German consumers religiously return their bottles under the bottle deposit scheme. But how exactly does it work? And is it a model other countries could follow?

It’s Saturday morning and people are queuing with bags full of bottles and cans at a supermarket in the German city of Cologne. But they’re not buying. Instead, they are returning them.

The process is easy. When they bought their drinks, the shoppers paid a deposit on top of the cost of the beverage itself — the so-called Pfand. When they return their bottles and cans to the store, they get their money back.

“Before 2003, some 3 billion disposable beverage containers were dumped in the environment every year,” Thomas Fischer, head of circular economy at NGO Environmental Action Germany (DUH), told DW.

These days, the country boasts a returns rate of above 98%. “It’s impossible to reach a higher rate,” Fischer said. 

There are two types of bottles in Germany’s Pfand system. The first, which have producer-set deposit prices ranging from €0.08 to €0.25 ($0.29), can be reused multiple times and can be made from glass or PET plastic. The second are single-use containers, which as the name suggests, are only used once before they’re recycled. On these, the deposit price is fixed by the government at €0.25.

Though for consumers, the Pfand system is a simple case of putting empties into a machine, what happens thereafter is a bit more complex.

Adventurous bottles

When a refillable bottle of, say, cola, is returned to the supermarket, it marks the start of a long journey.

The horizontal white line (left bottle) is a sign that the bottle has been reused

A drinks wholesaler transports it to a sorting facility with a truckload of empties, where it is put with other bottles of the same shape before being taken to a producer that uses that particular type of bottle. There, it is cleaned, refilled and delivered back to a shop shelf for repurchase. 

Such a glass bottle can be refilled up to 50 times without losing quality, the state-run German Environment Agency (UBA) says. For reusable plastic bottles, it puts the re-use rate at 25. 

Single-use bottles follow a different path. Once they’ve been collected in-store, they’re packed off to a recycling plant, where they’re shredded and turned into pellets to be made into new plastic bottles, textiles or other plastic objects, such as detergent containers.

Which option is better for the environment?

The deposit system for both reusable and single-use bottles saves raw materials, energy and CO2 emissions — mainly because it reduces the fossil fuels used to produce new bottles, Gerhard Kotschik, packaging expert with UBA, told DW.

And recycling single-use bottles — as opposed to a sack of mixed plastics — results in food-grade material. On this basis, discount supermarkets, such as Aldi and Lidl, mostly sell single-use containers, claiming their recycling activities are good for the environment. 

“Compared to the situation a few years ago, we use up to 70% less virgin PET material,” a Lidl spokesperson told DW.

This is what returns machines look like in most German supermarkets

This, however, has led to the growing popularity of single-use items. “If we want to be competitive, we have to offer our drinks in discount stores,” Uwe Kleinert, head of sustainability at Coca-Cola Germany, told DW.

Coca-Cola’s use of reusable bottles slipped from 56% to 42% in 2015, according to figures from the DUH. The company joins PepsiCo as one of the world’s biggest plastic polluters, found  Break Free from Plastic, a coalition of NGOs working to reduce plastic waste. In Germany, however, many of Coca-Cola’s beverages do appear in reusable plastic bottles, and some in glass.   

The Schwarz Group, to which the discounter Lidl belongs, now produces single-use bottles for its own products. According to the company, it uses recycled PET. Only the labels and the lid are not made of 100% recycled plastic, they say. 

Nevertheless, environmentalists say that reusable bottles are generally more environmentally friendly than single-use packaging. According to the DUH, single-use plastic bottles made from 100% recycled material still only make up a small share of the market. In addition, material is lost in every recycling process, according to the DUH. There is no closed loop whereby material can be converted into a new product indefinitely without losing any of its properties. 

Production of most of these bottles also still requires raw materials derived from fossil fuels. “On average, single-use PET bottles in Germany contain 26% of recycled material,” Fischer said.

In addition, reusable plastic bottles are also shredded into reusable PET granules, said Gerhard Kotschik of the UBA. This happens when a bottle has reached its refill quota, i.e. when it can no longer be reused in its original form. 

“We always recommend buying reusable beverage containers from the region,” Kotschik told DW, adding that recycling only becomes the best option once a bottle has reached its refill quota. “Even better, however, is to avoid waste altogether.”

Confusion over labeling

Unlike for single-use bottles, there is no mandatory uniform symbol for reusable bottles and labeling may vary to include terms like “returnable bottle,” “deposit bottle,” “returnable” or “reusable bottle.”

Retailers must mark whether bottles are single or multi-use on their store shelves, but for a shop or supermarket selling only single-use bottles, one sign in-store is enough. Environmental organizations such as the German NGO Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) criticize this as insufficient.

Deposit systems’ infrastructure, particularly for reusable bottles, makes its introduction challenging

While most consumers in Germany now recognize whether a bottle is single or multi-use, 42% of people still think that all deposit bottles — including single-use bottles — are refilled, according to a recent survey.  

Who benefits from the deposit-return system?

Stores that only sell single-use bottles avoid the logistic costs connected to reusables and they also benefit from the recycling and onward sale of high-grade PET.

“You have to pay more for recycled PET than for virgin PET made from oil,” Kleinert said, but it’s key to achieving environmental targets.

The business is becoming so lucrative that Lidl has even set up its own recycling group. Fischer said “every bottle is a gift” for discount stores. 

Stores must clearly write down if the bottles are single-use (einweg) or reusable ones (mehrweg)

Even unreturned empties — both refillable and single-use — spell profits for the stores that sold them. With 16.4 billion single-use bottles flooding the German drinks market every year, the 1.5% that are never taken back can translate into profits of as much as €180 million for retailers.

A model for other countries? 

German state environment agency UBA said there is no silver bullet for all countries and that each context has to be closely evaluated to decide what works best. But big companies that have long opposed the introduction of deposit systems are beginning to change their position.

“We support well-designed, industry-owned deposit return schemes across Europe where no proven successful alternatives exist,” Wouter Vermeulen, senior director of Coca-Cola public policy center for Europe, told DW in an email.

Cesar Sanchez, a spokesperson for Retorna, a Spanish NGO pushing for bottle deposit schemes, believes this is a response to social pressure and stricter European legislation on single-use plastic — by 2029, 90% of plastic bottles must be collected separately for recycling.

“Society is demanding solutions and I think deposit return schemes will soon arrive in Spain and all other countries,” he said.

Even in Germany, environmental groups are pushing for the deposit scheme to be rolled out to include all kinds of glass and carton packaging, such as Tetra Paks. 

“It would also be possible to develop these containers for jam or honey,” Fischer said. “All products can be reusable, and that’s what we want.” 

• 

  Inside an attempt to live without plastic packaging

  Less edible, more functional

  These liquid soaps and cleaning liquids on the other hand are not for drinking. They don’t all smell divine either, but they serve a purpose. Two in fact, given that, besides cleaning, they also remove the need to buy their plastic-wrapped factory-made counterparts.

• 

  Inside an attempt to live without plastic packaging

  Cosmetics with a difference

  Berlin now has two shops that sell unpackaged ingredients for making your own cosmetics and cleaning products, and the internet has an endless supply of suggested combinations for soft, sweet-smelling skin. What’s not to like?

• 

  Inside an attempt to live without plastic packaging

  The proof of the pudding…

  … because you genuinely could eat it all. That’s not to say it would taste good or necessarily be nutritious, but it is testimony to the natural nature of many make-your-own potions, lotions and creams. And not a tube or plastic bottle in sight.

• 

  Inside an attempt to live without plastic packaging

  Teething problems

  As with cosmetics, there are many recipes for homemade toothpaste online. But if that’s an (understandably) acquired taste too far, it’s possible to get hold of minty tooth tabs either loose or in paper bags. These can be used with a bamboo toothbrush, and if you really want to go for it, complemented with a length of all-natural floss.

• 

  Inside an attempt to live without plastic packaging

  The hard stuff

  Keeping clean doesn’t have to involve a row of plastic bottles. Soap, which predates shower gel by donkey’s years, has always been widely available. But even solid shampoos and conditioners are becoming easier to get hold of. And for all their hard exterior, they have a soft touch.

• 

  Inside an attempt to live without plastic packaging

  Bags of potential

  Supermarkets still have rolls and rolls of those thin plastic bags for customers to use to carry fruit and veg home. Once there, the vast majority are immediately disposed of. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, and even said supermarkets must be cottoning on, because they are also starting to sell cloth bags for the same purpose.

• 

  Inside an attempt to live without plastic packaging

  Totes to last

  And while we are on the subject of bags… Plastic carriers have not been banned in Germany, although some shops have taken it on themselves to stop offering them. It’s not as if there are no alternatives. It’s just a matter of having them with you when needed.

• 

  Inside an attempt to live without plastic packaging

  Paper all the way

  Alternatives are harder to come by in the world of toilet paper and tissues. Given their destiny, the need to wrap them in plastic reads like one of life’s little mysteries. It’s for the sake of hygiene, manufacturers have been known to note. Really?

  Author: Tamsin Walker

Edited by: Tamsin Walker and Jennifer Collins 

All around the world the remnants of a global pandemic are testing the resolve of governments and private firms to rid the planet of its waste.

MARSEILLE, France — Pascal Hagmann lowered a manta trawl — a ray-shaped, metal device with a wide mouth and a fine-meshed net — off the side of his sailboat and into the blue waters off the coast of Marseille, France. Then he motored around at 3 knots. The manta trawl skimmed along the surface, taking in gulps of seawater and catching whatever was floating inside it.

“Maybe there will be [plastic], maybe not, you never know,” Hagmann, founder and CEO of the Swiss citizen science NGO OceanEye, told me in September as he steered his 40-foot (12-meter) sailboat, Daisy. “It depends on the surface currents and also on the weather forecast.”

After 30 minutes, Hagmann and Laurianne Trimoulla, OceanEye’s communication manager, tugged the manta trawl back on board. They took it apart and inspected the net.

“This blue here definitely is one,” said Trimoulla, pointing with the end of a screwdriver at a small piece of plastic. “And then there is a film — packaging wrap.”

Back at harbor, Hagmann went below deck to look at the sample under a microscope. He gestured to the eyepiece. “Have a look,” he said.

I squinted through the lens. There was a collage of plankton, blue threads of plastic fishing line, and white and green plastic particles. Some of these were nurdles, raw plastic pellets used as feedstock to manufacture an array of plastic products, from drink bottles to plastic bags to car parts.

“This is the point that I think is really frightening,” Hagmann said. “This pollution is just everywhere.”

The Mediterranean is considered to be one of the most polluted bodies of water in the world, with hundreds of tons of plastic blowing into the sea, mainly from land, every single year. One study published in 2015 in PLOS ONE put the amount of plastic pollution in the surface waters of the Mediterranean on par with what’s found in the accumulation zones of the five subtropical ocean gyres, including a collection of debris in the North Pacific gyre that’s known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

A number of governments and intergovernmental organizations are trying to address this issue with policies and treaties that would hold companies and nations responsible for the plastic they use, transport and discard. But as of yet, none of these efforts seem to be stemming the tide of plastic steadily pouring into the Mediterranean.

‘Plastic trap’

About 20% of the plastic swirling around the Mediterranean comes from the vessels that crisscross the sea year-round, as well as from fishing and aquaculture activities, according to a 2018 WWF report. The other 80% comes from the land, the report says. Mercedes Muñoz, who manages activities related to plastic pollution at the IUCN, a global conservation authority, said the land-based plastic pollution is largely due to inconsistent waste management schemes.

“The collection of municipal solid waste is still a significant issue in most south Mediterranean countries,” Muñoz told Mongabay in an interview via phone and email. “Only a few countries have reached full waste collection coverage.”

For instance, one study found that Lebanon, which has 225 kilometers (140 miles) of Mediterranean coastline, only properly disposes of 48% of its waste. The rest is dumped outside landfills or burned, and as a result, much ends up in the sea. A 2018 NPR report even found that developers in Lebanon have been deliberately dumping thousands of tons of trash into the sea as a way to reclaim land from the ocean.

Turkey is known to be the biggest contributor to plastic pollution in the Mediterranean, allowing about 144 metric tons to enter the sea every day, according to the WWF report.

Once plastic has entered the Mediterranean Sea, it tends to stay there because of the sea’s semi-enclosed shape and the currents that only move water out via a deep-water layers. It’s a “plastic trap,” as the WWF report puts it.

Plastic will also change shape, breaking into smaller and smaller pieces. Any fragment smaller than 5 millimeters, about three-sixteenths of an inch, is considered a microplastic. Some of these microplastics will remain in the surface waters, while others will drift through the water column, travel with the currents and settle on the seafloor.

“The concentration [of plastic pollution] in the Med is pretty bad,” Lucile Courtial, executive director of Monaco-based NGO Beyond Plastic Med, told Mongabay in a phone interview. “If we don’t act on it, it will [become] much worse.”

A 2020 report released by the IUCN, to which OceanEye contributed data, suggests that the Mediterranean has already accumulated nearly ​​1.2 million metric tons of plastic. A recent United Nations report says that 730 metric tons of plastic waste end up in the Mediterranean Sea every single day, and that plastic could outweigh fish stocks in the near future. However, some experts say there is an ongoing need for more data to understand if plastic pollution in the Mediterranean is increasing or decreasing.

The WWF report also suggests that plastic pollution is costing the EU fishing fleet about 61.7 million euros ($70.7 million) every year because of a “reduction in fish catch, damage to vessels or reduced seafood demand due to concern about fish quality.”

‘Gaps in the whole chain’

One of the most rigorous agreements in place to address the global issue of plastic pollution is the Basel Convention, the U.N. treaty formulated in 1989 to regulate the international shipment of hazardous waste. In 2019, an amendment to the Basel Convention added plastic to the other kinds of waste the convention regulates, with changes scheduled to take effect in 2021.

Rolph Payet, executive secretary of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm conventions, said the amendment allows countries to holds companies accountable for any plastic they transport or trade through the enactment of national laws and norms.

“We identify gaps in the whole chain because some people are saying, ‘Yes, we are disposing, we are doing very well,’” Payet told Mongabay in September at the IUCN Congress in Marseille. “But then we find the bottles in the ocean, right? So this will help to narrow down where the problems are and help … companies be more accountable in terms of their waste.”

However, a major gap in the effectiveness of the Basel Convention is the fact that the United States has not yet joined the Basel Convention, despite being a major exporter of hazardous waste, including plastic, worldwide. Right now, the U.S. is the only major nation that has not implemented the Basel Convention.

Payet said that the U.N. plans to use OceanEye’s data, as well as other global data sets, to help establish a baseline for the amount of plastic in the Mediterranean that can be used in the future to determine if the Basel Convention is having a positive impact on the regulation of plastic. However, he added that it may take a few years before these effects can be seen since countries are still working to implement the new rules.

Another policy aiming to address the issue of plastic pollution in the Mediterranean is the Regional Plan on Marine Litter Management (RPML), which was adopted by contracting parties to the Barcelona Convention, including the European Union, in 2013. In short, the plan legally requires parties to “prevent and reduce marine litter and plastic pollution in the Mediterranean” and to remove as much existing marine litter as possible.

Then there’s the European Union’s recent ban on many kinds of single-use plastics, including cotton bud sticks, cutlery and beverage stirrers, as part of the EU’s transition to a “circular economy.” When EU member states cannot ban these items, they need to implement an “ambitious and sustained reduction,” according to the directive.

But are countries abiding by these policies and enforcing them? Courtial said these are tricky questions to answer.

“In general, we need regulations and guidelines and these kinds of treaties so that countries actually try to [achieve] the goals that are there,” she said. “The main problem … is that there is no real way of enforcing the countries to actually respect it, and implement the different actions or activities.”

Courtial added that it’s difficult to coordinate an effort between the 22 countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, especially as the countries are in different stages of economic development.

“Some of the countries have more problems trying to feed their people, so dealing with plastic waste is really not a priority,” she said. “That’s what makes it really difficult.”

Experts are placing a lot of hope in a possible U.N. treaty that would legally require parties to address the entire life cycle of plastics, from production to disposal.

Muñoz says this treaty would be a “great step forward and very needed” since there needs to be more international cooperation on the issue.

“We always say that the Earth is just one big ocean,” she said. “What happens on one side will probably have some impact on another part. So we need international commitments that are aligned and they’re working together to reduce the problem.”

But the U.N. treaty has yet to come to fruition — and it is also not clear how effective it would be at stopping plastic from spilling into the Mediterranean.

‘That’s why we carry on’

 While research shows that the Mediterranean holds a considerable amount of plastic, some experts say more data is needed to fully understand the complexities of the issue. For instance, Hagmann said there’s still not enough data to understand how plastic pollution is dispersed across the Mediterranean and how the levels of pollution might change over time.

The need for this data is what motivated Hagmann to repurpose his recreational sailboat to become a citizen science vessel 10 years ago, and start cruising through the Mediterranean with a manta trawl to collect samples from the water’s surface. He also recruited a network of volunteers operating 10 other vessels to gather additional plastic pollution data, not only in the Mediterranean, but also in the Arctic and Atlantic.

Hagmann, who has an engineering background, says OceanEye’s mission is to contribute data to intergovernmental organizations that are monitoring plastic pollution and actively working on solutions. Already, OceanEye’s data have been used by the European Commission, United Nations and the IUCN in their databases and reports.

Hagmann and his volunteers focus on surface trawls, using the sampling protocol formulated by environmental scientist Marcus Eriksen, co-founder of the California-based plastic pollution research institute 5 Gyres.

In June and July, Hagmann and a small crew sailed Daisy around the Adriatic Sea, taking some data samples near coastlines and others in open water, depending on weather conditions and cargo routes. Then, in September, immediately following the IUCN Congress in Marseille, the OceanEye crew sailed through the central Mediterranean to collect additional samples. So far, only the samples from the Adriatic expedition have been processed at OceanEye’s lab in Geneva.

Hagmann said the processed samples contain “particularly high concentrations of plastic” of more than a million particles weighing 1,000 grams per square kilometer, or about 91 ounces per square mile. But the final results, he said, still need further interpretation and analysis by outside experts.

“We provide the data … and then it’s [out of] our hands,” said Trimoulla of OceanEye. But she said she’s optimistic that the organization’s work will have a positive effect, arguing that the more data they provide to various bodies, the bigger the impact these bodies can muster.

“That’s why we carry on,” she said. “We have to.”

Citations:

Alessi, E., & Di Carlo, G. (2018). Out of the plastic trap: saving the Mediterranean from plastic pollution. Retrieved from WWF Mediterranean Marine Initiative website: http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/a4_plastics_med_web_08june_new.pdf

Boucher, J., & Billard, G. (2020). The Mediterranean: Mare plasticum. Retrieved from IUCN website: https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/2020-030-En.pdf

Cózar, A., Sanz-Martín, M., Martí, E., González-Gordillo, J. I., Ubeda, B., Gálvez, J. Á., … Duarte, C. M. (2015). Plastic accumulation in the Mediterranean Sea. PLOS ONE, 10(4), e0121762. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0121762

Mediterranean Action Plan and Plan Bleu. (2020). Retrieved from United Nations Environment Programme website: https://planbleu.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/SoED_full-report.pdf

Banner image caption: Trash-filled plastic bags in the ocean. Image by SMR / Pixahive (CC0 License)

Elizabeth Claire Alberts is a staff writer for Mongabay. Follow her on Twitter @ECAlberts.

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On the penultimate day of COP26, scientists have deployed plastic pollution tracking devices into the ocean around Scotland.

The devices will help scientists understand how plastic bottles move in the ocean and their interaction with climate change impacts, wildlife and weather patterns.

The “Message in a Bottle” tracking project is being run by the Arribada Initiative, the University of Exeter, the University of Plymouth and ZSL (the Zoological Society of London), with support from #OneLess and OneOcean.

Designed to mimic a single-use plastic drinks bottle, the devices will respond to currents and winds as real bottles do.

Stage one of the project launched on World Ocean Day (8 June) during the G7 in Cornwall, and has already seen seven devices travel hundreds of miles over the past five months.

In stage two, the four new tracking devices could pass over deep ocean trenches, across major migratory routes for marine mammals and birds, possibly beaching on distant shores.

A recent study released by ZSL and Bangor University revealed links between the global climate crisis and plastic pollution, including the impact of extreme weather worsening the distribution of microplastics into pristine and remote areas.

With all eyes on COP26 nearing its completion in Glasgow, the four devices have been named “Heat,” “Acidity” “Deoxygenation” and “Pollution” to draw attention to the need to adequately address these ocean crises in tandem and to ensure that a recurring ocean climate dialog is fundamental to future COPs.

Professor Heather Koldewey, of ZSL and the University of Exeter, lead scientist on the project and Director of the #OneLess campaign, said: “Through our research we’ve seen that plastic and climate change are fundamentally and intrinsically linked.

“Plastic is made from fossil fuels, generating greenhouse gasses at every step of its life cycle and the impact of both plastic pollution and climate change are both prevalent around the world.

“These crises are truly interconnected. There is only one ocean and by tracking the flow of plastics we are trying to demonstrate the connectedness and the wide-reaching impact that humans are having on our planet.

“There is an urgency to acknowledge that the climate crisis is the ocean crisis.”

Mirella von Lindenfels, Director of the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO), said: “The ocean regulates our climate and buffers us from the full force of climate change by absorbing our excess heat and over a third of our CO₂ emissions.

“Any irreversible and significant changes to the ocean could have profound economic and ecological consequences.

“We have named our new bottles “Heat, Acidity, Deoxygenation and Pollution’ to highlight how these climate-driven impacts on the ocean will affect life on Earth.

“As new research reveals, climate change cannot be treated independently of the marine plastic crisis, so must be tackled in tandem to synergistically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

Dr. Phil Hosegood, Associate Professor in Physical Oceanography at the University of Plymouth, said: “The bottles released during the G7 have already shown how plastics released offshore readily find their way back to our coastlines.

“Released off the coasts of Cornwall, they washed up on beaches not just nearby but also in the Channel Islands and France.

“It demonstrates a strong connectivity between currents in the open ocean and those flowing along our shores and beaches.

“However, it also shows this isn’t an issue one nation can tackle alone, but that actions taken locally to prevent waste flowing from land to ocean could have a positive impact on our planet as a whole.”

Over 359 million tons of plastic is produced annually and production has been predicted to double in the next 20 years.

With more than 40% of this amount allocated for single-use applications some groups, such as London’s #OneLess campaign, have decided to start tackling the plastic pollution problem close to home.

Over the past six years #OneLess has catalyzed a change in the way Londoners drink water, from single-use plastic water bottles to refilling and reusing.

“Through our collaborative approach to this issue we’ve managed to bring together individuals, businesses, local authorities and the Mayor of London to identify the barriers to reducing plastic pollution and strategically choose actions that are turning the tide on single-use plastic water bottles in London,” said Professor Koldewey.

“We’ve shown that that there are very tangible and immediate steps we can all take to reducing the amount of plastic that ends up in our waterways and eventually the ocean.”

The launch of the latest group of devices also coincides with COP26’s Cities Day.

The group hopes that this latest data on the movement of ocean plastic will inspire other cities across the globe to take steps to curb single-use plastic pollution for the sake of our ocean.

The #OneLess campaign works with scientists, businesses, visitor attractions and governments to reduce the reliance on and numbers of single use plastic water bottles.

They have recently launched a practical guide aimed at organizations, campaigns and cities around the world that are interested in #OneLess as a systems change approach to environmental conservation.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio — A report released Wednesday by the Ohio River Valley Institute says that changing market forces are likely to impede the growth of the petrochemicals industry across Appalachia.

The report, “Poor Economics for Virgin Plastics: Petrochemicals Will Not Provide Sustainable Business Opportunities in Appalachia,” points to several factors that will hamper the expansion and development of new petrochemical complexes across the region.

Among these are environmental concerns from consumers and investors over pollution caused by petrochemicals such as polyethylene – the core feedstock produced by ethane “cracker” plants.

Royal Dutch Shell is in the process of constructing a $6 billion petrochemicals facility along the Ohio River near Monaca, Pa. A second plant along the river in Belmont County, Ohio, is under consideration by Thailand-based PTT Global, but plans for that project have not moved forward.

The Shell project has created nearly 10,000 construction jobs since work began four years ago. Once completed, the petrochemicals complex is likely to employ more than 500. The ethane cracker produces plastic polyethylene pellets that are used in countless consumer products.

Yet, “the long-term financial future for virgin plastics is poor,” said Kathy Hipple, one of the study’s authors. “The oil and gas industry, particularly natural-gas producers in Appalachia that have struggled for a decade, have ample reasons to support a petrochemical build out. But that should not dictate what is best for the region and its citizens.”

Others refute the report.

“No one is surprised that this anti-oil and gas industry group released yet another so called report saying disparaging things about the industry,” Mike Chadsey, spokesman for the Ohio Oil and Gas Association said in a statement. “While flipping through their document, it is clear that they only say no, no to oil and gas and no to petrochemicals and no to plastics, yet do not offer another alternative. No is not an energy policy. On the other hand, the oil and gas industry continues to take a more positive approach to the valley, yes to jobs, yes to investments and yes to continuing to make this a great place to live, work and raise a family.” 

According to a study from JobsOhio, Ohio ranks No. 1 in plastics and polymer output and the top consumer of polyolefin in the Midwest.

The report emphasizes that the Appalachian feedstock pool is limited, and a tighter ethane market and producers’ ability to access export markets via expanded capacity at Marcus Hook will likely push regional ethane prices too high to for new ethane crackers to be competitive.

Moreover, the report noted that China, once the primary importer of U.S. ethylene, is now leveraging tariffs and making it difficult for producers to export to that country. Instead, China is racing toward supply self-sufficiency. “Accelerating overseas capacity additions and lower-than-expected Asian import demand could create a significant overhang of U.S. capacity,” the report notes.

As such, the report states that prospective investors have been hesitant to fund major new projects, since expansion in the Ohio River Valley and Appalachia could result in stranded assets.

“Over the past decade, it might have made economic sense to build out the domestic petrochemical industry,” the report states. “This is no longer the case. Between China’s 2017 ban on imports of plastic waste and intensifying pressure to replace difficult-to-recycle plastics with environmentally friendly alternatives, the economic rationale for expanding the virgin plastics industry no longer exists.”

Pictured: Royal Dutch Shell is in the process of constructing a $6 billion petrochemicals facility along the Ohio River near Monaca, Pa.

Copyright 2021 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.