What the Hell Are “Plastic Offsets”? | The New Republic- Kate Aronoff

Plastic is just about everywhere, piling up in streams, landfills, and even our bloodstreams and placentas. The United Nations agrees that something must be done, given both the excess of waste and the considerable plant-heating emissions involved in producing plastics, almost entirely from coal, oil, and gas.

Yet fossil fuel and chemicals companies see a great future in plastics. Both they and the companies that use these products are reluctant to find alternatives. So, as with greenhouse gas emissions, plastics polluters are now gravitating toward a scheme that would let them have it both ways: let them keep making and selling plastics while claiming to be part of the solution. That idea is plastic-offset credits—which, according to supporters, offer the fantastical promise of “plastic-neutral” plastic.

Plastic-offset credits are modeled on carbon offsets: A company that uses or produces plastic can purchase credits that correspond to reductions in plastic waste elsewhere, just as drillers can buy up credits that correspond to patches of forest that will draw enough carbon down from the atmosphere to “offset” the carbon they produce. Purchasing credits is intended to create flexibility for companies that might need extra time to reduce their own emissions, whether to comply with government regulations—like in California’s cap and trade system—or voluntarily, as with airlines that promise carbon-neutral flights. Third parties, often nonprofits, approve and monitor credit-generating projects to ensure they correspond to real-world emissions reductions.