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Big Oil Is in Trouble. Its Plan: Flood Africa With Plastic. (nytimes.com) 163

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Confronting a climate crisis that threatens the fossil fuel industry, oil companies are racing to make more plastic. But they face two problems: Many markets are already awash with plastic, and few countries are willing to be dumping grounds for the world's plastic waste. The industry thinks it has found a solution to both problems in Africa. From a report: According to documents reviewed by The New York Times, an industry group representing the world's largest chemical makers and fossil fuel companies is lobbying to influence United States trade negotiations with Kenya, one of Africa's biggest economies, to reverse its strict limits on plastics -- including a tough plastic-bag ban. It is also pressing for Kenya to continue importing foreign plastic garbage, a practice it has pledged to limit. Plastics makers are looking well beyond Kenya's borders. "We anticipate that Kenya could serve in the future as a hub for supplying U.S.-made chemicals and plastics to other markets in Africa through this trade agreement," Ed Brzytwa, the director of international trade for the American Chemistry Council, wrote in an April 28 letter to the Office of the United States Trade Representative. The United States and Kenya are in the midst of trade negotiations and the Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta, has made clear he is eager to strike a deal. But the behind-the-scenes lobbying by the petroleum companies has spread concern among environmental groups in Kenya and beyond that have been working to reduce both plastic use and waste. Kenya, like many countries, has wrestled with the proliferation of plastic. It passed a stringent law against plastic bags in 2017, and last year was one of many nations around the world that signed on to a global agreement to stop importing plastic waste -- a pact strongly opposed by the chemical industry.
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Big Oil Is in Trouble. Its Plan: Flood Africa With Plastic. More

Big Oil Is in Trouble. Its Plan: Flood Africa With Plastic.

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  • This is what I am talking about. A Capitalist industry is losing their grip so they go and do a slash and burn policy to gain their gold back. They don't care about the planet. It is just theirs to consume for short term profit. This is EXACTLY what is wrong with Capitalism and this is what we are fighting in Portland and Seattle. This matters.

    www.fark.com/politics
    • Well, they could put a dent in it by having all the oil-exporting countries in Africa just stop extracting oil.

    • This is what I am talking about. A Capitalist industry is losing their grip so they go and do a slash and burn policy to gain their gold back. They don't care about the planet. It is just theirs to consume for short term profit. This is EXACTLY what is wrong with Capitalism and this is what we are fighting in Portland and Seattle. This matters.

      www.fark.com/politics

      Surprisingly good FP, but unsurprising that Slashdot's moderators haven't moderated it appropriately. (Not my fault, since I never get the option to moderate. (I still favor more moderation with logarithmic reporting.))

      Really hard to say much more on the focal points, but I do want to extend it with the obvious concrete example of Exxon, which also shows how the stock market is related to the death of capitalism. Removed from the Dow average for being insufficiently "profitable", I was sure Exxon was happy

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AvitarX ( 172628 )
        The Dow is a sloppy number with roots in simple math.

        The reason Exxon was replaced by a tech company is that apple split its shares, and since the Dow uses absolute price and not market cap this left tech under represented.

        Exxon wasn't dropped off the Dow because it was a loser, it was because the entire industry was losing for so long that more tech needed to be represented (relatively). Though I think technically tech has a smaller share with the split of Apple and inclusion of Salesforce than it has a mo

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by shanen ( 462549 )

          I disagree and find your "arguments" extremely unpersuasive. Additional evidence might help, but the problem is not your bad math. The apparent problem is that you don't understand time. Then again, my perspective is that growth itself is incompatible with geologic time. Consider any rate of growth over 10,000 periods.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AvitarX ( 172628 )
            So, the DOW is supposed to loosely represent the make up of "big business" in the US.

            But they don't weight by market cap, they weight by share price. So Apple's share split means Apple has 1/4 the impact on the DOW, and similarly the tech industry is significantly less represented.

            Tech is most of the big companies in the US and should therefor be heavily represented in the DOW. It's supposed to grow similar to the largest companies in the US (or shrink with them, but there's a lot of regulatory capture).

            The

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by AvitarX ( 172628 )
            Oh, and a random article about this specific adjustment

            https://www.barrons.com/articles/why-exxon-is-being-dropped-from-the-dow-jones-industrial-average-51598368119

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shanen ( 462549 )

        This is what I am talking about. A Capitalist industry is losing their grip so they go and do a slash and burn policy to gain their gold back. They don't care about the planet. It is just theirs to consume for short term profit. This is EXACTLY what is wrong with Capitalism and this is what we are fighting in Portland and Seattle. This matters.

        www.fark.com/politics

        Surprisingly good FP, but unsurprising that Slashdot's moderators haven't moderated it appropriately. (Not my fault, since I never get the option to moderate. (I still favor more moderation with logarithmic reporting.))

        Really hard to say much more on the focal points, but I do want to extend it with the obvious concrete example of Exxon, which also shows how the stock market is related to the death of capitalism. Exxon was recently removed from the Dow average for being insufficiently "profitable". I was sure Exxon was happy with this new idea, and again surprised they didn't get mentioned in the summary. Turned out Exxon does appear frequently in the linked story.

        But the Dow Jones average is supposed to reflect the state of the stock market, and thereby indicate something about the real state of the economy, but it's totally rigged and fake. Losers like Exxon get purged so the Dow Jones can only show the up side, even when up is down (as when Exxon was replaced in the Dow by a highly "profitable" spammer of spammers called Salesforce). If the Dow had to consider the long-term fates of all of its constituent companies, then it would tell a completely different but MUCH more honest story. It's a game, it's gambling, and only the house wins in the long term, but the Dow is rigged to make it look like there are no losers.

        (That's based on feedback from Germany about the source of spam email. I also think Salesforce supports scammers, too, but I currently lack sufficiently concrete evidence. All I can say right now is that I am pretty sure Salesforce would plead ignorance and I'm even more sure that the contracts absolve Salesforce for any "inadvertent" support of corporate criminals.)

        As too often occurs, I'll wander off topic. Can't resist this footnote because I was quite amused by the current Slashdot sig:

        1 1 was a race-horse, 2 2 was 1 2. When 1 1 1 1 race, 2 2 1 1 2.

        Never seen that one before and it took me a while to figure out how to read the joke. At first I thought it was about trinary notation, but I guess it's just a pun. [I hope I caught them all, but I feel haunted. Like something obvious is eluding my focus.]

        Quoted against censorship moderation and to correct a typo.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by spun ( 1352 )

      OMBad is a known pro-Trump troll account, and only maligning capitalism to rile up Trump cultists. Take a look at the comment history, whoever is running OMBad simply can't help but let their true colors shine through. For example, these posts:

      https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
      https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
      https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
      https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
      https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
      https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]

      Obviously this dishonest person is in no way supporting protesters in

    • Re:Typical Capitalist response (Score:4, Insightful)

      by 2TecTom ( 311314 ) on Monday August 31, 2020 @04:25PM (#60459808) Homepage Journal

      Wait one minute, this economic system isn't 'capitalism'! Real capitalism is an economy where the 'people' have fair and equal access to capital. As it is now most people's access to capital is extremely limited and usury is the rule of the day. What we have is corporatism.

      • Exactly. E. Pluribus Unum.

        United we stand. Or more accurately out of many, one. Now we are being prevented from spending legal tender. Have you noticed few places taking cash now? A bullshit coin shortage. Who is hoarding coins? Its value is only as good as the currency youre trying to protect against. Buy silver.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by DMJC ( 682799 )
      Funny how the "capitalists" have to go to the GOVERNMENT to LOBBY to trash other countries.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dryeo ( 100693 )

        Why? The best return on spending is buying a government as every very successful capitalist knows.

    • All your proposed solutions will make things worse .. so now thanks. Switching from the plantations doesnâ(TM)t make you free. Socialism is a worse plantation than capitalism.

    • Time to mandate the industry to create a full recycling policy for all plastics that works and is implemented asap

    • That isnâ(TM)t capitalism. Itâ(TM)s itâ(TM)s only government control of capitalism that allows this, because they can then influence the government control.

  • kakistocracy (Score:3)

    by dmay34 ( 6770232 ) on Monday August 31, 2020 @03:36PM (#60459588)
    We live in a global oligarchical kakistocracy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mal-2 ( 675116 )

      Kekistocracy. It's not just the worst people in charge, now they're doing it for teh lulz.

  • Kenya is in trade negotiations with the USA (Score:4, Insightful)

    by magzteel ( 5013587 ) on Monday August 31, 2020 @03:39PM (#60459598)

    Kenya is in trade negotiations with the US.

    I'm sure they want some things from the US, and the US wants some things from Kenya.
    That's how trade negotiation works.

    • Africa is how you hurt china and help africa at the same time. Start letting africa make the cheap labor products that require less skills than electronics. Then when their education system catches up, start shifting that there too.

      Give everyone access to beer and televised sports and they stop warring. Hell I bet if we had sports instead of coronavirus we would not have half the riots we currently do.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jwdb ( 526327 )

      I'm sure they want some things from the US, and the US wants some things from Kenya.
      That's how trade negotiation works.

      Red herring. At no point does the summary give any indication as to what the US position is. Rather, it lays what the chemical industry and their lobbyists *want* the US position to be. Some Americans might find that position to be objectionable.

  • Pyrolysis Converters FFS (Score:5, Interesting)

    by BeerMilkshake ( 699747 ) on Monday August 31, 2020 @03:42PM (#60459622)

    Oil companies are despicably self-serving.

    "Plastic to Oil" (P2O) is already a thing that's cheap, simple and low-tech. Build pyrolysis converters everywhere and we can eliminate plastic waste by turning it into useful oil and reduce imports. Zero tolerance on plastic pollution.

    We shouldn't ship plastic around the world to poorer countries that are just going to dump it anyway.

    A few years ago. costs of setting up pyro plants made in China or India were roughly $100k USD for a small-city level plant. That's a bargain. Then you'd have three shifts of three people at least to operate it, there's 9 jobs plus with a source of revenue doing something good for the environment. 9 jobs per 100,000 population maybe.

    Why does Government and Big Oil keep this secret? Perhaps they don't want people to recycle plastic to oil because that would mean a decrease in new oil sales. They'd rather sell them more oil, not less.

    • Not only that, but you can burn a portion of the output (processed from the initial feedstock, after an initial bump of energy to start the process) to power it.

    • We need a nice Mad Max movie or something to show the plastic to oil conversion in an entertaining way to make this thing take off. I can hope it happens since it sounds like the right way to go.

    • CO2 (Score:5, Interesting)

      by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Monday August 31, 2020 @04:24PM (#60459794)

      Plastic is captured CO2. You don't want to use energy which, at some level, produces more CO2, to convert plastic back into something that will generate more CO2. Put plastic back in the ground when you are done with it. Re-use it as much as possible, using as little energy as possible, but you want that CO2 to go back into the ground, as much as possible. Don't ship it around the world, either.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by hey! ( 33014 )

        I wonder whether instead of using the resulting mix of hydrocarbons as fuel, you could use it as feedstock for making more plastic. That would technically count as true recycling because the molecules would get reused rather than being "thrown away".

        Of course you'd have to power this process with a carbon neutral energy source like solar or nuclear.

      • Re:CO2 (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ObliviousGnat ( 6346278 ) on Monday August 31, 2020 @06:16PM (#60460146)

        Plastic is captured CO2.

        As was petroleum before it became plastic.

        You don't want to use energy which, at some level, produces more CO2, to convert plastic back into something that will generate more CO2.

        Why is it better to extract petroleum and convert it into gasoline than to convert plastic to gasoline?

        Re-use it as much as possible, using as little energy as possible, but you want that CO2 to go back into the ground, as much as possible.

        So you want to pollute the ground with plastic.

        Let's just say I won't be subscribing to your newsletter.

        • Why is it better to extract petroleum and convert it into gasoline than to convert plastic to gasoline?

          Because if you increase the supply of raw materials to make gasoline (plastic and petroleum vs just petroleum), you decrease their price, which increases the amount of gasoline made and burned.

          • The government can artificially increase the price of anything. We shouldn't be drilling and polluting more just to encourage consuming less. That's as idiotic as it sounds.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by JBMcB ( 73720 )

          Why is it better to extract petroleum and convert it into gasoline than to convert plastic to gasoline?

          Because you are going to burn the gasoline and pump more CO2 in the air. In addition, the act of transporting the plastic to the processor, and processing the plastic, also generates more CO2, directly or indirectly. You don't want to do that. The problem is we are pulling carbon out of the ground and pumping it into the air. You want to put as much of that carbon BACK into the ground as possible.

    • Build pyrolysis converters everywhere and we can eliminate plastic waste by turning it into useful oil and reduce imports.

      Which could then be used to make...MORE PLASTIC!

    • Wikipedia disagrees (Score:5, Informative)

      by DogDude ( 805747 ) on Monday August 31, 2020 @05:11PM (#60459956)
      "Plastic to Oil" (P2O) is already a thing that's cheap, simple and low-tech.

      From wikipedia: "Pyrolysis can also be used to treat municipal solid waste and plastic waste.[4][11][33] The main advantage is the reduction in volume of the waste. In principle, pyrolysis will regenerate the monomers (precursors) to the polymers that are treated, but in practice the process is neither a clean nor an economically competitive source of monomers."

    • Right now my recycling center wont even take paper. Not the kind they make cereal boxes out of, nor the kind your microwave meal comes in. Even though there is a recycling label on it, nobody is willing to buy it and turn it back to pulp.

      HDPE (high density polyethylene) is one of the more easily recycled plastics. No reason to not recycle. Should be no penalty for small food debrit either. Why over use water trying to clean them when the plant can do it more efficiently.

      Usually I rely on a couple canine to

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by J-1000 ( 869558 )

      "Plastic to Oil" (P2O) is already a thing that's cheap, simple and low-tech.

      I've not heard of this, but it sounds great. Maybe we're in for a twist of fate, where Africa starts powering itself off the cheap plastic people keep dumping on them, and stops buying oil?

    • I was going to ask why this technology hasn't been used more if it already exists.

      A few years ago. costs of setting up pyro plants made in China or India were roughly $100k USD for a small-city level plant.

      Then you answered my question.

      That's a bargain.

      No, it's not. What small city has 100k to spend on helping the planet?

  • Big who? (Score:5, Informative)

    by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Monday August 31, 2020 @03:43PM (#60459624) Journal
    "international trade for the American Chemistry Council". So is it Big Oil lobbying for this, or Big Chemistry? Maybe it's just Big Plastic.

    With plastics taking up about 4% of global oil production [oilprice.com], I highly doubt that the evil oil barons are losing any sleep over a ban on plastic packaging. Even if the ingredients for plastic have an above-average margin.

    • While I agree the "Big Oil" name is very debatable, it could still make sense for oil producers to join the fight against bans of plastic in Africa. Especially with cars, trucks and maybe even planes increasingly going electric. A bit of a stretch though admittedly.

      And the only sad part here is if the lobbies manage to achieve their goals, because ... lobbyists are gonna lobby, that's what they're paid for.

      • The problem is that it's a self reinforcing stranglehold of corruption, and the money Big Oil spends on lobbying (and probably outright bribery) more than pays for itself by an order or two of magnitude in terms of increased money in their pockets.
    • People have been exaggerating the death of "Big Oil". Big oil isn't going anywhere. For a few decades at least. And compared to Elon Musk they don't seem so bad now.

    • Maybe you should look at all the non oil things BIG OIL has their hands in ;-). Phillip Morris does more than cigarettes. They own, or did last i checked, Kraft. So the next time you eat a piece of that fake cheese thats individually packaged, remember; You are supporting Big Tobacco ;-)

    • I will go ahead and say they don't care much about cars either. As long as planes keep flying and ships are running, they are good. And no, planes and ships aren't going to become electric anytime soon.

  • There is a big problem with waste plastic, but at least one company is considering ways to turn it into a wax that can be reused, and another I know is making a system that allows coal-fired power stations to be converted [simecatlantis.com] into plastic waste burning plants instead.

    It may not be 100% green, but its a lot better than what we currently do,. As they say:

    we estimate that the waste used to produce those pellets over the 20-year life of the project would fill a volume equivalent to more than 46,000 Olympic sized sw

  • Maybe we should try making products out of wildly available materials like silicon dioxide? I bet if you heated it up enough to fuse it you could store things in it. That'd be neat, if processed correctly the material might even be transparent.

  • Whatever happened to recycling?

    • And whatever happened to the amount of rubbish the average household generates? What used to be called a dustbin in the UK contained just that: dust from sweeping up. Glass bottles were re-used, with a deposit system to encourage returning bottles. Your veg came in brown paper bags, which rot naturally when thrown away. I believe a limited economic analysis shows making plastic bags uses less resources than making paper bags, but that analysis does not take account of disposal costs. It is actually rather d

  • Can we get a better headline? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nealric ( 3647765 ) on Monday August 31, 2020 @04:35PM (#60459844)

    I agree that lobbying to make Kenya a designated dumping ground for plastic weight is not a good thing to do. But the headline is ridiculous. It implies that dumping plastic in Africa is somehow "big oil's" solution for its woes. In no way shape or form would even carte blanche to dump plastic in Kenya remotely move the needle for "big oil."

    Nor is "big oil" properly defined. The companies that stand to benefit most from deregulation of waste disposal regulations aren't "big oil", but waste management and recycling companies. The bread and butter of "big oil" is extracting, selling, and refining crude oil and natural gas.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tdailey ( 728882 )

      Agree. It's a cringy headline written to serve a narrative that isn't supported in the article. Petroleum companies harvest, process, and sell hydrocarbons. They no more "make plastic" than "Big Agra" makes my dinner.

      • Groupthink. Fuck details, nobody reads articles.

        Big oil bad! News at 11

        Orange man Bad

        Half the time they dont even support the headline, but it doesnt matter. Apparently headlines are not subject to libel if the article discredits the headline.

        Groupthink

        These Soy Boys sipping their Lates dont read articles. They got triggered by the headlines alone.

  • Big Oil will have to bite the bullet, and soon, but they want to extract as much profit as possible first, regardless of environmental damage. Especially if that damage happens somewhere else.
    As mentioned above, there are some good ideas on how we can transition away from burning petroleum, and there's no lack of technical solutions.
    The only thing we're missing is leadership, and I'm not just talking about the US.

  • I'm very thankful for Big Oil, and so should you be. They have managed to efficiently and cheaply supply us with the energy and petro-chemicals that have given us the tremendous standard of living we enjoy today. Try to imagine your modern society without the products they supply.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

    • We needed Big Oil to advance until the 1970s, when solar panels became practical. Since then they've been dragging us down, and I am the opposite of thankful as a result.

      • We needed Big Oil to advance until the 1970s, when solar panels became practical. Since then they've been dragging us down, and I am the opposite of thankful as a result.

        Sure about that? Article from NPR: How Big Oil Of The Past Helped Launch The Solar Industry Of Today
        https://www.npr.org/2019/09/30... [npr.org]

        Out of those solar companies came a generation of innovators, many of whom continue to work in the industry today. Jester, now 61, is CEO of Mountain View, Calif.-based SolPad, which is launching a home solar and storage system in Puerto Rico this fall. Eberspacher, 63, is managing director of another Silicon Valley startup, Tandem PV, which is pairing new materials with silic

  • They want to flood the whole world, any country that'll let them.

    They are deliberately creating plastics in such a way that it's pretty much impossible to recycle them when they're mixed together. This is not just poor design, it's intentional. If a large percentage of plastics were recycled, there'd be no market for oil companies. Those little triangles you see on plastic waste are just hypothetical symbols that say yes in theory it can be recycled.

    The sending of plastics to third world countries for rec

  • Increasing African consumption of plastic bags won't make a dent in corona or even renewable/EV losses.

    Increasing the costs of disposing of plastic waste in the first world however is the much bigger risk and will speed up the adoption of compostable plastics.

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