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Data reveals huge failure by oil firms to recluce plastic waste
The Guardian
|November 21, 2024
Oil and chemical companies who created a high-profile alliance to end plastic pollution have produced 1,000 times more new plastic in five years than the waste they diverted from the environment, according to data obtained by Greenpeace.
The Alliance to End Plastic Waste (AEPW) was set up in 2019 by a group of companies including Exxon Mobil and Shell, some of the world's biggest producers of plastic. They promised to divert 15m tonnes of plastic waste from the environment in five years to the end of 2023 by improving collection and recycling, and creating a circular economy.
Documents from a PR company obtained by Greenpeace's Unearthed team and shared with the Guardian suggested that a key aim of the AEPW was to "change the conversation" away from "simplistic bans of plastic" being proposed in 2019, amid an outcry over the scale of plastic pollution leaching into rivers and harming public health. Early last year the alliance target of clearing 15m tonnes of waste plastic was quietly scrapped as "just too ambitious".
This story is from the November 21, 2024 edition of The Guardian.
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