ABSTRACT
The focus of this chapter is environmental injustice produced in one strand of the global production network for plastics manufacturing using ethane, a gas liquid found in natural gas. I examine environmental injustices generated at each point in the network, from wells producing ethane from fracked natural gas, along high-pressure ethane transmission pipelines, to LNG export terminals where ethane is exported, at the fenceline of the petrochemical plants where ethane is transformed into plastic resins, and finally at disposal sites for discarded plastics. I conclude with some thoughts about the place in society of these unsustainable products and the prospects for their phaseout. Low gas prices and debt financing have increased incentives for the petrochemicals industry to invest in infrastructures that enable cheap ethane to be transformed into profitable plastic. More than a third of plastics are made into packaging and other disposable items, and the industry intends to increase production of disposable plastic items. This plan rests upon the fiction that increased recycling of plastics, and not source reduction, is the solution to widespread pollution with plastic garbage. In the U.S., plastic waste is either disposed of in marginalized communities or exported to poorer nations, causing global threats to health, safety and food webs as well as distributional injustice. Examining this global production network illustrates the political economic context behind the increasing production and use of unsustainable products and how the profitability of unsustainable practices is supported by negative externalities imposed upon less powerful groups of people.
