises around technological solutions. But also because of continuing growth projected in in our all around the world, but especially in the Global South, where plastic consumption shows no signs of abating.

Catherine Weetman  03:17

Yeah, and I guess so I guess that’s sort of two major strands, isn’t it? An increase in the amount of single use packaging, particularly targeted at the, at the Global South, where, as we know, most of those countries don’t have any infrastructure to collect and help recycle that. And then the second thing that they seem to be focusing on is the recycling of plastics using Surprise, surprise, petrochemicals, to do all that recycling. And in the book, you talk about how a lot of you know, there’s a lot of conversation and communication around that, you know, plastic recycling will save us. And yet those solutions don’t really exist. And where they do exist, they practically use just as many chemicals as we would have needed for Virgin plastics.

Alice Mah  04:13

Yeah, I mean, not that the biggest solution that’s been proposed by the petro chemical and plastics industry to the circular economy has been recycling. And one of the challenges as I’m sure you are well aware, is that plastics traditionally are recycled through what’s known as mechanical recycling, breaking them down and then remaking them into new products. But due to issues related to contamination of different layers of plastics, the sheer scales of of what would be required to actually fully recycle or try to recycle all of plastics. There are so mixed so contaminated, so You know, variable, that the industry says the only way they could feasibly do that, in technological terms is to break them down through what’s known as chemical recycling all the way down to their molecular level to reduce that contamination. And the problem is that that’s a pilot technology. But most of those technologies are required to be in order to be feasible, produce that enormous scales, that actually, while they might be good, theoretically speaking, for circular economy, like for saying, Oh, yes, this amount has been recycled, they are tremendously carbon intensive. So actually, it’s a trade off there, you know, when they shift to saying it’s more recyclable than they’re dropping the ball effectively in terms of climate?

Catherine Weetman  05:53

Yeah, yeah. So the second myth that I thought you bust really well in the book, is that plastics are safe. And I thought it was really interesting, when you described, you know, how, how the plastics industry guides us into that thinking.

Alice Mah  06:12

Yeah, and I think it’s important to point out that plastics have never been safe. I mean, obviously, there’s many different types of plastic, but in order to produce any type of plastic, involves toxic emissions and toxic pollutants across every stage of the plastics production lifecycle, and one of the problems is very much embedded into to the infrastructure and our societal dependence, if you like, on plastics, is that in the early development of plastics, the risks of such toxicity were either not known or completely ignored or and denied by the industry in the interests of creating markets creating profits. And it turns out that plastics are, yeah, dangerous when it from the point of producing, like, we’re finding the chemicals, the people who live close to those plants, through to the consumption of the plastics, like actually leaching out of some of some kinds of plastic materials, or end consumer goods and, and through to the waste. So the burning of waste, the recycling of waste. And it’s actually chemically impossible to separate out and say, Okay, well, here’s a safe type of plastic. And we’ll just focus on that, because there’s byproducts, which are noxious, and end up being needing to be dealt with and used. And so a lot of the logic of, of making different kinds of products from different streams has to do with what you not not wasting, or not letting escape those different chemical byproducts.

Catherine Weetman  07:57

Yeah, yeah, kind of really, really keeping things, keeping everything in the loop. You know, often when people talk about the circular economy, they’re thinking about the product and keeping the product in the system. But we can also think about making the circular economy happen for every stage of production as well. So there should be no emissions or pollution, or effluent coming out of a factory that should all be be be closed. And there was a project an EU project called, I think it was called chemical recycling, that advocated for chemical companies to lease their chemicals to the user, and then to take those back, clean them back up into the original format to be used again, and either deal with the impurities in a safe way or even create byproducts from that from what they’re taken out. So you know, that that there seem to be things happening, but obviously not not fast enough. And I think another another kind of surprise to me from reading the book was just how awful the production systems are for petrochemicals and how harmful they can be to the people living around the sites. I was quite shocked to find out that there’s there’s a place called cancer alley and so on.

Alice Mah  09:22

Yeah, I mean, around the world. I mean, unless you live next to a petrochemical facility, you might not know that and I think the same goes for many of the most dirty polluting industries. But yeah, they’re concentrated, usually in very large scale complex complexes. And if you look at the geography we produce, as part of our research project, a global petrochemical map of where many of these sites are concentrated, and those are clustered in particular regions. One, as you mentioned, is infamously known as cancer alley. In Louisiana, between New Orleans and Baton Rouge with a very heavy concentration, approximately 150 petrochemical facilities and several oil refineries. You can also find such clusters in, in Asia, in cities and in China, and in parts of Europe as well. And those industries, industrial clusters are very often located in close proximity to people from ethnic minority communities, working class communities, low income communities, who are, yeah, getting sick. And there’s Independent reports from communities all around the world, in every continent where there’s petrochemical production of, you know, accidents and explosions for one, but also high incidences of cancer, respiratory illnesses, reproductive illnesses, and these happen over long periods of time. And yeah, so this industry has very much been at the forefront is of the environmental justice movement. And showing that, yeah, calling it environmental racism, actually, that this is deliberate on the part of some industries and and even countries for effectively seeing some populations as more worthy of being protected versus others.

Catherine Weetman  11:41

Yeah, it’s, it’s horrific, isn’t it, when you start to think about the, the kind of strategies behind that, that it you know, it hasn’t, it doesn’t seem to just be happening as a, an unhappy accident. So that, that’s sort of doubly shocking. And I guess, there are a few areas of the use of plastic materials where some of the health issues are starting to come to the fore. Back in episode 20, he was talking to Maria Vesta, boss of the plastic soup Foundation, who’s also started the plastic plastic Health Coalition to try and bring scientists along to start studying the effects of this. And she’s campaigning quite successfully about microbeads and micro capsules. And we suddenly, you know, we, I was suddenly shocked to find out that these micro capsules are in, you know, laundry liquids and things like that, you know, that you kind of think of microbeads as being in face scrubs. So you thinking, well, if I don’t wear if I don’t buy those and use those, then it’s okay. And then you find out that, you know, that they’ve seeped into all sorts of products. So I guess it’s quite good news that people are starting to understand more about this and about, you know, synthetic sportswear and some of the chemicals that can be in that. But I guess, again, the industry then tries to, either, you know, obscure it, or find a way to make us think that, you know, we just have to take a little bit of the bad along with all the good things about plastic.

Alice Mah  13:25

Yeah, I mean, I think for the industry, from what I’ve observed, it’s all about markets. So if if there are, you know, I don’t know, for better one of a better word, middle class, green citizens and a particularly wealthy country who refuse to use particular kinds of plastic products, then that’s a pretty niche market there, that they’re losing, they’re going to concentrate the efforts on, you know, single use sachets in South Asia or, you know, plastic bottle markets and wherever they can find them in a way. So it’s almost Yeah, it’s, it’s, there are markets where wherever they look, and they’ll do the kind of cost benefit in terms of where they can access that. So unless there’s something that’s coordinated across all plastic markets, then it’s difficult to see how small interventions are going to make a big difference. But of course, it depends on what kind of perspective you have as to whether, you know, you see those gains in terms of, you know, banning particular products being a successful strategy.

Catherine Weetman  14:42

I guess we kind of need a class action don’t wait to with people worldwide, campaigning against about something or not campaigning, but you know, taking taking action on the health issues in certain products and that might encourage legislators to do Take more of a precautionary principle approach as well, instead of letting things get into the market, and then only 10 or 20 years later do we find out about the, you know, the evolving health issues. So, coming on to another myth then which kind of plays into some of that, that plastics are essential to our quality of life. You talk about some great examples in the book of how the plastics industry uses its communications to, to brush away any concerns about, you know, whether plastics are harmful or not.

Alice Mah  15:38

Yeah, and I think this is this is the key dilemma. Plastics, obviously, are in medical products as as was very much highlighted during the pandemic, during medical tubing in you know, all those single portions of vaccines. They’re in safety equipment. And yeah, just basic things like our houses, shatterproof glass, type materials, and computers, and yeah, everyday products. And yeah, they’re typically lower cost. And so yeah, the industry would, has a common narrative, which is just be realistic here, we’re not going to get rid of this. It’s important, it’s it’s valuable, what makes it valuable is that it can be made made into basically any kind of material quality. So it could be hard, soft, flexible, strong, lightweight, you name it. That’s what was always touted, I guess, as the miracle of plastics. I think that the challenge, then is to think, how did we get here? How did we become so embedded, so entangled? And how could you then start to on, unpack, run, or disentangle from the dependence on the most tough, toxic, wasteful and harmful aspects? And so by packaging all, plastics together as if they’re a single entity or commodity that has, you know, both the beneficial and the negative or harmful attributes, then it’s very difficult to know how to manoeuvre within that. But but if you then start to say, well, actually, do we really need, you know, single use sachet portions period? Or do we really need, you know, 500 billion plastic bottles being produced annually around the world? When, you know, they weren’t even in existence until the 70s. And yeah, thinking carefully about, even yeah, there’s there’s movements to replace the kinds of plastic that are available and medical applications, and healthcare because of because of the endocrine disrupting or hormone disrupting properties of some of those kinds of plastics. So I wouldn’t say oh, let’s just ban all plastics together altogether. You know, they because there are benefits. And that takes time. But But I think that challenging that idea about, there’s no alternative to plastics, and especially challenging the trajectory that that, which is, what I was most sort of, or is most disturbing is the exponential growth of plastics that’s happened thus far since since that, you know, around the end of the second world war until now. And if you look at the projections, up until the next 30 years, even it’s exponentially increasing, just as fossil fossil fuel emissions have been increasing in terms of global heating. And so just earlier this year, there was a major scientific report saying that the crossed a planetary boundary not only for climate, but for plastic pollution and chemical pollution and dangerous ecosystems, endangering health. And the costs of that are incalculable. So, yeah, challenging that narrative, but adding nuance to it and thinking, Well, what, what is the central mean, and what could we do to think about effect effectively scaling back and living differently?

Catherine Weetman  19:39

Yeah. And that’s, you know, it’s happened to me quite a few times on LinkedIn when I’ve called for, you know, a circular economy on some kind of plastic products. And then you see the plastic lobby, pile in and start talking about how fantastic plastics are and how, you know, if I had to do without X, Y and Zed, you know, how would I managed to live a life. And so that’s what they do is they kind of ignore what you’ve actually raised, and start to talk about some of the things that that most people would agree. You know, a helpful use of use of plastics. But yeah, like you give an example in the book of bicycle helmets, and so on. So it’s things like that, that they that they fall behind. So just coming back to the, to the packaging, and so on, and the the recycling. Another myth that I thought was really interesting from the book is this kind of trying to give the impression that exporting packaging and waste from the global north to countries in the Global South, you know, can help either governments or people themselves create value out of that waste. So they’re even able to sell the story of, you know, waste exports as a good thing from an economic point of view.

Alice Mah  21:01

Yeah, yeah. Actually, there is an interesting article that came out earlier this year, where the Ocean Conservancy trust, had to rescind their report or retract it called stemming the tide and published in 2015, which, in which they said, or perpetuated that industry myth that countries in the Global South primarily in Asia, are responsible for there, that waste and that incineration of that waste is actually a viable solution as a technological solution to dealing with the crisis. And I think that throughout the book, and yeah, as many activists before me, so it’s not an original claim, have pointed out, I these companies are, you know, blaming both consumers individually and countries in the Global South, for having high levels of plastic waste in their environments, blaming it on mismanagement or issues related to education without taking responsibility for or admitting that they’re actually have been dumping the products like selling single use sachets that are non recyclable, that they know are non recyclable to low income populations. And doing that, so very aggressively. And then, you know, promoting this the export or enter in, in some cases, the illegal dumping of post consumer recycled waste to these companies, something that activists for a long time have called waste colonialism. Which is this unjust international trade in Yeah. Not hazardous waste, which which some forms of plastic waste would be classified as which ends up getting burned or dumped or? Yeah. illegally, or mistreated? I guess. And yeah, there is this narrative in in many of the development projects that this plastic is has a high value and can be, you know, helpful and economically beneficial for populations, which I think it’s important to point out, it’s like the informal waste sector is, you know, it’s millions of people worldwide. And there, it’s very varied, and some people do rely on it for their livelihood. So I think you couldn’t make kind of blanket claims about what is happening in very different contexts. But, yeah, there have been certainly expos A’s about some of the false promises of economic well being. For example, there was a report earlier this year about Unilever reported in The Guardian, and also based on research from the Global Alliance for incinerator alternatives, where they showed that Unilever had been pushing these sachet portions, and then claiming that they were offering these wonderful jobs for waste collectors, having these great recycling programmes, but actually, these were failures. They’re unviable they halted, and less people even worse off are with sort of hopes and dreams that that this would actually help their lives and, and it didn’t. So it was quite scathing in terms of the gap between, you know, what was offered and what was the reality.

Catherine Weetman  24:53

Again, it comes back to a recurring theme from what we’ve talked about, doesn’t it the big gap between the narrative and the reality of what’s happening out there. ls come in coming back to recycling, which we talked about, you know, at the start. One of the things I noticed from from, again from from the book, which I just had so many insights, is this, this kind of badge for advanced recycling technologies and how the industry is kind of portraying that as, you know, a new a new way of doing things. And they even managed to get it classified as manufacturing in the United States, which means fewer regulations. So, is there anything that you’d want to highlight there in terms of things that people should look out for, for for, you know, developments around where they live and proposals from the industry to, you know, create some new solution?

Alice Mah  25:52

Yeah. And chemical recycling is, is advanced recycling is another word for chemical recycling. If you talk to environmental activists, and and many scientists, they would say that this is actually in many cases, just another word for incineration, which is toxic and causes harm to toxic emissions effectively to people who live nearby. I think actually, what’s quite interesting with regard to the recent legislation, 20 states in the US have have classified as you say, advanced recycling as manufacturing it in a way that’s showing movement away from what they did before, which was to say, actually, this is the solution to the circular economy, it’s really green, it’s it should be considered recycling. And, you know, it was many in the plastics and petrochemical industries were promoting advanced recycling as the solution to circular economy. So the European sanctioned Circular Economy action plan, and innovations related to that have chemical recycling as as one of the key elements of that. And now I would see this as actually more of a I did mission in a way that if it’s been classified as manufacturing, instead of as recycling, and waste management, then then they’re actually saying, classifying it more in the dirty industries side of things, so that as you say, they could have fewer environmental regulations surrounding that. So I think it shows that the industry doesn’t take a single approach, like sometimes it might take a proactive kind of approach to casting itself as, as part of the solution being sustainable, green, nice. Other times, they just sort of dig their heels in and say, you know, no, we’re manufacturing and we don’t want and we don’t want bans on single use plastics. And this is about jobs. And it’s about creating prosperity, and and there’s no toxic issues to deal with here. So, you know, just pointing deflecting from the across the different issues. And so yeah, I mean, I think it’s quite frightening, actually, that while yeah, this this toxic type of industrial activity, advanced recycling, or chemical recycling, most of the projects are actually being proposed in parts of the global south and are being resisted in those places, because of the low levels of toxicity. There’s a few small scale developments, using a kind of a slightly less contentious type of chemical recycling in Europe, but the fact that in the US, they’re pushing for a federal bill that increases these types of recycling plants all over the US, and they’re very likely to be located following environmental injustice patterns in the US, close to communities of colour and disadvantaged populations. Yeah, absolutely. I think communities should organise and and I mean, they already are, and pay attention very closely to these slippery, slippery words, and promises and confusing kinds of language. And I think what’s what’s very important to recognise as well, or to flag and call out is, is the extent to which that kind of technological framing of a lot of these sorts of issues like chemical recycling, what average person knows what that is, you know, I didn’t know until I did my research and read the reports. And even then there’s many different types of chemical recycling. It’s highly technical is understood by, you know, the scientists, the engineers, and many of those scientists and engineers are the first to say it’s, it’s toxic, highly toxic, and it’s bad for the climate. But you know, it has some potential with work. Prior to if you want to not create plastics from virgin materials, but rather create them from plastics themselves, and it has some capacity there, but then what are the costs? The costs of doing so?

Catherine Weetman  30:12

Yeah, exactly. And that, you know, it all comes back to Designing a circular economy that keeps the product in circulation instead of relying on recycling, which is, you know, what I covered in Episode 90, where he talks about some of the false solutions. And it really worries me that even so many policy makers that they’re just focusing on, you know, new generation materials, swapping technical materials to biological materials, but we don’t have the land to do that, or relying on on recycling, which, you know, it’s not, it’s not going to make any any difference. And it’s certainly not going to do much to get us towards net zero carbon. So for people listening, who want to be better informed and avoid some of these false solutions, would you give any advice in terms of what kinds of things to read? Or how to look at things differently?

Alice Mah  31:10

Yeah, I think I mean, yeah, you’d asked me previously, you know, or is there one go to report? Or is there you know, are there trusted sources, and I think, in some ways, reading against the grain of anything, any kind of information is is is advice is advisable, especially when it comes to kind of technical, technical claims. So you know, doing looking up different sources of information and seeing who, who published them. And I think, going back to what I said about the incalculable costs, it’s quite easy in a way to think, well, this is the way we’ve always done things, you know, it’s sort of the business as usual, like in my house, for example, when I moved in there lead pipes still leading into her water mains. And although neighbours didn’t seem to mind, and then oh, well, it’s been like that first 75 years. So why change them? And I think, yeah, if you think about the levels of toxicity, health problems, what the costs will be for present and future generations of carrying on with this exponential growth, you really need to think about the tremendous consequences of not addressing those issues. And so keeping a sense of the bigger picture, as as well as you know, what would be easy, maybe in the short term for just, you know, keeping people happy or continuing on with your business. So yeah, I don’t think it’s an easy thing, though. I think it’s about having difficult conversations, considering alternatives. And then not necessarily even just thinking, Oh, because it says it’s, yeah, a biodegradable plastic, or because it says, has some sort of stamp on it that says it’s sustainable, to, you know, question those, but at the same time, if you did that endlessly, then and then then you might not be able to eat any food or, or go or go anywhere. So it can be kind of incapacitating in some respects. But yeah, I don’t know, exactly what the solution is, is start with small steps, I guess and see what where you can make some changes.

Catherine Weetman  33:39

Yeah, yeah, I guess just kind of start somewhere with something that you care about, whether that’s textiles or packaging, or what you put on your body in terms of, you know, lotions, and cosmetics and stuff like that, start with the thing that, that interests you most and see what you can unpick about that which is yeah,

Alice Mah  34:02

you can control your remit as well. So if obviously, if you’re a policymaker, and you have control over a high level EU policy, then then you might think, you know, about pushing back against that industry lobbying. But if you’re, you know, working for a small business, then it might be about thinking about how you can change your supply chains to be more in line with sustainability without, you know, going bust. You know, it’s still it’s still being able to, you know, I think it’s about aligning effectively your values as far as you can with with our sustainable values and justice values, with with whatever it is they that you do.

Catherine Weetman  34:46

Yeah, and you know, the, the decision points are getting, you know, ever more complicated for for people to take on board. But as we all know, you know, the more each of us does then the more it creates a movement for change. So Alice, if you could wave a magic wand and change one thing to help create a better world? What would that be?

Alice Mah  35:13

This is a very challenging question. If one is a realist and a pragmatist as I tend to be, I have a sort of a counterintuitive out answer, which is may sound a little out there. But I would say something along the lines of collective healing of trauma or injury among individuals and societies, which I think in on some levels is what perpetuates injustice, violence and ignorance. I could unpack that further, if you want, but I think there’s elements of, of, you know, misalignment between values and action, that are stemming from, you know, the kind of collective blocks, I guess that people have to be able to lead lives that are more fulfilled, or not having to make decisions that don’t align with their values for reasons that are usually beyond their control.

Catherine Weetman  36:18

Yeah, that’s interesting. And I suspect, we could have a whole nother podcast to unpack that it’s bringing to mind something I heard about the other day, but I won’t, I won’t go down that cul de sac and start telling that story. So Alice, do you have a favourite Circular Economy example or anybody that you’d recommend as a future guests for the programme?

Alice Mah  36:43

I think the simpler the Zero Waste activism, which does align with the more I guess, deep aspects of circular economy, so are really interesting and would be worth talking to. So Juan Hernandez at the break free from class, Dick movement are many of the members really of that movement. I mentioned before the Global Alliance for incinerator alternatives, they also have some ideas around zero waste. So I think, perhaps, yeah, zero waste communities, like where it’s a more, I guess, you could say, radical or extreme version of the circular economy, that’s not just sort of the light touch. Recycling only, but it’s much more around refusal and, and reduction and reuse and, and living in, in communities in ways that are more. Yeah, sustainable, effectively.

Catherine Weetman  37:48

Yeah. And it, you know, to go back to something you said earlier, those plastic bottles, you know, only came into the, into the system in the 70s. So, it’s not so long ago that we managed without a lot of the things that create unnecessary waste now. And, you know, make maybe, I remember, somebody who was at a at a brewery, years and years ago, telling me that the best policy they’d put in place was a zero waste policy, because the word zero, forced everybody to really think differently, not just how can we do a bit less, make a bit less waste? But how do we absolutely transform, whatever this problem is, into something completely different. And that unlocked much more interesting solutions that, you know, solve the problem and created value in other ways. So it’s kind of a, you know, taken that different mindset can unlock different ways of thinking. So thank you. And lastly, Alice, how can people find out more and get in touch with you?

Alice Mah  39:00

I’m a bit old fashioned. So I’d probably just say my university website and and my email address on there. I have a link to my project. website. And I yeah, I’m on I’m among those who have left the, the Twitter world for now.

Catherine Weetman  39:20

Yeah, me, me too. I, I deleted my Twitter accounts. You know, whenever it was about, well, two weeks ago, as we’re, as we’re speaking, but early, early November, around that momentous event, I was kind of thinking, right? I’m out of here. Not that I’d used it for ages. But thank you, Alice. And thanks so much for sharing so much of your research work with us. I took, you know, an awful lot of insights away from your book, plastic unlimited, and I’m really grateful to you for taking the time to share some of that with us today. Thank you.

Alice Mah  39:54

Thanks very much, Catherine. It’s been great to be here and a pleasure to talk to you