Source: Boom Goes the Plastics Industry | Sierra Club
Boom Goes the Plastics Industry
With demand for oil expected to slow, oil companies seek a lifeline in plastics
A MARCH EXPLOSION AT A HOUSTON-AREA PETROCHEMICAL PLANT RELEASED TENS OF MILLIONS OF POUNDS OF POLLUTANTS. | PHOTO BY ELIZABETH CONLEY/HOUSTON CHRONICLE/APBY ANTONIA JUHASZ | JUN 30 2019
Early in the morning on Sunday, March 17, Terri Garcia picked up the phone to a frantic barrage of questions from her mother: “Where are my grandbabies? Where’s your brother? What are your nephews doing?” Garcia had no idea what had upset her mother until she looked out her back window and saw a column of black smoke rising from one of the numerous fossil fuel facilities near her home in Deer Park, 15 miles southeast of Houston.TAKE ACTIONStop Corporate Greenwashing on PlasticPlastic waste is filling our waterways, yet the plastic industry is overturning local actions on plastic.
A leaking pipe at a Mitsui & Co. Intercontinental Terminals Company facility five miles from Garcia’s house had sparked a fire in one of the nearly 250 massive tanks that hold as much as 3.3 million gallons of petrochemicals apiece. The fire quickly spread, releasing 6 million pounds of pollutants in the first 24 hours. The fire continued on and off for five days, releasing cancer-causing benzene. On the third day, Garcia’s daughter and her classmates could see the flames burn and the black smoke stretch overhead from the second-story window of their elementary school. When nearby resident and mother of four Sema Hernandez came to the school, “it looked like the entrance to hell,” she said.
Mitsui & Co. stores highly toxic byproducts of the oil-refining process for clients including ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Phillips 66. The petrochemicals burned in the fire included naphtha, xylene, and toluene. They are not exactly household names, but among their uses is the manufacture of plastics: These fossil fuel derivatives are the cornerstones of the excessive plastic packaging that encases our water, fruits and vegetables, granola bars, and toiletries.
Be a Champion for Environmental Journalism
Facing intensifying global efforts to curtail the use of oil and gas for transportation and energy—and at the same time seeking markets for the torrent of oil and gas from the US fracking boom—the fossil fuel industry is looking to plastics as a lifeline. Today, 14 percent of oil and 8 percent of gas is used for the manufacture of petrochemicals, the essential feedstock of plastic production. The International Energy Agency predicts that by 2050, 50 percent of the growth in oil demand will be related to petrochemicals, overtaking the oil-demand growth related to automobile transportation.By 2050, 50 percent of the growth in oil demand will be related to petrochemicals.
ExxonMobil and Saudi Aramco, among the world’s largest fossil fuel companies, are betting big on plastics. In its latest investor report, ExxonMobil acknowledged a sharp decline in demand for gasoline. The company expects it will help fill the gap with chemicals and predicts a 30 percent increase in demand by 2025. A recent investor article released by Bank of America Merrill Lynch was titled “Oil’s Future Paved With Plastic.”
Leave a Reply