Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 4: The toxic cradle of productionFerrier estimated that 1.5 million tonnes of plastic went into bottled water, a figurethat is likely to have expanded dramatically since. In South Africa the market grew by33% in 2005 and another 26% in 2006.The US packaging industry responded very quickly to environmental campaignshighlighting the destructive nature of plastics and consumer revulsion at the evergrowing torrent of waste. It launched Keep America Beautiful in the early 1970s, ranadvertising and ‘education’ campaigns on the virtues of plastic and funded lobbyiststo prevent legislative restrictions. Finally, it initiated industry driven recycling andre-advertised itself as a green champion. In 1988, the US plastic packaging industryclassified different types of plastics as shown in Table 9 above. The numbers wereinserted in the middle of the chasing arrows symbol and advertised to mean both thatthe products could be recycled and that they were recycled.The strategies honed in the US have been repeated around the world and the leadinginternational industry association has even set up a Plastics Global Litter Group.Thus, the Plastics Federation of South Africa (PFSA) has taken up the US slogan:“Plastics don’t litter, people do!” It reflects the core strategy of individualising theproblem, confining it to the domain of consumption and so heading off questionsabout production and the structuring of markets.PFSA was established in 1997, in time to participate in the final round of lobbying onthe National Environmental Management Bill as well as in the drawn out waste policyprocess. It patented its own ‘Enviromark’ and adopted the US numbering system, or‘polymer identification codes’, complete with chasing arrows.The Berkeley Plastics Task Force argues that the US industry’s recycling claims are notcredible. First, within each of the seven codes, there is a very wide range of grades.Thus, Safripol produces just two polymer types – HDPE and PP – but 30 differentgrades. This is despite the fact that South African producers have actually cut downon the number of grades produced in order to secure economies of scale. Other gradesare now imported. According to DEAT, “60 different types of plastic resins” are usedin local production [2005: 29]. Recycling different grades of the same polymer typethrough the production process wrecks the batch. While the grades used for industrialpackaging tend to be uniform and thus more easily recyclable, the codes are virtuallymeaningless for most consumer waste.- 116 - groundWork - Wasting the Nation