Fwd: Drowning in plastic

0 views

Skip to first unread message

Loretta Lohman

unread,

Dec 3, 2025, 11:24:48 AM (3 days ago) Dec 3

to weather, land interest, select nemo, coriv, south, ark, slv

View in browser

Plastic pollution is already bad, and it’s only slated to get worse. A lot worse.

A new analysis of the rising tide of plastic is the subject of today’s newsletter. Plus, a widely-referenced study that calculated the impacts of climate change on the global economy has been retracted and California is copying New York and Boston as it tries to bring down the cost of heat pumps and induction stoves.

Did someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe to Green Daily for free climate news straight to your inbox six days a week.

Fake plastic planet

By Leslie Kaufman

Despite clear evidence that plastic is clogging oceans and beaches and breaking down into microplastics that enter our bodies, humans are continuing to produce the material at accelerating rates.

The result: Global plastic pollution will hit 280 million metric tons per year by 2040, or a dump truck’s worth every second.

That is one of the alarming statistics from Breaking the Plastic Wave 2025, a report by the Pew Charitable Trusts with ICF International. It offers a comprehensive assessment of plastic pollution and its effect on human health and the environment.

Plastic pellets at a Lego factory in Vietnam Photographer: Maika Elan/Bloomberg

In August, talks to forge an international treaty to rein in plastic pollution collapsed as countries that produce the majority of the material blocked proposals to limit the amount of new plastic created. Meanwhile, recycling rates have remained low.

If the world continues on the current trajectory, the outlook for 2040 is bleak, the report warns. Global production of new plastic is set to increase by 52%, twice as much as waste-management systems. Plastic-related greenhouse gas emissions are expected to surge by 58%, to 4.2 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year — enough that, if plastic production were a country, it would be the current third-largest emitter. At the root of the problem is the fact that plastics are mostly derived from fossil fuels.

Pew also modeled the global health impacts associated with the making and disposal of plastic (excluding microplastics) and related pollution. The authors estimate the world’s population will lose 5.6 million total years of healthy life in 2025 and 9.8 million years in 2040. Primary plastic production accounts for the majority of this via links to cancers and respiratory diseases.

Countries and communities already have tools at their disposal to reduce the manufacture and use of plastics drastically. They could mandate better product and packaging design and invest in infrastructure to support reuse. (Think of how milkmen would once deliver bottles of milk while carting away the used ones for cleaning and refilling.)

In Pew’s ideal scenario, subsidies for plastic production would be eliminated and waste collection would be greatly expanded. If that happened, nearly 100% of consumer packaging could be collected and recycling rates could double, the authors write.

However, the authors were overly optimistic in projecting that plastic recycling would grow substantially with different policies in place. said Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics and a former Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator.

“There’s a good reason why the plastics recycling rate has never reached double digits,” she said. “It’s because its chemical and polymer complexity makes large-scale recycling technically and economically infeasible. We’re wasting valuable time by relying on a system that has not worked for decades.”

Read the full story. To access in-depth investigations into plastic pollution and its consequences, subscribe to Bloomberg News.

Compounding woes

16,000

The number of chemical compounds in plastics. At least a quarter are known to be harmful to human health.

A problematic solution

“There’s no evidence we can see that they work. Biodegradability is not a panacea.”

Mark Miodownik

Professor of materials and society, University College London

More countries are banning plastics that decompose due to a range of issues, from poor standards to signs that they simply break down into microplastics.

Retraction watch

By Ishika Mookerjee and Alastair Marsh

Vehicles damaged by flash floods in Spain Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg

A widely-referenced study that calculated the impacts of climate change on the global economy has been retracted after criticism from peers.

Scientists from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research took down the paper — published in April 2024 in Nature — citing “substantial” issues.

The authors initially reviewed and amended the study in August this year after an article published in the same journal said its findings were exaggerated. But the amendments, which indicated a smaller economic impact than first suggested, were ultimately judged to be too fundamental to be addressed through a simple correction. What’s more, the corrected paper showed that the conclusions were prone to greater uncertainty than first indicated.

The original paper was cited by the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, among others, and served as a foundation for climate scenarios used by policymakers across the globe.

The decision to retract the paper will also have repercussions for the Network for Greening the Financial System, an influential global coalition of central banks and financial supervisors. When NGFS last year updated its scenarios for modeling the economic toll of climate risks, it used the Potsdam research for its new so-called damage function on which estimated economic impacts are based.

Read the full story on Bloomberg.com.

Mixed messages

Chefs cook on induction stoves. Photographer: Andy Sewell/Bloomberg

California is joining New York and Boston to spur a market for affordable electric heat pumps and induction stoves to decarbonize housing, with the state’s Public Utilities Commission allocating $115 million over six years to generate business for makers of small heat pumps and battery-equipped induction stoves that can be plugged into standard outlets without requiring expensive electrical upgrades.

The project is part of a program approved in 2019 to lower the barriers to the adoption of new energy-efficient technologies, which are often more expensive than their less-efficient counterparts. The program is particularly focused on improving accessibility for lower-income residents.

Meanwhile the Trump administration is eliminating incentives for energy-efficient appliances and wants to “unleash” industrial diesel generators to meet rising power demand from data centers. The US government is also making moves to revoke a permit for the New England 1 wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts.

Read the full story to find out how the program will work for multifamily homes.

More from Green

A computer rendering of the inside of TerraPower's traveling wave reactor.

TerraPower is planning to begin construction on a next-generation nuclear reactor in Wyoming by the second quarter after completing key regulatory steps six months ahead of schedule.

The company, founded by billionaire Bill Gates, expects the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to issue a construction permit by February for its 345-megawatt reactor, Chief Executive Officer Chris Levesque said in an interview. The agency completed safety reviews for the project Monday and an environmental impact statement in October.

The faster-than-expected review follows US President Donald Trump’s efforts to encourage wider deployment of nuclear power to meet surging demand for electricity. He’s pushed the NRC to streamline its approval process, which is widely seen by the industry as a major bottleneck. The move is raising some concerns from critics.

Read the full story on Bloomberg.com and subscribe for unlimited access to stories on how the US is responding to the AI-driven increase in energy demand.

Thailand’s government set out plans for new carbon taxes and an emissions trading system under the country’s first formal climate change legislation, which aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions 47% by 2035, from 2019 levels.

Vietnamese authorities plan to use AI-integrated traffic cameras and other remote monitoring systems to clamp down on polluting or expired vehicles and the illegal burning of garbage.

Poland, the EU’s most coal-reliant state, would be better off putting its ambitious offshore plans on the backburner and to prioritize cheaper land wind power, said Grzegorz Onichimowski, chief executive officer of state power grid PSE.

Photo finish

Floods in Sri Lanka Source: European Union, Copernicus Emergency Management Service

Cyclone Ditwah made landfall in Southeast Asia over the weekend, claiming nearly 1,000 lives across the region. Authorities in Sri Lanka say it’s the “largest and most challenging natural disaster” the nation’s ever faced, with flooded roads and inhabited areas visible from space.