Plastic is Carbon: Debunking Top 5 'Net Zero' Myths

Plastic is carbon.

Plastics begin as a fossil fuel, and greenhouse gases are emitted at every stage of their lifecycle: oil and gas extraction and transport, plastic production and manufacture, plastic waste management or incineration, and plastic pollution in our environment.

Despite such undeniable link between the two, there have been growing industries' attempt to "greenwash" growing plastic production and use. Specifically, according to the report published by the Center for International Environmental Law, industry greenwashing efforts largely hinge upon the following five "cellophane-thin," flawed arguments to portray plastic as part of the climate solution:

---

Myth #1: Plastic production can be emissions-free by using clean energy and carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Response: Plastic is carbon, so zero-emissions plastic is impossible.

Plastic is made from fossil fuels, and fossil fuel production is inherently emissions-intense. Proposals to produce “zero-emissions” plastic do nothing to address emissions from oil and gas drilling, transport, and refining. Plastic production cannot be electrified; it relies on hydrogen and methane, which are themselves derived from fossil fuels. Most emissions come from on-site combustion of fuels in the manufacturing process, not from electricity drawn from the grid. Replacing that fuel with clean energy would not address the byproducts from chemical reactions in the plastic production process, such as the methane generated in steam-cracking oil and gas into the precursors to plastics like ethylene. Contrary to industry assertions, carbon capture and storage (CCS) does not offer a technological quick-fix for process emissions. Equipping plastics production facilities with carbon capture technology is neither feasible nor effective. CCS projects have repeatedly failed to deliver promised reductions. The technology remains unworkable at scale, prohibitively expensive, and ill-suited for many industrial applications, including in the chemicals sector. A recent study of the potential for CCS to abate industrial emissions in the U.S. found that carbon capture was economically viable in less than 10% of the 1,500 industrial facilities initially considered, even when subsidies were taken into account. CCS dramatically increases energy use, exacerbating pollution in fenceline communities, while creating new environmental, health, and safety risks, such as lethal explosions and leaks from CO2 pipelines.

TAKEAWAY: THE ONLY WAY TO ZERO OUT EMISSIONS FROM PLASTIC IS TO ZERO OUT PLASTICS.

Myth #2: Plastic waste can be a carbon-free fuel.

Response: Burning plastic releases its carbon, a process commonly known as “incineration.”

Using plastic waste as an energy source is no better for the climate than using other fossil fuels. Waste-to-energy is just incineration by another name: Burning plastic emits 2.9 kg of CO2e for every kg of plastic burned. Converting plastics to synthetic fuels—via pyrolysis, gasification, or other “chemical recycling” techniques—and then burning them just adds another energy-intensive step to the incineration process. Proposals to turn plastic waste-derived synthetic fuels into hydrogen do little more than displace emissions from one process to another. These emissions are likely as bad as or worse than simply burning the plastic to begin with. A recent study showed that so-called “blue hydrogen”—hydrogen produced from methane—generates more greenhouse gases than burning the methane or other fossil fuel directly as an energy source. Hydrogen drawn from the cracking process is no cleaner, as it is similarly fossil-derived.

TAKEAWAY: IF WE DON’T WANT ADDITIONAL GREENHOUSE GASES, WE SHOULDN’T BURN PLASTIC.

Myth #3: Plastics can be made without oil and gas and become a carbon sink.

Response: Traditional plastic is bad for the climate; plastic made from CCS and hydrogen could be worse.

Making plastics from carbon dioxide and hydrogen has been pitched as a “net zero” win-win. According to proponents, carbon captured from other emissions sources can replace fossil feedstocks to make plastic, and those plastics then act as a “carbon sink.” But making plastics from captured carbon dioxide neither makes those plastics “clean” nor locks away the carbon for good, as all plastic releases its embedded carbon when it is incinerated or degrades. The process of capturing carbon dioxide and producing the hydrogen generates carbon emissions, producing no net benefit when compared to virgin fossil fuel plastic production. Proposals to make plastics from atmospherically captured carbon dioxide, obtained from direct air capture (known as “DAC”) are well beyond the realm of economic viability. Moreover, the massive amounts of energy required to power DAC would either come from fossil fuels—resulting in a massive new source of greenhouse emissions—or would require enormous diversions of renewable energy that could otherwise be used to avoid carbon emissions. Furthermore, many additives essential to the plastic production process are themselves derived from fossil fuels, so it is fanciful to think that plastic can be “fossil-free.” Even if it were feasible to produce plastic at scale without carbon emissions, plastic itself is not a carbon sink, because plastic eventually releases its carbon when it is burned or breaks down over

Myth #4: Plastic pollution will be mitigated with offset schemes and green credits.

Response: It is not possible to offset plastic’s greenhouse gas footprint, either today or in the future.

The idea of offsets is that activities which pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere (or prevent it from being emitted) compensate for ongoing emissions. Offsetting is a fundamentally flawed concept in a climate-constrained world. It does not work in practice, and its application to the plastics industry is no exception. Multiple scientific studies have shown that most offset projects do nothing to actually remove carbon from the atmosphere. For example, the U.N.’s carbon market was for years dominated by projects that created refrigerant gases solely in order to destroy them and collect carbon credits. In the U.S., offset credits have been awarded to forests that were never in danger of being cut or had already burned down. Other offset credits have funded land grabs of Indigenous land or displaced waste pickers while increasing emissions. Even if offsetting worked properly, we cannot physically plant that many trees. Plastic’s lifecycle emissions in 2021 alone would need a new forest the size of Cyprus. By 2050, a forest almost the size of Belgium would have to be planted every year to keep up with the growth in plastic emissions. Such endeavors would be not only infeasible but also inhumane, given the implications for food security, water supply, and other land uses. Technological approaches are even more inadequate. In 2021, the total capacity of Direct Air Capture is about 12,000 tons CO2 per year—just 0.0013% of plastic’s emissions in that year. As discussed above, DAC’s enormous energy requirements undercut any carbon removal benefit it might provide. Globally, about 2.1 Gt of offset credits have been issued over the last 25 years— including all the fraudulent ones. Meanwhile, left unchecked, plastic emissions could total 56 Gt by 2050. And the cement, steel, shipping, and aviation industries are all also relying on offsets to claim emissions reductions. Offset markets are orders of magnitude too small to offset these industries, and attempting to scale them up will only exacerbate the problems of fraud and creative accounting.

TAKEAWAY: TRADITIONAL PLASTIC IS BAD FOR THE CLIMATE; PLASTIC MADE FROM CCS & HYDROGEN COULD BE WORSE.

Myth #5: Bioplastics will solve the problem.

Response: Plastics made from plant feedstocks are still plastics, and will require carbon-intensive industrial agriculture.

“Bioplastics” refers to plastics made entirely or partially from biological feedstock, such as corn or potato starch. But bioplastics are not emission-free. Replacing petroleum with industrial agriculture has its own large carbon footprint. According to a Nature Climate Change study, "a complete shift of the plastics production of approximately 250 million tonnes to bio-based plastics would require as much as 5% of all arable land.” Such increased demand for arable land can lead to deforestation and food insecurity. An accounting loophole applied to bioplastics underestimates the carbon footprint by overlooking emissions from biomass production, land use, and end-of-life treatment. A full life-cycle accounting shows that bioplastics produce no advantages for the climate, have a toxic production process, and increase land and water use, energy consumption, eutrophication, and acidification.

TAKEAWAY: BIOPLASTIC IS STILL PLASTIC. AND PLASTIC IS CARBON.

These flawed arguments distract policymakers from the real solution of reducing plastic production — representing a telling case study of how the net zero concept is being used to greenwash business-as-usual practices and divert attention from actual climate solutions.