Green campaigners claim oil giants misled public over recycling to justify billion-pound plastics expansion
The petrochemical industry is embarking on a multi-billion dollar strategic pivot, with plastics production now positioned as the central pillar of future oil demand. As the world shifts away from fossil fuels for energy, major oil companies are pouring an estimated $180 billion into new plastic plants in the United States alone since 2010, a move analysts say is designed to secure profits for decades to come. According to industry projections, petrochemicals will account for over a third of the growth in world oil demand by 2030, and nearly half by 2050.
For environmental journalist Beth Gardiner, author of the new book ‘Plastic Inc: Big Oil, Big Money and the Plan to Trash our Future’, the scale of this investment was a profound shock. “It was a kick in the teeth,” she says, reflecting on learning of the figures while scrupulously using her own shopping bags and water bottle. “You’re telling me that while I am beating myself up because I forgot to bring my water bottle, all these huge oil companies are pouring billions…” Her research reveals a deliberate, decades-long campaign by the industry to embed disposable plastic into modern life, a strategy she describes as “supply-driven rather than demand-pulled.”
Human Cost and Environmental Toll
The consequences of this production boom are felt acutely in communities neighbouring petrochemical facilities. In Reserve, Louisiana, activist Robert Taylor has spent a lifetime near an enormous plastics plant in a predominantly Black neighbourhood. He documented widespread illness and cancers in his family and community, only discovering in 2016 that levels of toxic gases had soared. The health risks are systemic; production releases volatile organic compounds, particulate matter, and potent carcinogens, with children and vulnerable populations at particular risk of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.
Meanwhile, the global waste crisis intensifies. Gardiner visited a hill of dumped plastic in Indonesia, where imported waste paper, contaminated with plastic from Western nations, is discarded. This practice, part of a pattern often termed ‘waste colonialism’, sees developed countries exporting their plastic problem, exacerbating environmental and health issues abroad. Globally, recycling has failed to keep pace; only about 9% of all plastics ever produced have been recycled, with US rates at just 5-6% in 2021. The vast majority accumulates in landfills or the natural world.
The environmental cost is quantified in greenhouse gases. The United Nations reports that in 2019, plastics generated 1.8 billion tonnes of emissions—3.4% of the global total—from extraction and transport of fossil fuels through to manufacturing and disposal. Plastic has also contaminated the planet on a microscopic scale, with microplastics found from the deep ocean to Mount Everest and within human bodies. While research on microplastics is evolving, Gardiner notes a longer, clearer history of harm from chemicals in plastic that leach into food, drink, and bodies, disrupting endocrine systems and being linked to cancer.
A Industry Built on Disposability
The roots of this crisis are historical. Plastics, first developed from plant-based materials in the mid-19th century, transformed with the creation of polymers from fossil-fuel by-products. Companies like ExxonMobil, Shell, and Dow, seeking profitable uses for these by-products, wooed the public with promises of convenience. “They understood it is really hard to make plastic recycling work,” Gardiner says of internal industry documents from the 1970s, “but they saw that an attempt at recycling would make consumers less guilty about the waste.” Recycling, while valuable for materials like glass or cans, is often inefficient and expensive for most plastics, simply delaying its final journey to landfill or incinerator.
The industry has consistently worked to deflect scrutiny. In the late 1950s, packaging companies formed ‘Keep America Beautiful’, framing plastic pollution as a litter problem caused by individuals rather than overproduction. Today, similar tactics are deployed globally. At negotiations for a landmark UN Global Plastics Treaty—aiming for a legally binding agreement by August 2025—lobbyists from fossil fuel and petrochemical firms have been present in record numbers, often outnumbering scientists and Indigenous groups. They advocate for a focus on waste management and recycling, opposing binding limits on production, in what critics call a strategy to “deny, distract, derail.”
Regulatory Battles and Grassroots Fightback
Political landscapes shape the response. In the United States, Gardiner says there is “zero prospect for any kind of effective regulation of plastics under the Trump administration,” with environmental rules being rolled back. However, state-level actions persist, such as California extending its ban on plastic bags to include thicker ‘bag for life’ types. Post-Brexit Britain has separated itself from evolving EU regulations on single-use plastics, which are among the world’s most aggressive.
Grassroots resistance offers another front. Communities have campaigned for decades, like Diane Wilson’s 30-year fight against Formosa Plastics in Texas, or the current battle against Europe’s largest planned plastics plant in Antwerp. The industry’s vigorous retaliation against even local bag bans, Gardiner notes, signals its fear of knock-on effects. Simultaneously, the waste export game is changing; after China’s 2018 import ban, countries like Indonesia are also refusing foreign plastic, forcing nations like the UK to handle more waste domestically, often through incineration branded as ‘waste to energy’—a process that creates electricity but also significant carbon emissions and toxic gases, typically in deprived areas.
Beth Gardiner still carries her reusable bags, but her focus has shifted. “What I’m trying to do with this book is to help people look away from the personal and more towards the political because that is where the difference is to be made,” she says. She argues that reducing plastic reliance is not a return to the stone age, but a recall to living memory. “We can use much less plastic without using no plastic… We don’t have to look too far back into our collective memory to see ways that we could live that are less wasteful. It’s not impossible, because it existed.”
