Climate Connections: What’s plastic got to do with it?

Youpa Stein and Liz Ametsbichler

(Climate Smart Missoula) Severe weather events have been the talk of Missoula for the past couple of weeks. July 22, 2024 was the hottest day ever recorded on earth, and it beat a global record set just one day before.

On July 24, days of local temperatures in the 100s were broken by a storm that brought wind speeds of 109 mph to Mt. Sentinel. The wind left a wreckage of downed trees and power outages in its wake. The consequences were considerable, including economic losses for businesses and homeowners and terrifying scrambles for medical assistance for people needing services like dialysis and portable oxygen.

Some called out for help on social media because they didn’t have power or air conditioning and were unable to keep their houses cool enough for children or elders. Additionally, Montana’s fifth season, “the smoke season,” is filling our skies with unhealthy air and diminishing our views.

Human-caused climate instability is a significant contributor to these events. What many don’t realize, however, is that a significant contributor to human-caused climate emissions is plastic. Ninety-nine percent of plastics are made out of fossil fuels like oil and gas. The act of producing them uses tremendous amounts of energy – and fuel – and, once created, plastics themselves emit greenhouse gasses.

The numbers are staggering. Plastics contribute 3.4% (1.8 billion tons) of the world's greenhouse gas emissions every year – more than either the aviation (1.9%) or shipping (1.7%) industries.

If the plastics industry were a country, it would be the fifth highest greenhouse gas emitter in the world. Without intervention, increased plastic production will be responsible for up to 13% of our planet's total carbon budget by 2050. Estimates indicate that plastics and other petrochemicals industries will drive half of the growth in demand of fossil fuel production by 2050.

Climate researchers aren’t the only ones alarmed about the impact of plastic production on our environment and our health. The steady stream of findings about microplastics has caused the medical community to take note, as well.

All plastic eventually crumbles into tiny pieces (micro and nano plastics) that have penetrated every corner of the ecosystem – including the food web, the water cycle, and the human body. They have been found in nearly every human organ, and the potential impact of these plastic particles on our health is highly concerning.

Plastics also contain chemical additives. Of the 16,000 different chemicals used in the production of plastics, many are known carcinogens, neurotoxicants, and hormone disruptors.

Missoulian Jeremy Drake, a local and national zero waste consultant, notes: “We are at the stage with plastics that is similar to when we started learning about the health hazards of lead and asbestos. These materials were once seen as miraculous and were widely used, and then the harm they caused was revealed, and policy actions became necessary to protect life.”

Some plastic is beneficial, but much of what is manufactured today is frivolous and harmful to the planet – and to us.

Nearly half of all plastic currently under production is used to make packaging, much of it single-use. We can impact an enormous part of this problem by reducing or eliminating the single-use plastic we never needed in the first place.

Groups around the state are working hard to help. Families for a Livable Climate (FLC)'s Volunteer Plastic Working Group is helping Montana citizens understand which local and statewide actions can most efficiently combat plastic pollution, climate change, and the damage to our environment, which affects us all.

The issue is bipartisan. FLC’s Plastic Working Group is promoting policies and solutions. Its education and outreach includes talks, film screenings, and volunteer opportunities.

There are many ways to get involved locally with these efforts! One is through advocating for local policy change.

The FLC Volunteer Plastics Working Group, an affiliate of Beyond Plastics, supports the efforts of MT Plastic Free, a coalition of Montana citizens who are dedicated to protecting our state from the harms of single-use plastics (mtplasticfree.com).

In 2021, the state legislature passed HB 407, prohibiting local governments from regulating single-use plastics. This legislation was authored by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a corporate lobbying group that has promoted similar laws in over two dozen states. Currently there are no national or state laws to protect citizens and the environment from the harms of single-use plastics.

Cottonwood Environmental Law Center, representing its members and nine Montana citizens, filed a lawsuit against the state on the grounds that HB 407 is unconstitutional in two ways. It (1) denies our constitutional right to the citizens’ initiative process and (2) infringes on our constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment.

A court ruling in March decided in Cottonwood’s favor, determining that Montanans do have a constitutional right to place initiatives on local ballots. The second portion of the case is still pending. Even so, the win is historic. Montana is the only state in the nation in which citizens have successfully challenged a pre-emptive ban in court.

After the ruling, citizens in Missoula and Bozeman started taking action to place initiatives on their respective November ballots that would give citizens the opportunity to decide whether to ban some unnecessary single-use plastics. Although MT Plastic Free Missoula decided to suspend signature-gathering efforts for the upcoming ballot, they are building on the many gains of the campaign and charting a course for the next actions. Join this effort by emailing mtplasticfreemissoula@gmail.com.

MT Plastic Free Missoula and FLC’s Plastics Working group also offers educational events throughout the year. Join us to learn more, get inspired, and meet others who are concerned about this issue!

Recently, we hosted a screening of “Plastic People: The Hidden Crisis of Microplastics,” a ground-breaking documentary investigating our addiction to plastic and the growing threat of microplastics on human health.

After the film, audience member Cosmo Graff noted, “I have been aware of microplastics for a while now, but what shocked me about this film was the true scale of the issue… On the small scale, microscopic threads and flakes that look like dead skin float around in our water and blood—on the large scale, plastics cover the planet and can be found in and on any living thing.”

Attendee Diane Connor was heartened to see people taking action such as in Bayfield, Ontario, “a community with a population just over 1000, and plastic free - amazing! It was great hearing from scientists in every part of the world who are diligently doing the research and looking for solutions to our environmental disasters.”

The next community event is a showing of the film “We Are All Plastic People Now,” in late September. We hope you can attend! Knowledge is power, and together let’s use that power to fuel action, locally and beyond.

 Actions You Can Take

• To get involved, please check out the Families for a Livable Climate website or contact liz@livableclimate.org or youpa@livableclimate.org
• Vote in November for candidates who care about and have proven records supporting our Montana constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment.
• Save the date to attend Climate Advocacy Day at the Capitol in Helena on Friday, January 24, 2025.
• Help educate Legislators in the upcoming Montana Legislative Session and advocate for actions to reduce unnecessary single-use plastics.

Youpa Stein and Liz Ametsbichler co-chair the Families for a Livable Climate Volunteer Plastics Working Group. Climate Smart Missoula brings this Climate Connections column to you several Fridays a month. Learn more about our work, support our efforts, and sign up for our e-newsletter at missoulaclimate.org.