You can find a lot of great things to say about plastic, but we cannot use these as arguments against the negative issues:
The way we produce and dispose of plastic
The way we produce plastic
More or less all plastic used today is produced from crude oil, which contributes to increasing CO2 level in the environment. There is no way around that for quite some time, but we should all push the development of a future where plastic is produced from renewable carbon. And there are already a range of interesting new bio-based polymers commercially available: PLA, PHA, bio-PE, bio-PP etc.
I would be more that happy to support your company in a transition towards a more sustainable material choice:
Investigating relevant bio-based or recycled plastic for your products
Developing a strategy for a future more sustainably material portfolio
Heading up a development project using bio-based or recycled plastic
The way we dispose of plastic
Discussing the end of life situation of a plastic product is very complicated, because it depends on a lot of factors. However, the fact that a topic in complicated should not prevent us from acting
Plastic flowing around the environment – especially in oceans – is probably the biggest issue we are facing according to public opinion. Even though it is not our fault; we as an industry still has an obligation to help solve the problem.
It is not enough to make the right material choice when designing a product. E.g. if a PE-based bag ends up in the ocean if really doesn’t matter if the PE is bio- or crude oil-based…it will still be there for a very long time.
We can make sure our products don’t end up in the environment – and if it cannot be avoided then we should consider using a biodegradable polymer
We should design our products in a way that makes them easy to recycle
We should try to recycle the plastic if at all possible – even biodegradable plastic should be recycled if possible
I would be more that happy to support your company in a transition towards a more sustainable end of life option:
Investigating end of life options for your products
Finding ways to recycle your current products
Heading up a development project using biodegradable plastic
