Yes, I also recently bought a plastic crate again. The previous crate, which we have ready with basic stuff to be able to go away for a weekend, broke down spontaneously. So I put it in the trash. Hopefully it will be processed in a good way. Ever since I was a child, I have been using all kinds of plastic stuff and in general we can say without a doubt that plastic is very handy. How could we live without it… [I say with my lunchbox in sight, typing on the keyboard, using the mouse etc.]. Only in the past 15 years has there been a growing awareness that plastic is not only very useful for many purposes, but also that it is ubiquitous on this earth and in humans. Its production is more than 400 million tons per year [corresponds to the weight of 5 billion people…], less than 10% is recycled, 70% of the plastic is uncollected (i.e. ends up in the environment in one way or another). In 2025, the plastic overshoot day for the Netherlands is estimated at 5 May. Until this day, we can still manage the plastic waste; after that it ends up in the environment. Recent medical studies have established the accumulation of microplastics in the human body in kidneys, liver and brain, among others, with possible health damage as a result.

You would think that listing just a few of these numbers would give a sense of urgency for the world to do something about it. But as with so many large scale problems, solving it proves to be very complex. Very recently, the plastic summit in Geneva failed. The aim of the summit of 183 countries was to set a production ceiling for plastic. Despite efforts by the 74 countries of the ‘High Ambition Coalition to end plastic pollution’ (HAC, founded in 2022 by Norway and Rwanda), to which the Netherlands also belongs, this has not been successful. A small analysis shows that the ‘blockers’ are led by Saudi Arabia and consist of countries such as China, the US, India, Russia and Iran. By the way, what an interesting list if you make an analysis purely from a geopolitical perspective. These are countries that are either large oil-producing countries or have a large petrochemical industry. In short, these countries consider the profit (and production) that can be made with plastic more important than the damage to nature and (their own) population. What is also striking, and also indicated here and there in the news analysis of the discussions at the plastic summit, is that the leader of this ‘mob’ is very well able to pay the costs of lobbying.

Last year, a number of plastic recycling companies went bankrupt in the Netherlands. This is due to the falling production costs of new plastic due to the use of larger plastic factories. This is a strategic choice by the major oil producers because oil is used less, and will be used less, for transport due to, among other things, the higher production of renewable energy and the use of electric cars. This does not automatically lead to a decrease in oil consumption, but to the search for other applications of oil…

Undermining the business model for recycling is killing for scaling up our global potential to process plastic in a good way so that it does not just end up in the environment. If we don’t succeed in curbing this plastic mountain, plastic pollution will automatically become a killer app.