367 million metric tons of plastic were produced worldwide in 2020 alone. These are everyday plastic product ranging from food packaging such as plastic bottles to polyester clothing. Plastic production is up by more than 50% since 2000. After the first World War, it was the golden age of chemistry with an explosion of new forms of plastic. The discovery of polyethylene terephthalate by Calico Printers Association in the UK in 1941, which was then licensed to DuPont, where you saw an explosion of plastic output since the 1950s. Plastic changed access for the middle class and improved the quality of life by making consumer staples more affordable. Let’s breakdown the plastic lifecycle into greater detail and put that into context of total worldwide CO2 emission.

Today, we are seeing some of the dire consequences of this. 1 kg of plastic produces 6 kg of CO2. This means plastic produced in 2020 would emit 2.2 megatons of CO2 over its lifetime (from extraction, production, transport, and incineration). Let’s examine the plastic lifecycle. 91% of plastic related emission are generated in the extraction and manufacturing process itself.

CO2 in Extraction of Natural Fuel

Plastic is sourced from fossil fuel in the form of petroleum/ crude oil, natural gas, or coal. This process of extracting natural resources yields a substantial amount of greenhouse gas. In order to extract ethane, the environmental damage caused by fracking drills has resulted in 19.2 million acres of deforestation in the US alone. This does not mention the 1.7 gigatons of CO2 emission from removing trees capable of producing 6.5 million metric tons of CO2 sink. To convert ethane into ethylene, 72 million metric tons of CO2 was emitted in production of plastic in the US alone (2018). 260 million tons of CO2 was generated worldwide per year or about 0.8% of the world’s total CO2 emissions (32 billion). This suggests plastic production is only a tiny fraction of the world’s total CO2 emissions.

CO2 in Manufacturing

Plastic is derived in a distillation process from mixing raw organic materials such as cellulose with natural gas, salt, and crude oil. This separates into heavy crude oil and lighter components called fractions, which is a mixture of hydrocarbon chains or polymers. These plastic pellets are then molded and refined into end-use plastic such as plastic bottles. This process emits further greenhouse gas. The problem with plastic is that up to 50% of plastic are single-use and tossed immediately.

It is estimated that up to 500 million tons of CO2 worldwide is emitted every year from PET production. The total per year emissions of all plastic ranging from PVC, polystyrene, and HDPE is about 860 million tons. This is about 3% of total global carbon emissions per year.

Waste at End of Life

Since the 1950s, the global recycled plastic is consistently under 9% every year. Over 79% goes to landfills, incarnation, or natural environment such as the ocean. The end-of-life process still require energy for processes such as incineration. As previously established, the bulk of emissions comes from extraction and manufacturing process of plastic. There is a price to pay at end of life: the steep environmental waste of plastic. At least 14 million tons or about 3% of all plastic produced every year end up in the ocean. Plastic makes up for 80% of all marine debris found from surface waters to deep sea sediment. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, a commissioned review of over 2,590 studies have established that ocean plastic pollution is to quadruple by 2050 and exceed ecologically dangerous threshold of microplastic concentration in the waters. There is an urgency to save marine life if we substantially increase reuse.

The greatest threat of plastic in context of total global carbon economy is WASTE! A solution we can adopt in the US is dramatic reduction of single use plastic products such as bottled beverages.