Original subtitles

Reporter: Here's a scene that has long

Since ceased causing any surprise.

The womenfolk washing dishes made of plastic.

Dishes that bounce when they drop to the floor.

Hard to realize it, but it was only 10 years ago

That the first pound of polystyrene plastic was sold

Narrator: And the chemical age is just dawning.

These few things, my friends,

Are only a hint of what american industry holds in the future.

Yes, mylar's properties are right in its molecules

And with them are coming new and better things for us all.

Today will be a better day for a lot of people

Simply because of a material we call plastic.

Chapman: This industry is well positioned to build on our accomplishments

To shape a sustainable and prosperous future.

In summary, we believe the best is yet to come.

Carpenter: I think, like many people, I had noticed

A real surge of attention and interest

In the issue of plastic pollution.

This sort of all came about from conversations with activists

Who are working on plastics issues.

Oftentimes what I do is ask people

That are close to an issue,

How they feel about the media coverage.

And one thing I was consistently hearing

Was that there was a gap in coverage

When it came to the front end of the story.

So there was a ton of attention around the final stage

Of the plastics lifecycle

When it actually becomes pollution,

But not as many people were telling the story

About where plastic comes from.

You can never solve the plastic waste crisis

Just by dealing with it as a waste issue.

Who is making the plastics in the first place and why?

Blair: History of plastics began over 30 million years ago

When intense heat, natural chemical changes,

And tremendous pressures created

By the shifting of the earth's crust

Formed the substance needed to make plastic --

Petroleum.

Muffett: 99% of what goes into plastics is fossil fuels,

And so unsurprisingly, the same companies that make plastics

Are also the companies that sell us fossil fuels --

Exxon, chevron, conoco phillips, shell, and dow dupont,

Which in addition to being a major chemicals company,

Is also a major player in oil and gas.

Plastics were initially a waste product.

The company could either pay

To dispose of the leftovers responsibly

Or it could turn them into a new product.

Miller: Oil companies compete with each other

In taking the petroleum molecule apart

And rearranging it into...

Well, you name it --

Fabric's, toothbrushes, tires, insecticides, cosmetics,

Weed killers,

A whole galaxy of things to make a better life on earth.

Narrator: Just as there are many kinds of woods and metals,

So there are many kinds of plastics.

This is plexiglass, too,

One of the most fascinating

And beautiful of the new plastic materials

Created by chemical science,

Ready to bring new beauty and comfort to your home

And add charm to your peace-time living.

Mafira: Plastic is a miracle material.

When it was created,

It was hailed as the biggest invention of the time.

It's extremely durable. It lasts very, very long.

And so the reality is that

Because plastic has all these good qualities,

It's extremely bad for the environment.

I was a corporate lawyer for six years,

And then I decided to leave it to work on something

That I actually cared about

And where I actually had a personal stake in the outcome.

15 years ago, I could still go to a pristine beach

And collect seashells.

And it makes me sad to think that some of the children

Born today, and even my own daughter,

Won't have the memory of a cleaner world.

I just want her to be aware of why her world

Is the way it is and that it could be better.

I feel like I don't know how to answer anymore

When people say,

"why are you focusing on plastic?

Why is plastic a problem?"

I mean, I feel like I should just take them here

And not say anything,

Just take them here and then see what they think,

Whether they think plastic bags are not a problem anymore.

I can still remember a time when I was still a teenager

And this wasn't a problem,

So we're not talking about decades.

We're talking about maybe 10 to 15 years

Of this kind of lifestyle.

A lot of the single-use plastics

That end up polluting our planet,

We only use them once and they stay forever.

They're made of a material that lasts forever.

They're not something that we need

As an essential part of our lives.

And yet, here we are, stuck with it.

Russell: Unfortunately, data are coming back that plastics

Really are a significant component of the waste

That enters the ocean, so that's largely a matter

Of poorly or unmanaged municipal solid waste.

In parts of the world,

Unlike here, where there is not an infrastructure to gather

And appropriately dispose of the waste.

I think what's most frustrating is that the industries are out

There pushing the idea that this is all

Because of bad management. You know, that the waste is here

Because the government isn't putting enough funding

Into proper waste management,

But they're distracting from the truth,

Which is that there is no way you can manage this waste.

It's not meant to be managed.

I think we should band together

And have a serious discussion on a global scale

Because these companies are operating on a global scale.

Sharma: The issue of waste and plastic pollution,

It is about this deeply embedded injustice

That really motivates me to keep doing what I'm doing.

We are standing in ghazipur d-block dairy farm

Next to the landfill, which receives waste

From almost half of delhi.

Sharma: Plastic products are only creating

A mountain of waste in india.

Grate: On a personal level, I have stopped using plastic bags

And plastic straws, and that's a great thing,

But you realize at the systematic level,

That doesn't change anything.

I grew up in an island enjoying nature.

When I was in college, I moved to manila to study.

The first thing that struck me when I arrived here

Was the amount of waste that's on the bay.

This is not what I want for my island,

The place where I grew up, and I know

If I don't do something, that will happen.

Plastic pollution is really a life and death issue

For most people, at least in this part of the world.

Manila bay is like a cove,

And there's several provinces located along that coastline,

So whatever the currents bring in from outside,

They stay within that cove. And whatever waste

Is deposited into the bay from the rivers also stays there.

Every day, day in, day out,

This cleaning operations going on.

It's unending.

You can do cleanups, and the problem will not go away.

You have to look at the root causes.

We can't be doing cleanups all our lives.

This is not a solution.

We're a archipelagic country

And we depend on fish and seafood for sustenance.

It is pretty much part of the filipino lifestyle and culture.

60-40.

Hernandez; the stuff we read about saying

There'll be more plastics in the oceans than fish in 2050,

That's actually a reality for most of these fishermen.

And a lot of this is really unrecyclable plastics.

A great percentage are really multi-layer packaging.

The sachets that you find like this one,

You cannot recycle this.

Nobody bothers to collect them, that's why they end up here.

Who bears the burden of this pollution?

You have the marginal communities,

Coastal communities, the fishing communities, and the people,

The citizens who are forced, through their taxes,

Shoulder the plastic cleanup.

These companies have been able to get away

With it for many years now.

Bourque: We got into recycling

Because we thought it was the right thing to do.

Of course, it is a disposal service.

At its core, it's taking stuff that people don't want anymore

And trying to do something better than landfill with it.

You can see the range of things

That are coming out of people's houses.

10, 15 years ago,

This would have had a lot more aluminum,

A lot more glass.

It's amazing how many things have moved to plastic.

Mafira: People think plastic can be recycled,

But actually, most plastic is very hard to recycle.

So this is data from the world economic forum.

It shows that 32% of plastic packaging

Ends up littering the environment,

40% is sitting in a landfill somewhere,

14% is incinerated, 14% is recycled,

But only 2% is effectively recycled.

Effectively recycled means that it's recycled into something

That's actually as useful as what it was before.

Most of it is down cycled,

Meaning that it becomes something worse.

Unlike glass and metals,

Plastics degrade when they're recycled.

Most recycled plastic is only recycled

Once before ending up in landfills,

Incinerators, and the environment.

Cities around us had kind of caved

To collect all plastics campaign

Of the american chemistry council.

Narrator: Plastics recycling is pretty cool.

And today, we're recycling more and more.

Recycling plastics is a fairly simple process.

In 2013, under significant pressure from our city council,

We began accepting non-bottle mixed rigid plastic.

So all the plastic containers -- berry containers,

Keg cups, plastic cold cups, you know, from starbucks.

Procter and gamble wants us all to believe

That all their packaged goods

Are in totally environmentally sound packaging.

They want us all using single-use packaged products

So that we're just on the supply chain.

It's totally unfair to the cities

And the recyclers on the back end

Because then everyone says, "oh, it's recyclable.

You should collect it." well, then what?

We have to pay to sort it, we have to pay to process it,

And then we don't have any markets for it.

Once we said we would accept it

And we would start sorting it and packing it for export,

It was just like the floodgates were open.

I mean, the tons went up and up and up and up and up.

Because china was buying it,

There actually was a market for that stuff,

And even if we couldn't afford to sort it out here,

We could bail it up and ship it

In a shipping container over there

And somebody over there would sort it out.

Morawski: The united states was shipping over 50%

Of its plastics to china.

The situation was very similar in europe.

We were just shipping it all to china.

China will deal with it.

And we built up these big recycling programs

And everything was about recycle, recycle,

Recycle, recycle is the solution to everything

Because we had china there.

So china has just said, "you know what?

We're sick of being a dumping ground

And we don't want this stuff introduced into our country."

They're useless -- plastics.

Many of them are single-use containers,

Low value plastics, films.

So in general, we see this as a positive.

This gives a chance to upgrade our recycling industry.

The chinese waste ban has really been

A shocking event for europe.

People didn't know that their recycled plastic

Was actually being shipped to china.

The waste that used to be shipped elsewhere

Is now here for us to deal with and we have to confront it,

Because in europe, we really have plastic waste piling up.

Morawski: I see the china thing as a reckoning

Because it's all been this false market

Where we've just been shipping stuff to china.

Bourque: It starts backing up. It's not getting exported,

So what's going to happen with it?

When the ban happened in china, businessmen went to thailand,

Vietnam, or other countries.

Bourque: A year ago, china was taking 10 times

The amount of plastic they're taking today.

And that is a massive amount of plastic.

So if you think we're just going to take it from china

And ship it to thailand or indonesia or vietnam,

They don't have that kind of capacity today.

So whatever kind of infrastructure

Is being developed has got to be pretty ad hoc.

You know, could range from somebody's backyard

To a partly covered warehouse, and that is very concerning.

From U.S. It's texas.

Yeah, it's from australia.

It's from toronto. Toronto.

These are nestlé from U.K.

Yeah, this one from oregon, from oregon.

From new zealand, dunkin' donut.

Radok is unilever. Teavana.

What do you think somebody is really going to do with this?

It's all different colors. It's got film and plastic.

You got seven different kinds of resin.

This stuff's been printed on, so there's ink in the plastic.

You know what -- what are you really going to make with it?

And they have to be able to tell the difference

Between this clear plastic and this clear plastic,

Which look the same to you and me, but they're not.

And so, how do they do that?

They have special tests. They can -- they can hear it,

Or they'll light it on fire and smell the smoke.

That's got to be good for your health.

Bourque: When you sort this stuff out,

The next thing then is to take those sorted materials

And chip it up into a little quarter-size flake,

Is what they call it, and then wash it.

Well, what's happening with all that wash water?

Is that just getting dumped into somebody else's drinking water

Or is it being dumped into an estuary

And polluting the estuary with soaps and food and poisons?

And what about when you melt the plastic?

Because the next thing you do is you take that flake

And you melt it down

And extrude it out into these long spaghetti chains

And then you chop those up into little pellets or nurdles.

And when you melt it, a lot of these plastics

Release toxic volatile organic compounds, vocs,

That are not good to breathe.

The problem is that there is no place for this stuff to go.

The most difficult part of waste sorting is done

By the waste picker who are mostly women,

Mostly marginalized.

And they also get the least benefit from the system.

If they were not there, the entire recycling pyramid

Would have collapsed.

If we go back 16, 17 years,

There was not so much plastic that was found.

It was mostly metal, iron, aluminum.

Now they are doing

83 kind of separation within plastic itself.

We had double digits in asia pacific,

We have double digits in other parts of the world.

But it's because you've got a growing economy

And you've got a change in markets.

People are moving from fresh foods

That are not processed to packaged.

Things like fast foods packaged food, processed foods,

These are new to india because indians like to eat fresh food.

India is a place where people naturally reuse things,

Nothing was torn away. It is not a throwaway society

Because it is not a consumerist society to begin with.

That sense of thrift, that sense of carefulness,

That respectful materials is going away,

And that's a terrible loss.

The industry likes to talk about all the advanced products

And lifesaving devices the plastics contribute to,

Which is true.

Narrator: From heart valves to helmets,

Can you think of one material that does more?

But what makes up the bulk of demand for plastic right now

Is packaging.

Pieces of plastic that will get used once

And thrown away and never used again,

And in most cases, never cleaned up.

Shibu k n: The fast-moving consumer goods in india.

Almost 100% are packed in one-time use plastics.

For example, one rupee sachet for a shampoo,

Or one rupee sachet with oil.

They want them essentially to capture

The poor sectors of the market, and to do that,

They came up with sachets.

Sachets are multi-layers of materials --

Plastic, aluminum, or a bit of paper,

It comes in small volume for a single use

And is meant to be disposed right after.

Shibu k n: When these global companies came in,

We were happy to see that.

Okay, we are also getting the same quality of life

Enjoyed by the west.

And now we realize that there is a double standard.

Alvarés: Working in this global movement is allowing us

To point out the companies in europe,

When they have this green discord,

And we can tell them this is maybe what you're doing here,

But this is not what you're doing

In other parts of the world.

And if you want to be credible,

You will have to align your actions

Everywhere with what you're saying.

So this is head and shoulders, body ninja,

It's multi-layered, it's non-recyclable.

And this is what we find on the shelves in belgium

And in most of europe.

So the same product, same brand, same company,

Different format, recyclable bottle.

The producer has paid a fee to cover

Part of the waste collection and waste management costs.

While here, you have absolutely nothing.

It's not covered at all.

So, yeah, in the very country

Where they have to implement waste management

And waste collection system and they need money

And funding to build these infrastructures,

The producers are not contributing

To the end of life of this product,

While in europe applying a double standard, they are.

Ironically, asia has been identified

As a key source of the problem of plastic pollution --

The oceans...

About 60% of plastic in the ocean

Comes from five countries in southeast asia.

Hernandez: ...When in fact the decisions are made in the boardrooms

Of companies in the west.

There's a real problem of blame

When it comes to plastic pollution.

When you have companies like unilever,

Nestlé, and procter and gamble

And all of these other multinationals

Going into these markets

Aggressively marketing single service products on populations

That have no way of dealing with it.

Maybe just not so long ago,

Everything was packaged in natural products.

Maybe they live on a tiny island

That doesn't have a formalized system of waste collection.

And then you're saying that they're at fault for this.

And on top of that,

We are shipping our waste there to be treated.

This is absolutely a western problem

That we have exported to other parts of the world,

And now we have the cheek to say that they are the problem.

Pampers?

No washing, no mess, you just use them once.

Narrator: Pampers, procter and gamble discovery

That makes diapers old fashioned.

Just follow the directions and flush away.

Carpenter: One of the biggest questions that we're facing is,

"how do we get out of the fossil fuel economy?"

I've heard some criticism

That the concern about plastic pollution

Is a distraction from the bigger problem of climate change.

But my conclusion from doing this

Reporting is it's all part of the same problem.

Presently, we've discovered that the seven most produced

And consumed types of plastic produce greenhouse gases.

As plastic degrades in the environment,

It would just be producing more and more gases with time.

Alvarés: We are really making the connection

Between the plastics issue

And what's happening with the climate movement

Because all of their efforts can be completely offset

By the fact that the fossil fuel

That we're not using anymore for transport and energy

Is now being used to produce cheap plastics,

And it's going to be burnt and is going to release

Co2 in the atmosphere.

Simon: If we don't do things right,

All this plastic might end up in incinerators.

And that's something we'll have to watch closely.

It's a real danger.

More and more community leaders,

Entrepreneurs, and people like you and me

Are starting to think about trash

As a valuable energy resource.

It's called energy recovery, and simply put,

It's the process that turns solid waste into energy.

Sounds good, maybe,

But there's also a lot of toxic crap in there

That you don't want in your air.

The first thing we do when we get up is

Look out of the window to see how much smoke

Is coming out of that plant.

It's like living next to a volcano, actually.

You know, you never know.

Sometimes large copious amounts of smoke

Come out of these two chimneys.

They can be seen for miles around.

It burns 2,000 tons of unsegregated waste per day.

A large component of that is just plastic.

It's a cocktail of every kind of dangerous thing

That you can think of --

Dioxins, furans, lead, cadmium, mercury, all of that.

They send samples of the flash to a lab in london,

They said, "please evacuate immediately."

That's what it said.

Misra: We have seen a lot of changes since the incident at cayman.

You find a lot of people who never ever had

Any respiratory problem,

They are coming with respiratory distress.

Then there's severe dermatitis

And a lot of skin rashes, which were not there before.

These dioxins cause infertility and even long-term effects

On our fetuses.

They are hormone disrupters,

And also, they are carcinogenic.

And that is proven. There's nothing to be proved.

It started so gradually that we did not notice the process.

But now that we look back, it's so clear.

I grew up here, so I have a lot of memories

Attached to this place.

Before I remember, we used to play outside,

And now, kids stopped coming outside and playing.

So that is how we were caged inside our own homes.

When I went to the doctor,

He told me it looks from your lungs

That either you're a smoker or you work in the mines.

Devraj: The plant projects itself as doing a great service

To the community by getting rid of their garbage,

But this is the wrong way to do it.

The main thing that this incinerator does

Is it reduces the volume of your garbage,

So you're having a mountain of garbage,

You have a hillock of fly ash and bottom ash,

Which is very, very toxic.

They don't want the recycling to happen.

They chase away the waste pickers.

They need that plastic, so they burn everything else.

Plastic burns and burns very well

Because it's made of petrochemicals.

They want you to use more plastic

Because that's what is their fuel.

It's basically our trash monster that will just desperately eat

As much plastic as it can,

And not only will it be happy to get non-recyclable packaging,

But all the plastic that's going for recycling currently

Will essentially be institutionally diverted,

Even if it's at the cost of the environment,

Human development, and economic inclusion.

Carpenter: Groups that have been fighting local struggles

Against particular segments of the fossil fuel economy

Are now linking together in this much broader movement

That looks at the whole chain of damage

From resource extraction to waste incinerators.

These disparate struggles that seem unconnected --

A neighborhood in the philippines

That's awash in plastic trash,

A pipeline in pennsylvania, a single refinery in texas --

They're all part of this web of plastics infrastructure

That is all working together to massively increase

The amount of plastics out in the world.

Bourque: Why is it that we're seeing so much more plastics

Entering the environment?

I just wanna say one word to you.

Just one word...

Fracking.

It's making natural gas cheaper than it's ever been.

We're talking about double digit gains in businesses

That I didn't think had even single-digit growth.

How are you putting up these numbers?

Well, we have a very focused team, jim.

We also built a lot of assets on the U.S. Gulf coast

To take advantage of shale gas.

Bush: The energy policy act of 2005, provides incentives

For oil refineries to expand their capacity.

The bill includes tax incentives

To encourage new construction of natural gas pipelines.

The united states, north america sits on

A very large hydrocarbon resource base.

When we see the fact that we have low-priced natural gas,

Which we think will be around for a long time,

That is leading to a flood of new investments.

If we have availability of cheap fossil fuel,

We're going to have availability of dirty chemicals

And of cheap plastics.

Maximizing the value of all the molecules

From a barrel crude oil,

That's been foundational for how we've approached

The chemical business for decades.

And this is where the show

In the totals, you know, comes from -- comes from petrol,

Oil and gas.

-It's plastic. -Is that a freaking straw?

I'm so sorry, baby.

Villa: Watt: I think people don't necessarily think about

What plastics are made of, where plastics come from,

Other than on the shelf of like a grocery store

Or some sort of a market.

But the reality is that the chemicals that are needed

To create plastics come from the shale formations

From these oil and gas pockets in the rock.

You can't talk about one without the other.

In these oil and gas pockets,

You also have chemicals like benzene and toulene

And ethyl benzene and xylene

That are all extremely harmful for your health.

Plastics doesn't just cause pollution in the ocean

Or on the ground, it's also causing pollution

Where it's coming from at the point of extraction.

I work with community members that are living 500 feet

From a facility that's the size of a football field.

Now some of the residents depend on medication

To get through the day because their headaches are so bad,

Or they have chronic respiratory issues

And so they can't breathe.

Their lives were dramatically changed

Over a period of five or six years.

Man: This is our dream home.

We thought we were coming into a great area

To where we could live out our years,

And then this stuff started turning up.

You're not showing my face, are you?

-No. -Okay.

The pollution has gotten way out of hand.

Everybody has to drink bottled water.

There's a water well on my place,

We don't we don't drink the water because

We know damn well we can't use that water.

We don't know what's coming out of that flare,

And they won't tell us.

You know, I think that these oil companies are --

They think they're above the law.

Carpenter: When we talk about a community like karnes county,

We're talking about the effects of extracting for the chemicals

That we need to make plastics.

Pompeo: I spent a fair amount of time in the oil and gas industry.

My time as secretary of state isn't that far removed

From what I did running that small company.

New drilling technology and greater energy output

Are transforming american life and lives all around the world.

It took our shale producers and risk takers

And it took congress lifting the oil export ban in 2015,

Which I voted for.

You should all see me as I walk out and say thanks.

Come here. Get over here. Get over here.

My name is elise gerhart. I'm 31 years old.

I live in huntington, pennsylvania.

I was born here, raised here.

My mom called me to tell me happy birthday.

And then she informed me that there was a company

Who wanted to build a pipeline

Through this property here where I grew up.

So the mariner east project,

It's a project built to transport natural gas liquids

To an industrial complex near philadelphia.

Those would go from the port there,

All the way across the atlantic

To a facility in scotland, so that they can make plastic.

The company puts out all kinds of propaganda,

Saying that the project has something to do

With american energy independence,

That it has to do with

People heating their homes during the winter.

And none of that is true.

Narrator: America relies on energy. We get it to you safely.

We are sunoco pipeline.

Elise: It makes me really angry

Because as soon as I started doing research on this project,

It was very clear what the intent was.

You know, it's publicly available,

And yet, we have these judges saying that those companies

Can take our property for their own private use to make plastic.

I've only been paying attention to pipelines for a couple years

And it seems to happen every couple of months.

There's like an enormous pipeline explosion,

Like a major incident.

I mean, people's houses burning down,

People being severely injured

Reporter: A gas line outside columbus, ohio,

Explodes, destroying two homes...

Man: Did you see that explode?

Reporter: Breaking news...

Firefighters are racing to contain a deadly gas

Explosion in kentucky.

Flames spreading to homes, forcing evacuations.

Elise: I don't know what it's going to feel like to try

And live here every day knowing that a leak or explosion

Could happen at any time with no warning

Because you can't see it, you can't smell it,

You don't know until it's too late.

Elise: So myself and a couple other people

Climbed into some of the trees and occupy them

So that they couldn't cut them down.

And we had lots of people just start coming through

Who wanted to help out.

But they try to intimidate people.

I was followed to work.

They flew drones up around the house

Just looking at everything.

Energy transfer partners paid someone to create

This fake facebook page saying that I was an eco terrorist

Trying to bring violence into my community

And that I need to be stopped.

They put my partner on there,

They put friends of ours on there.

They put our vehicles on there, posted our address.

So I had people messaging us,

Threatening to rape us, to kill us.

I'm not that strong that that's not going to affect me.

They've got endless resources.

You know, we have to live our lives,

Like I had to go to work.

So they came, they cut down the trees.

Even if you can talk to people and explain to them

That this isn't carrying home heating fuel,

It's not carrying gasoline for your car.

Then people start bringing in these arguments

About plastic and about how plastic

Is everywhere in our everyday lives,

So we must need it.

I think people have a hard time

Picturing what life would be like without plastic,

And that's where I think more people are actually duped.

Arellano: Houston is the home of the largest petrochemical complex

In the nation.

This is what plastic smells like.

This is what plastic feels like.

This is what plastic looks like from our end.

Some of the daily emissions include benzene, styrene,

1,3-butadiene, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen cyanide.

What we have tried to put in place here is again,

Is a model that will ensure that epa prioritizes chemicals.

Arellano: Most of these chemicals are not monitored

And there are more chemicals

That are delisted from epa's watchlist than they are added.

I want to thank administrator curry

From the epa,

All the great folks who have helped us to clear the way

So that exxon mobil

Can make this multi-billion dollar investment.

It's not uncommon to talk to folks in the community

And have multiple stories of childhood leukemia,

Brain cancer, low birth weights, or sterility,

Lack of motor skills, developmental issues,

Speech impediments.

We have reduced our air emissions at this site

By about 50%. I have never seen a project

With a better economic and environmental story.

Arellano: Every time epa's watchlist shrinks,

Air quality gets better. Why?

Because it's not being monitored.

Both of my parents are immigrants.

They left mexico to make our lives better.

Their parents left the rural parts of mexico

To go into the cities because life in rural mexico

Was difficult because oil companies were going in...

That story isn't done.

There's another family that's living with that,

And there's another family that's living next to a refinery

And there is another family that's struggling.

It takes outside organizations to come in to inform residents

About what they are living with on a daily basis.

So we are in the east end. It is a cultural hub

For everything mexican.

You have the art, you have the food.

It's a place brimming with culture.

It's a beautiful place.

And we are down the street from a valero plant.

That's what there is a lot of here, a lot of plants.

I think the farthest that I've ever lived from a planet

Has been 2 1/2 miles.

My friends are having kids and it's, hey, you know,

So and so's kid has cancer, so and so's kid has leukemia.

And it's sad that that's our new normal.

I'm just going to start running it through here.

Okay, I'm bringing it in. Just see what we got.

Oh, god. Yeah. There's all kinds of pellets.

Diane, you want this? -Yeah, we'll take a sample.

We've found fish with pellets in their gullets.

We've had oystermen who say they --

When they're shucking open an oyster,

They're finding pellets inside it.

On the bay, you got from formosa plastic,

We got invisto, we got bp, we got dupont,

We've got dow chemical, you add all of that up,

Easily, you can get 50 million gallons

A day of toxins being discharged into estuaries.

Hamrick: I worked 25 years at the plant as a supervisor,

But I had to get out of there

Because I got tired of the bull crap, lying for 'em

Because that's all you do out there at that plant

Is lie.

And, you know, nobody out there can speak.

They'll fire you right on the spot.

Wilson: You can pull anything up and find pellets.

See all the pellets?

It's covered in pellets.

You look down there, there's a harbor down there.

There's no fish houses anymore.

There's no shrimpers. You gotta do something.

So we just started sampling.

And eventually, we filed the suit.

When I first started, I had a helicopter land

In my front yard, shot and killed the dog.

Shot at the house, and then my shrimp boat was sabotaged.

So, they did a few things.

I don't think my story is unique at all.

I think there are thousands in little rural communities

Where the company has a heavy hand,

Especially along the gulf coast.

Muffett: What's going on here in houston highlights

Not only the scale of the problem, but its immediacy,

The oil and gas industry,

The american petroleum institute,

The american chemistry council, they see the shale gas boom

As a renaissance for plastics and petrochemicals in the U.S.

Exxonmobil estimates that the global demand for chemicals

Will double within the next 20 years.

That's more than the forecast for energy and gdp growth

Over the same period.

They're doubling down on plastics.

I think they're worried that we're going to stop burning

So much fossil fuel.

I hope that's their worry and I hope they're right.

But I think they see plastic as a way to hedge their bet.

Our expectation is global fuel's demand growth

Will actually start to decline,

And so, where would you anticipate additional growth

In one place is petrochemical market.

Plastics and other petrochemicals present

An opportunity for these big integrated oil majors

To keep up demand.

And so we're really seeing this trend towards investment

In the petrochemical space.

During the course of these meetings,

President trump and members of his cabinet agreed

The U.S.-Saudi partnership should be taken to new heights.

Muffett: The latest estimate from the american chemistry council

Is that $194 billion

Will be invested in the U.S. Into 325 new

Or expanded facilities for petrochemicals,

Primarily for plastics

Between now and 2025. That's a remarkable expansion.

We're already producing more plastics in the united states

Than we can use.

So the question is, "where is that plastic going?"

It's flowing to asia. It's flowing to europe.

It's flowing into every new product streams.

This highlights a really fundamental truth

About the plastics crisis and about plastics as a product.

To a far greater extent than in any other product chain,

Plastics are driven not by the demand for them,

But by the supply.

This is the story of plastics.

It is fossil fuels finding a new form

And finding a new place to flow through the economy.

This is a crisis that is accelerating literally

By the day as we speak.

Exxon opens a new plant here.

Chevron builds a new plant there.

Total builds yet another.

We're seeing the same thing happened in the U.S. East Coast,

We're seeing the same thing happen in europe,

In the middle east, in china,

This buildout is going on and it's going on now.

Once these plants are built,

The debt to build them will already have been incurred,

And they will squeeze every last ounce of plastic film

And plastic packaging out of those plants

Until they crumble to dust.

We're back with an alarming new report

That came out this past week

On the state of the world's oceans,

Specifically the finding that they contain far more plastic

Than scientists had first thought.

Carpenter: The surge of attention to plastic pollution

Is pretty striking.

Reporter: Searching for a fish,

But finding an ocean of plastic trash,

Woglom: About 8 million metric tons go into the ocean every year.

That's the equivalent of one city garbage truck

Dumping a load of plastic into the ocean

Every minute of every day.

Narrator: Celebrities urging people to give up using things

Like plastic straws and cups.

By 2050, there will be more plastic waste

In the world's oceans than fish.

Reporter: These pictures after its death show the 80 plastic bags

Found inside the whale.

Reporter: It's getting into the food that we end up eating.

Reporter: The polyester fibers that you take into your lungs,

They're small enough to cross the blood brain barrier.

Reporter: The five gyres, giant swirling bodies of water

Where plastic accumulates.

When I mention plastic to younger people,

They say, "plastic is that giant island

That's the size of antarctica in an ocean,

And that's what plastic did, it wrecked the environment."

But the world is still going toward plastic.

We do have a plastic waste problem.

And at this point in time, I've never seen the industry

More aligned about tackling that problem.

We've been working...

Mafira: They're mostly making these statements

That are quite normative.

"we'll look into this. We're committed."

The covestro industry has products and processes

That can help address these sustainability issues.

Narrator: We believe in sustainable practices

And sustainable business growth.

Mafira: But that hasn't translated into what the step-by-step plan is.

Graham van't hoff, who's the executive vice president

Of shell's chemical division wrote...

And then he adds...

I can't speculate about what the executives

At petrochemical companies actually believe,

But it's certainly true that in their communications

And their actions, most of them indicate that,

While they might generously offer

To help with the cleanup problem,

There's nothing wrong with the product

Or with the companies that are making the product.

The fault lies with the consumers and with countries

That have inadequate waste recycling infrastructure.

I think everyone agrees that plastic waste

Does not belong in the ocean or the environment.

So I'm very happy to announce today

The formation of the "alliance to end plastic waste."

This can bring together companies that make plastic

And those that handle plastic after the consumer use.

We're ready to invest over $1.5 billion

To identify projects

And fund projects to really get at solving solutions.

Carpenter: I think if you look at some of the industry-backed plans,

The alliance to end plastic waste,

They want to put significant investment into recycling

And waste collection infrastructure,

And that's great where it happens.

But that's not going to reach everywhere.

It's definitely not on the same scale

Or even close to the scale of the amount of plastic

That is projected to be produced in the coming decade

Based upon all this new investment in infrastructure.

The metaphor I use in the piece is it's like trying to bail out

A bathtub with a teaspoon while the tap is on full blast.

And certainly we see that this distraction

Has been effective in terms of media coverage.

There is a lot of coverage about cleanup.

Whether it's the big ocean cleanup

That has a lot of big money behind it

Or whether it's smaller efforts,

Whether it's industry investments in cleanup,

That definitely has dominated the narrative.

That famous quote, "the future of plastic is in the trash can."

It's no secret that the industry has for decades understood

That the way to profit more

Is to get people to use more plastic.

Their incentive is to get us to use more,

And if we throw it away,

That creates P.R. Problems for them.

But economically, it's great

If we just keep using single-use products.

So, if we stop to pick up everything on the way out there,

We'd never make it out past the jetty,

So we have to leave some things by the wayside.

I'm captain of the oceanographic research vessel alguita

And founder of alguita marine research and education.

I'm known for working well off shore of the coastal ocean

In what are known as the oceanic gyres.

In 1997, I decided to take a shortcut

And cut across this vast expanse,

Which was basically a thousand miles in diameter.

And I couldn't come on deck without seeing a single piece

Of plastic float by within five minutes.

It's proliferated so fast, within 20 years

From my time of discovering it until today,

I feel I underestimated the actual danger.

And the "aha" moment was the first time

We threw that trawl in the ocean and pulled it in.

It was full of plastic fragments.

That's what blew my mind, when we realized

No matter where you're gonna throw that net and out here,

You're going to find that stuff.

So, we just pulled in the trawl.

This is all plastic that we caught

At the surface of the ocean.

Wow. That's a lot.

You'll see the nurdles,

Which are the preproduction resin pellets

For majority of all of our plastics we've ever owned.

It started out as the nurdles.

Look at that separation between the plastic layer.

Look how many different layers there are of materials there.

See how the plastic separating from that foil.

So, how easy do you think it is for the recyclers to do that?

Oh, we love our sachets.

Just about anywhere you look now,

You can find plastic if you look,

Especially, at the nano scale materials,

Which are now beginning to enter into the web of life itself.

Ballent: When you realize how widespread this issue is

And how small the particles are, you realize that cleanup

Is really just a great way to see how bad the problem is.

We cannot rely on it as a solution.

Grate: There are solutions that have been proven to work.

There are cities working towards zero waste.

My vision for the future is all cities are going zero waste,

And that means that all that we use,

All that they produce, can either be composed or recycled,

And all cities have the capacity to manage these composed

Of all of these recyclables.

Currently, we still have residual waste.

These are products or packaging

That can neither be composed nor recycled.

But the beauty of a zero-waste program

Is that we are not hiding these products.

Man: Right now, we are having a brand audit

In which we are trying to identify

The brands which contribute the most to plastic waste

Which is generated at the household level.

We are trying to generate enough baseline data

To enable the government to take a stand

So that they can follow guidelines for implementing epr

To fix extended producer responsibility.

When we say "extended producer responsibility,"

He try to transfer the responsibility

Of handling discards of branded products back to the producer.

For example, if you're buying a packet of chips,

You had essentially buying the chips and not packaging

Which comes along with it.

So, the manufacturer should take the responsibility

For either collecting them back

Or should support the government in treating them.

So, this is what we dream by implementing

Extended producer responsibility.

From what we see right here,

There are five main contributors to the majority

Of the plastic waste generated.

Unilever, itc, nestlé, milman, and pepsico.

And we are getting similar feedback

From different brands as their collected all over the country

Where the same names are coming up a the top brands.

Man: We know who they are.

He's been trying to work with them.

They have to step up, and they had to own the problem.

Hernandez: It cannot be forever supporting the bottom line

Of this companies that has got to stop now.

They need to be given the bill.

We've got to pass legislation,

And we've got to create public opinion to reduce waste.

To continue creating products on the basis of petrochemicals

Is not embracing the full potential

Of the opportunities that we see elsewhere.

We're almost there that you can create packaging

That has nothing to do with plastics.

We're almost there.

If you can use less material,

For sure, that's always number one.

But for everything else, biodegradable

And bio-based plastic can be a good solution in the future.

People always say, like, "oh, molly, I thought of you.

I was at cvs, and I bought

A biodegradable shampoo bottle," and I'm like,

"I know exactly what you bought. It's not biodegradable."

Just 'cause something's made from corn or plants

Does not mean it's biodegradable.

So, we see a lot of things

Like Bio-P.E.T. On the market, for instance.

And Bio-P.E.T. Is the same carbon chain

That's in conventional P.E.T.,

And you're not using ancient fossil carbon

To make that material,

But it's the exact same carbon chain.

It's not gonna be biodegradable.

So, those two things are completely unrelated,

Biodegradable and bio-based.

But we really need to think about both

What we're going up against, the incumbent persistence,

Petrochemical-based plastics.

This is a massive infrastructure challenge.

Morawski: If we really want to completely transform

This industry, we have to create that demand

And say to the producers,

"you must buy this much recycled resin instead of virgin,

Then you're going to see demand.

Then you're going to see investment in recycling.

Now, that being said, it's not all about recycling.

I don't think we recycle our way out of this problem.

We've got to reduce and reuse our way out of this,

And that's definitely not what

Dow, and dupont, and 3m, and target,

And procter & gamble, and starbucks are thinking.

Simon: The question is, are we going to see

A world of multinationals in 20 or 30 years' time,

Or we want to see a world where, actually,

You have a lot more alternative delivery systems,

Business models that go a lot more small scale,

And actually building on the communities.

Priestland: The world that I hope to see

Is one where your beauty-care products or your drinks

Or whatever else that you're buying

Is coming in reusable packaging,

And we have more localized systems

So that we break free from these huge, multinational companies

Who have massive supply chains

That force them to rely on plastic packaging.

At least we can turn off the tap, right?

That's the least that we can do --

The very least that we can do.

People are thinking that prevention is radical,

Something that comes after recycling.

It's not it's supposed to be the essential thing

To do first and foremost.

There has to be a policy.

That's the only way that you can get massive-scale conversions

To single-use-plastic free.

Before we passed the plastic-bag reduction law in california,

This would have been full of plastic bags, too.

So, it's pretty awesome that there aren't very many

'cause those plastic bags are a nightmare.

They gummed up everything.

And it's a success story that gives us some ideas

About how we might deal with some of these other materials.

Timmermans: What we did is we looked at

Which single-use-plastics items

Could be easily replaced like straws,

Q-tips, plastic cutlery, plastic plates, et cetera,

So we could ban those products.

And then you have products that are not as easily replaceable.

There, you need to help industry

To try and develop other products

That could replace these products.

And, also, what has been very successful are programs

To recollect plastic bottles.

You get collection of over 90%.

All these things combined should be one strategy.

This is not a europe-centric or western-centric issue.

In some african countries,

Governments are willing to be more radical than europe

On single-use plastics.

Woman: Rwanda is a role model.

Since the ban was introduced 10 years ago,

Countries around the world have since also banned plastic bags.

Morawski: The public is happy to hear about these bans taking place.

And companies are really afraid.

They're suddenly realizing this is really serious.

Without the legislation, we have nothing.

Because then you're asking corporations

To voluntarily do the right thing.

They're not going to do that.

But if everybody is forced to do it, they all have to pay,

They're going to come together,

And those costs that were externalized in the past

And basically borne by poor communities

Suffering with all this marine litter or municipalities

Having to deal with expensive recycling and disposal programs

Or large incinerators that they have to keep feeding,

Those are externalized costs

That companies are profiting from.

Now we're going to give them back those costs and say,

"you know what? It's your problem now.

You deal with it.

Are you still going to do business

The same way you do business now,

Or are you going to redesign your product

So you're going to reduce those costs

And it's actually going to be more environmentally friendly?"

I believe we're at a tipping point right now.

I've seen more policy change globally

In the last 8 months

Than I've seen in 20 years of my career

Because not only are governments getting pissed off,

But companies are recognizing

They can't get away with it anymore.

Carpenter: So many parts of our economy,

So many places around the world are dependent

On this relatively small group of corporations

Who are making a tremendous amount of money

Poisoning the rest of us.

And, so, figuring out how to break out of that cycle.

That's the project of our lifetime.

Bourque: Plastics are treated as a product

That miraculously appears from nowhere,

And it goes to nowhere.

That invisibility, that magic nature of plastics

Is something that the oil and gas industry has perpetuated

And promoted very effectively for decades.

But what was once invisible is becoming visible.

The plastic crisis doesn't start

When the plastics enter the ocean.

It starts when the oil and the gas leave the wellhead

And it keeps on being a problem at every step along the way.

So, if you want to stop plastics,

If you want to truly confront the plastics crisis,

Fight to end fossil-fuel subsidies.

Make companies accountable for the lifecycle impacts

Of their products.

The moment that exxon, the moment that shell,

The moment that chevron and dow and dupont

Own the impacts of these products,

The plastics crisis will be over and not before then.

Now, it may be a kind of a token idea,

But I think that circular economy is possible.

Zero waste is possible.

Mafira: It's not reasonable at all

That we continue to live like this and expect to survive.

We're ruining the planet that gives us life,

And we're ruining the oceans that give us fish.

We're ruining the rivers that give us clean water.

I don't think they can keep on tricking people forever.

Captions by Vitac - www.Vitac.Com Captions paid for by Discovery Communications

Resynced & Improved by Namikage