LA TRIBUNE – In your opinion, is the treaty currently being negotiated in Busan, Korea, a good signal sent to the world regarding plastic pollution?
ROSALIE MANN – Finally, let’s talk about it! But 50 years late… Because already in 1970, the harmful effects of plastic on health were known. This treaty has the benefit of putting the subject on the table, but let’s not forget that more than 200 lobbyists are also on site. This is understandable: the plastic industry is the oil and gas industry. With the energy transition, this industry is moving towards recycling, towards the production of polymers so as not to lose market share. However, plastic is now introduced into the mouths of our children, in our daily lives. The citizen has a positive vision of recycling. But the burden of recycling has been placed on citizens for more than 30 years, when the real problem is the intensive production of plastic.
The Busan Treaty intends to encourage the use of recycled plastic in new products. But for you, this is heresy…
Using recycled plastic is not a solution, it is even worse since recycled plastic is even more dangerous than original plastic. As Nathalie Gontard says (research director at INRAE and author of “Plastic, the great runaway”, ed), plastic cannot be recycled, it is recycled. Do not make a plastic water bottle from another plastic water bottle, but with several plastic bottles. Closed recycling does not work. We do not live in the digital age but in the plastic age. We consume plastic without moderation.
What would be the first thing to do to avoid the excessive use of plastic?
The subject you ask is that of the single plastic. In 2023, 460 million tons of plastic will be produced. 38% concerns packaging. We are right to be interested in packaging, but we must consider another sector, that of textiles, which is the second industry that consumes the most plastic. We have introduced PET in our clothing, both luxury industry clothing and fast fashion. With wear, polystyrene releases micro and nano particles that lodge in our brain, in the placenta… Ecology has become the Holy Grail, but we are ecologists in a virtuous way, becoming aware of the living. We are approaching Christmas and it is important to say that the plastic tree pollutes more – even more if it is old – than the tree from sustainably managed forests. The same goes for toys, an industry heavily dependent on plastic.
The Busan Treaty provides for a tax paid by producers of polymers…
We have to go further and even tax those who use it. We need to make consumers aware. The biggest producer of plastic is China, but China produces plastic because the demand is there.
In France, several recycling plant projects, expected to see the light in certain regions, end up not seeing the light of day…
This is good news: these types of initiatives delay investments where they should be made, in glass, for example. We have all the elements to produce a light and unbreakable glass. Since 1975, Coca-Cola has known that glass reused more than 15 times is more environmentally friendly than plastic and costs less. This is one of the arguments listed in the complaint, presented last September, by the governor of California against Exxon Mobil for having led misleading campaigns on recycling.
Draw a parallel with tobacco. For what ?
For decades, toxic plastic-based products have been recommended. And as with tobacco, some will realize that they have been deceived. Our company is absolutely looking for a perfect alternative to plastic, while the solutions are there and they are called wood, glass or wool… They are not solutions of the past, but solutions of the future.
