Study warns of 'colossal' future legal claims over plastic pollution

A detailed study conducted by the Nedlands, Western Australia-based Minderoo Foundation, along with London-based legal firm Clyde & Co. and liability risk consultancy Praedicat, Los Angeles, says that plastic’s range of harmful impacts could trigger potentially huge liability claims in the coming years against the petrochemical industry, which manufactures the polymers and chemical additives used in plastic.

According to the Minderoo Foundation, the report finds that, just like fossil fuel companies and the climate impact of their products, plastic producers and distributors create the most extreme negative nature and human-harming externalities ever witnessed in the history of mankind.

The Minderoo Foundation says it expects legal action to center on the U.S., where the study forecasts corporate liabilities from plastics litigation triggered in 2022-30 at $20 billion or more. It says that future claims beyond 2030 could be even larger.

Research for the study was supported by the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Finance Initiative. According to the study:

• Manufacturers of chemical additives used in plastics, many of which have well-established, harmful links to human health, are most exposed to litigation risk.
• Manufacturers of plastic polymers, whose products ultimately degrade into micro- and nano-plastic particles which persist in the environment for decades, entering the human food chain, are also exposed.
• These companies have been protected against financial consequences by the complexity of attributing pollution back to its source, but scientific methods and legal doctrines are evolving; plastic pollution liabilities are expected to follow.
• The plastics industry, shareholders, insurers and regulators need to work urgently together to disclose the scale and exposures and liabilities to date, to prevent further damage and set aside the resources necessary to deal with the consequences.

“Corporations have polluted this world with billions of tons of plastic products and continue to do so despite knowing that many contain toxic chemicals that arrest cognitive development, reduce reproductive viability and increase cardiovascular disease and obesity,” Minderoo Foundation Chairman Dr. Andrew Forrest says. “Our research accelerates the growing list of health risks. It is only a matter of time before the courts, regulators and lawmakers determine who will pay the cost of poisoning our planet and people.

“For plastics producers, and above all their shareholders and insurers, now is the time to be asking yourself hard questions,” he adds. “What liabilities have your historical emissions left you exposed to? Are you doing enough to eliminate them in the future? What will your personal liability be for only looking at your profit and loss statement?”

Geoff Summerhayes, former executive board member at the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority and former chair of UNEP’s Sustainable Insurance Forum, says company leaders must act urgently to disclose the magnitude of the plastic pollution problem.

“We need to understand what we’re dealing with so that industry and insurers alike can set aside the resources required to deal with the consequences,” Summerhayes says. “This report is a fact-based resource to guide the efforts in preventing further accumulation of plastic-related toxins. The natural, health-related and economic scale of damage is now starkly clear, and collectively we must act for change.”

In response, the American Chemistry Council (ACC), Washington, D.C., says it disagrees with the report’s characterizations and claims about the plastics industry, and that it was designed to generate headlines.

“Every day, plastics help protect people and keep us healthy in countless ways,” ACC Vice President of Plastics Joshua Baca says. “Plastics make modern medicine possible. Syringes, IV bags, N95 masks and almost all sterile medical instruments rely on plastics. Outside of hospitals, plastics help prevent everyday exposures to pathogens, through products such as food packaging that separate raw meat from fresh produce and bags to pick up pet waste.

“It is important that we better understand the risks of a world without plastics and move beyond the rhetoric,” Baca says. “Plastics are essential to a lower carbon future, enabling solar and wind energy, insulating homes, preventing food waste and light-weighting vehicles. Plastics are essential to innovation, from space exploration to cutting-edge medical advances. Without plastics, our future would look much like the past.”

According to the ACC’s Plastics Division, it represents America’s plastic makers, plus the 500,000-plus scientists, engineers, technicians and other innovators who make plastics for many essential and lifesaving products that are vital to modern life. The division’s goal is for 100 percent of U.S. plastic packaging to be reused, recycled or recovered by 2040.