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Leading members of a high-profile industry initiative aiming to “end plastic waste” have produced over 1,000 times more plastic than the scheme has cleaned up, according to an Unearthed investigation.
The Alliance to End Plastic Waste was launched in 2019 by a major oil and chemical trade group, pledging to invest $1.5 billion in clean-up initiatives that would remove millions of tonnes of plastic from the environment.
Its members come from across the plastics supply chain, including oil giants ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies, who manufacture the base chemicals used in packaging and other products.
The Alliance was launched by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), a major plastics trade association, and conceived by a PR agency as a campaign to “change the conversation – away from short-term simplistic bans of plastic”, Unearthed’s investigation found.
The group has been a significant presence at UN negotiations for a global plastics treaty, which are due to conclude in Busan, South Korea next week. Alliance members and the ACC have each been pushing governments to abandon plans to curb plastic production, documents obtained by Unearthed show. Plastics are seen by the oil industry as a major growth market, with recent research projecting production to triple by 2060.
Meanwhile figures shared by consultancy Wood Mackenzie with Unearthed show that five major oil and chemical companies in the Alliance’s executive committee – Shell, ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, ChevronPhillips and Dow – produce more plastic in two days than the Alliance’s projects have cleaned up over the past five years.
