Environment

The notion of Plastic Age implies that a material and its materiality with all its relations it engages enables a new way of living. Plastics materialize through practices and technological configurations, are symbolically loaded, and enable new economic, technological, natural, and societal relations all atonce.

This policy brief presents highlights from the significant body of science indicating that plastic building materials contribute to serious health and environmental harms over their life cycle, from fossil fuel extraction to production, use, and disposal.

Through a review of the scientific literature on the environmental impacts of plastics, the research team shows that plastic pollution is now altering some major processes at the scale of the entire Earth system. This impact extends to global issues like climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, and the use of freshwater and land.

The study aims to provide insight into the extent to which the environmental and social impacts of single-use plastics are integrated into ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) ratings, as well as the level of transparency exhibited by ESG rating providers. 

Building on research published by SourceMaterial and Bloomberg with original research by Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) and the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), this report uncovers serious flaws in plastic offsets, credits and plastic neutrality.

This investigation uncovers shocking evidence of how bad actors exploit regulatory weaknesses and legal loopholes in the global plastic waste trade, fuelling a thriving illegal market. The global plastic waste trade continues to pose significant environmental and health risks, and causes huge amounts of pollution of land, air and even soil.

The newest feature of EIA’s Global Environmental Crime Tracker, the Plastic Waste Trade Crime Tracker is an important step towards exposing and tackling the illegal plastic waste trade. 

The report exposes the climate footprint of the planned petrochemical buildout in America. It identifies the most climate-damaging projects and products, demonstrates carbon capture’s inability to significantly mitigate emissions, and uncovers how taxpayers are being misled into funding polluting projects sold as ‘climate solutions.’ 

The report presents numbers and figures of the 2024 Great Global Nurdle Hunt. Nurdles are plastic pellets produced from fossil fuels, recycled or biobased material. Each year, due to mismanagement across the entire supply chain and a lack of regulation, over 445,000 t of nurdles spill into the environment around the world, making them a major source of primary microplastic pollution.

This ground-breaking feature documentary investigates our addiction to plastic and the growing threat of microplastics on human health. What are the impacts and what can be done about it?