The Economics Behind The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Credit: Greenpeace

The ocean is a common-pool resource, and a significant one—the ocean provides humanity with food, oxygen, and a stable climate. In economic terms, common-pool resources have characteristics of both public and private goods, in that they non-excludable and rivalrous. For such resources, personal, rational interest can preclude collective action, either on the individual, national or global scale. As a result, the ocean, as a transboundary dumping ground, is left vulnerable to overexploitation and the “Tragedy of the Commons.”

How can we thwart the growth of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and the several other trash vortexes like it?

It is notoriously difficult to manage the environmental commons. Across the globe, rudimentary waste management, illegal dumping, and littering carries plastic waste into streams, rivers, and oceans. In parallel, the ocean patch is of global importance, as the plastic accumulates in gyres, or whirlpools that circulate the entire ocean. The ocean tides break plastic objects into thousands of macro and micro-plastic particles, whose chemical compositions render them unable to decay in water. These are toxic and pervasive in the environment, leading to deleterious effects on the climate, marine ecosystems, food webs, and human health.

Although many organizations are trying to prevent the patch from growing, National Geographic states that “Because the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is so far from any country’s coastline, no nation will take responsibility or provide the funding to clean it up…Charles Moore, the man who discovered the vortex, says cleaning up the garbage patch would ‘bankrupt any country’ that tried it.” To make matters worse, despite international treaties to address ocean dumping, a majority of the plastic comes from land-based sources; in other words, domestic industrial policies are integral to stopping pollution at its source.

What can we do?

Plastic is ubiquitous—plastics and micro-plastic particles have been found at the bottom of our oceans, at the top of Mount Everest, in faraway Antarctic glaciers, and even in our bloodstream. The concentration of plastic in oceans—bodies which have absorbed nearly half of our CO2 emissions since the pre-industrial age—is having deadly consequences for our climate, our marine ecosystems, and human civilization itself.

We ought to ban plastic materials from its source, and an international treaty to ban single-use plastic production will do just that. National leadership has been parochial with regard to business development and political interests, ultimately discounting environmental welfare. Much like global climate initiatives, then, a multilateral treaty on plastics will remedy the global collective action problem and remove the sovereignty roadblocks that cause plastic leakage.

Ocean pollution is a wicked, borderless problem, requiring a transboundary solution. At the fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly of the UNEP, the intergovernmental negotiating body decided to: “develop an international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution…which could include both binding and voluntary approaches, based on a comprehensive approach that addresses the full lifecycle of plastic.” Much like the Paris Accords, because countries have a diverse array of developmental needs, each nation will submit their Nationally Determined Contributions.

Many scientists have argued that the scheme must put a cap on the production of plastic chemicals. Scientists at the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research argue that solutions like substitution, recycling, waste management, and circularity, are insufficient: “after 2040, 17.3 million tons of plastic waste will still be released to terrestrial and aquatic environments every year.” The only viable solution, then, is to tackle the supply side and ensure that we phase out virgin plastic production with enforceable limits on production.

What's the push-back?

The American Chemistry Council, a coalition of oil and chemical firms, advocates against plastic production limits. They express that global caps should be avoided, as they may engender unintended consequences. Instead, the association advocates for programs like the UNEP’s Life Cycle Initiative, a multi-stakeholder partnership that provides private and public decision makers with transparent life cycle analyses of plastic products. They express, “LCAs can lead to better decision making, often by comparing the multiple environmental impacts of materials and products materials and products.” They continue that LCA’s have found that “The use of plastic packaging and products can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions compared to alternatives such as steel, paper, aluminum, [and] glass.” Other unintended consequences of production caps is that it may give rise to global food insecurity, reduced water quality, and adverse hygienic effects.

Of course, it is important to read these policy recommendations with a grain of salt, as the American Chemistry Council and the International Council of Chemical Associations harbor conspicuous interests. With that said, they remain an important stakeholder, as the chemical industry plays an important role in the US economy, job market, and, of course, our daily lives. As with all political decisions, it is crucial to consider the adverse and unintended consequences of policy choices. The industry levies credible points about whether prescriptive global policies are the best solution to achieving our sustainable development goals. To best remedy our the plastic plague, political leaders must weigh the costs and benefits of the marginal production of plastic goods to find the optimal societal outcome.