OPINION:
As an advocate of various points of view, I respect the power of well-chosen words to change opinions. When the campaigns railing against “estate taxes” or “inheritance taxes” couldn’t get traction, conservatives realized that calling them “death taxes” was the answer. Words matter. They create ideas and imagery, and ideas have consequences. And now, our government has identified plastic containers in pejorative terms as wasteful and a threat that must be arrested at the risk of human health.
President Biden’s people are providing a political payoff to far-left environs with this meaningless Friday afternoon press stunt. Back in the real world, science has been stood on its head by the administration’s apparatchiks reading off the Sanders-Warren talking points.
The term “single-use” container apparently does not apply to glass bottles or aluminum cans. Think about that. According to a report from the Keep America Beautiful Foundation, more cans are littered than plastic bottles. Aluminum and glass production both have worse impacts on the planet than plastic production (Google “plastic paradox” for the science), and the anti-plastic crowd keeps repeating old and discredited talking points about ocean plastic (mostly discarded fishing nets, according to National Geographic).
Never mind that weak arguments about plastic bags and straws have been dispelled. We have moved on to bottles. The Biden release clearly favors “highly recyclable products.” Comparing that bias with the attack on highly recyclable plastic bottles reveals the shallow thinking behind it. The real problem with anything branded as single-use is a rich society whose people are comfortable throwing away trash rather than making an effort to recycle.
Glass, aluminum and plastic containers all suffer from recycling rates far below 50%. People do not instinctively see value in these products. They should all be treated as items to be recycled, but our infrastructure, while better than the promised electric vehicle charging stations, still lacks consumer education and availability.
Why is plastic, which has created so many societal health and safety gains, uniquely vilified? I suspect it is the connection to the fossil fuel industry. If you can kill off plastic use, it is one more dagger in the heart of an industry universally hated by liberals. Yet plastic is a lighter material than any replacement in cars and trucks. Change back to heavier metals, and you substantially decrease fuel economy in American cars and trucks.
An unspoken and perhaps unconsidered question is posed by a successful attack on plastic containers: What now? More aluminum cans and food containers in your fridge? The Aluminum Association reports they use 5% of all the electricity produced in the United States for mining and refining the metal. That’s enough energy to light all the houses and businesses in the country. And as data centers suck up available electricity at an alarming rate, more aluminum production will mean more blackouts in more places than just California.
Aluminum is not a benign substance. While a plastic bottle is nontoxic, aluminum has been linked to dementia. (Google “aluminum-induced Alzheimer’s.”) Aluminum producers know that food and beverages can chemically interact with the can. Nanosized bits of aluminum that peel off can be ingested and pass through the human blood-brain barrier. That’s why there’s a thin plastic coating inside each can.
I don’t know how much of this science is known to the White House, but my guess is that it’s an immaterial inconvenience. It’s time to get reelected, after all, and there’s a price to be paid for liberals’ support.
• Rick Berman is president of RBB Strategies.
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