In early December 2024, hopes for a landmark global treaty to curb plastic pollution were dashed as negotiations in South Korea stalled. Leading the campaign against the deal were major oil-producing nations, especially Saudi Arabia and Russia.
The collapse of any agreement came despite scientific research delivering ever more alarming warnings about the dangers of plastic pollution. Over the last two years, an avalanche of studies have revealed the pervasive presence of tiny plastic particles in human blood, brains, and even placental tissue.
These particles, which stem from the breakdown of larger plastic waste, have been linked to everything from inflammation to hormonal disruption, and potential long-term health risks such as cancer. Aside from their effects on human health, plastics are wreaking havoc on marine ecosystems, with microplastics now found in Arctic ice and in the bodies of fish and birds.
Behind these alarming studies stands a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut of plastic production. The annual global production of plastics reportedly grew nearly two hundredfold between 1950 (2 million metric tons) and 2015 (381 million metric tons), and the pace of growth is accelerating.
Over half of all plastics ever made were produced in the past 25 years, and production levels are estimated to double or triple again by 2050. And more production brings more waste.
Less than 10% of all plastics ever produced have been recycled. And the volume of “mismanaged plastics”—those which are not recycled, incinerated, or sealed in landfills—is also estimated to double by 2050.
But despite growing awareness around the problems associated with plastic, there is a fundamental flaw in how we tend to think about it as a product. For there is a tendency to frame plastic as a problem of pollution and recycling, rather than as an integral part of our fossil fuel-driven world.
The future of fossil fuels is increasingly tied to the future of plastics. It has been estimated that by 2040, plastics will account for as much as 95% of net growth in oil demand.
This is perhaps why 220 fossil fuel lobbyists attended those recent treaty discussions, outnumbering all other delegations. It could also explain why Saudi Arabia, home to one of the world’s largest petrochemical companies, led the opposition to any global limits on plastic production.
The problem we confront is not simply the presence of an oil lobby, it is the systemic role that plastics play within capitalism.
Oil became more than a fuel—it was the substance that came to dominate our lives. A petrochemical shift to the rise of an oil-dominated world.
Plastics made the essential features of contemporary capitalism possible: a drive to limitless growth, continual acceleration of production and consumption, and the frenzied expansion of markets.
The consumption of plastics looms large in today’s ecological crisis. And having become so accustomed to thinking about oil and gas as primarily an issue of energy and fuel choice, perhaps we have lost sight of how much of our lives depend upon the products of petroleum.
These synthetic materials drove a post-war revolution in productivity, bringing labor-saving technology and mass consumption. It is now almost impossible to identify an area of life that has not been radically transformed by the presence of plastics and other petrochemicals.