We are so short sighted. I was watching a Chevron Oil commercial the other day touting their good deeds, STEM and young women, I kept thinking, these engineers should all be in jail for fraud.
But then, I fill up the Prius and off I go.
35
This is nothing short of criminal. And the tax break - adding insult to injury.
What does it take for a wake-up call? American greed reigns supreme which is to be expected in an administration composed of millionaires and billionaires.
Now imagine how the two dozen of democratic candidates for president would react to this, and then vote accordingly.
Hint: Joe Biden would be fine with it. So would Kamela Harris. Elizabeth Warren - nope. Bernie Sanders - nope. Pete Buttigieg - probably nope.
The rest of them - who cares?
These kinds of issues, i.e. the willful destruction of our planet on the backs of everybody while greedy soulless corporations (which are now also people!!) get exorbitant tax breaks, is what should be discussed at the next farcical primary debate, not busing or nitpicking over all the things Obama did wrong.
This is another article that makes one weep.
67
This is nothing short of criminal. And the tax break - adding insult to injury.
What does it take for a wake-up call? American greed reigns supreme which is to be expected in an administration composed of millionaires and billionaires.
Now imagine how the two dozen of democratic candidates for president would react to this, and then vote accordingly.
Hint: Joe Biden would be fine with it. So would Kamela Harris. Elizabeth Warren - nope. Bernie Sanders - nope. Pete Buttigieg - probably nope.
The rest of them - who cares?
These kinds of issues, i.e. the willful destruction of our planet on the backs of everybody while greedy soulless corporations (which are now also people!!) get exorbitant tax breaks, is what should be discussed at the next farcical primary debate, not busing or nitpicking over all the things Obama did wrong.
This is another article that makes one weep.
14
"Shell recently donated money to extend the hours of the local recycling center..." Really? That is so completely disproportionate to the scale of the problem it is laughable. Should they look for solutions before or after they create a problem? How can anyone take their meager efforts seriously.
The world is drowning in plastic and they're going to help pay for extended hours at a recycling facility to collect plastic that has nowhere to go.
I'd suggest all waste plastic be dumped at the new facility and let them figure out what to do with it.
92
The last few million or so Americans that survive the environmental apocalypse that is going to happen here will be like the exodus of people from the South American and Middle Eastern countries that is happening now. Europe, which is smart enough to try to prepare for a climate/environment upheaval, will be having no part of American migration to its' shores, and "that's all, folks" for the good ole USA that sold itself to corporations for a buck or two. Serves us right.
31
I am a cake eater (Beaver resident), born and raised, and I’m glad there is more light being shed on this plant. However, I’m disappointed that there is no mention in this article of the effect on our air quality and the subsequent health effects on the local population. In an area with horrible air quality as it is, this is an issue that troubles many of us. There is consistent evidence of higher instances of cancer in the communities near plants like ours around the country. It seems like a cruel joke that a brand new cancer research center was built on the hill over looking our plant. The house my eight siblings and I grew up in is 5 miles from the plant. If the effects of this plant are just as bad or worse than the others, many, including my parents, will be forced to move and property values in the area will likely decline.
Honestly, I think trying to save the fracking industry with a plastics plant is fueling a fire with gasoline. Both fracking and the creation of more plastics are counter to reversing the acceleration of climate change. We should allow this industry to die and be replaced with more progressive, environmentally friendly and renewable solutions. Our window for preventing irreversible damage is closing quickly.
This plant symbolizes a tendency to put short-term economic solutions over the long-term health of both our local and global community.
83
@Rachael Hansen my environmental science professor said the same thing to us back in the late 1990’s. Will we only learn too late? Don’t the oligarchs love their children too?
32
How can it possibly not be mentioned that Shell should be investing in the plastics recycling infrastructure to really make a circular economy out of the plastics. HOW can the governor/mayor/community not include real improvements to recycling infrastructure as a condition for operation in their community! Recycling of the used plastics should not be separate but industry must be forced to tie it into its production: half these pellets should be made from recycled products...sorry Shell. This plant is a savior to Shell, it looks like it is giving back only minimally. I agree this is a very incomplete article, but commend the image of the behemoth being built and the unintended consequences of all that fracking. More plastic. Why isn't this on the front page of the digital version of the paper?
65
Shell announced the construction of this plant in June 2016.
I'm sure President Obama will be given due credit for economic expansion in Appalachia during the site visit by Trump on Tuesday.
17
. . . lawmakers estimated the tax credit would amount to $1.6 billion over 25 years. But that figure, built on an average of $66 million in tax credits per year, is not delineated in the law."
https://archive.triblive.com/business/local-stories/pennsylvania-tax-incentive-plan-played-major-role-in-luring-shell-cracker-plant/
2
As usual, industry promises it will enrich our lives. But the state should have made it a condition at the very least that they develop plastic recycling....not just extend the hours of a recycling plant that throws the plastic in the dump.
Horrible to contemplate.
33
The vast majority of improperly disposed plastic waste comes from China. In the meantime, the plant in PA is serious progress--better than the status quo. Did you know that it will displace European production using petroleum and Chinese production using coal? Petroleum and coal have serious geopolitical consequences, including for democracy. This Amercian wealth creation is needed for solving problems, like health care and an aging population.
4
Hooray! Really? Shell is going to commit to expanding healthcare for Americans, and more care for aging Seniors? I must call my friends and relatives and give them the good news that this wonderful company is investing profits for the good of the citizens!
25
The plant will emit 2.2 million tons of carbon dioxide while creating 1 million tons of plastic.
Enough said.
74
Directional drilling has been accomplished that goes 5 miles in a direction from the wellhead. Wells 2-3 miles from the well head are very much the norm.
So drilling under the park land would most likely be from a well pad not in the park, but one that would be typically thousands of feet below the park.
So is the city made money from any production, why object?
1
Rural, and not so rural Western PA is being ravaged by fracking and pipeline construction.
Not a word about contamination of ground water that is associated with fracking.
Not a word about air quality other than the massive release of C02.
Not a word about the many local communities struggling against this Goliath.
This is a very incomplete picture.
63
The Beaver County Shell cracker plant is the first, the PTTGlobal Cracker plant is the second. Plans for more than 5 more Cracker plants feeding into the #AppalachianStorageHub.
Grassroot Ohio - PTT Cracker Plant, Belmont County/OH w/ Leatra Harper & Megan Hunter 03/29/19!
https://soundcloud.com/user-42674753/grassroot-ohio-ptt-cracker-plant-belmont-countyoh-w-leatra-harper-megan-hunter-032919
GrassRoot 0hio -Appalachian Storage Hub w/ Ted Auch & Jill Hunkler- 04-26-19!
https://soundcloud.com/user-42674753/grassroot-0hio-appalachian-storage-hub-w-ted-auch-jill-hunkler-04-26-19
9
@charming good info, thanks
2
Plastic pellets end up in groundwater, rivers, lakes, in animals and in humans.
17
and they are in shampoo, shower gels, cosmetics, in about everything...
8
@Eva Plastic pellets in your shampoo? What kind of shampoo do you use?
Anything with “pearls “ or “beads.”
7
What's everyone so worked up about? It's only an extra 2 billion pounds of plastic a year, times the 12 or so plants of this ilk also coming online... And of course, the equivalent emissions of 480,000 cars annually. Also times 12 or so. Oh, and isn't fracking that thing polluting all the water in PA, making it flammable, causing earthquakes, etc?
Surely it's offset by 600 good jobs per factory, and the increased efficiency of lighter plastic parts in cars and planes, oh and heartfelt 'passion' for recycling. "...a legacy of care, innovation and success for future generations.”
It's laughable, but not funny.
59
Capitalism and our form of "government" have the nastiest record of any "ism". Hopefully it will soon perish and the super wealthy will be running for their lives. They ARE plastic.
16
The super wealthy are going to be allowed to kill this planet and everything on it. But not before they face the pitchforks and torches.
8
George Carlin:
"The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sunspots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles … hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages … And we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet isn’t going anywhere. WE are!
. . .
The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, “Why are we here?”
Plastic… ___hole.”
11
To those who are appalled: you will absolutely have these plastic pellets in your life in the coming decade. They will permeate your life. I doubt that in a ten-year period, there will be a single person in the U.S. who does not come into contact with at least a handful worth of the very pellets that will be produced at this Shell plastics plant.
16
Put very simply: we are doomed. Sadly, we will first destroy all of Earth's natural beauty and all of its fascinating non-human life forms. There is no stopping human greed, especially in our twisted capitalist system.
15
Classic story. Act 1 - promise the world to an area full of desperate rubes. Act 2 - We (the company) rake in piles and piles of profit. Nauseating amounts of profit. We throw you a few minimum wage bones to fight over. Act 3 - It all goes wrong, we have ruined your land and water. We'll keep the money and leave you to clean up (and pay) for the mess.
41
What do these three classic movies: Dr. Strangelove, Casablanca and The Graduate have in common. Today’s Times comments sections contain references to all of them. In case no one has included this one yet. Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
5
Yes, let's create more jobs that assist in destroying the environment. This will result in a higher standard of living for those employed. At least for a while.
18
Anyone remember the “60 Minutes” piece about the fellow who was able to manufacture plastics that had variable, but very short lifetimes: a plastic fork for instance could be made to last a week, a month or whatever, then disintegrate. Others have discovered similar processes for short-lifetime plastics. Why no talk of this technology especially for the millions of single use plastics. (Cost?)
14
Boy, is this a bad idea. A new plastics factory in 2019? Really?!
Yet, I get the convenience and per-bag-expense of plastic over paper. Fine.
But China is not taking our plastic anymore, and it doesn't decompose. Who doesn't understand the consequences of that?
If this factory was making a new kind of plastic that decomposed 100% and didn't contaminate our water system, I'd think about it.
But as is, I'm carrying my canvas bag to Trader Joe's and schlepp my food home in that. You should too.
33
Fabulous, for the economy, the people of PA that can and want to work there, and a great move to bring this back to the US. The real benefit will be the impact on bringing jobs to the US from other places, because US feedstock, natural gas, is among the cheapest and most plentiful on earth. The plastic will be cost advantaged, and the items made from it will be cost advantaged. And that means that natural gas will not be shipped from Indonesia to China to be made into plastic, to then be made into phone cases, to then be shipped to the US - a huge ecological win for everyone.
8
@John Don't be silly. It's an eco disaster.
16
@John you see this a s a win? really? How is adding more plastic to the world a "win" This article missed a lot of finer points but still I don't see a positive side to this factory at all.
9
Here is some perspective.
Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria is building solar powered microgrids in the rural areas to be power lines down proof. Wind and solar are now the cheapest sources of new electricity across 2/3 of the planet.
It is surprising that Pennsylvania was one of the to 5 leaders in clean energy job growth at 6% last year. It is sad to see them embrace ethane , a liquid by- product of natural gas production. Childrens cereal like Lucky Charms has trace amounts of Perchlorate thru plastic packaging and food processing equipment. Perchlorate impairs childrens thyroids to process iodine essential for brain development. Ethylene glycol in medicine is also used anti freeze.
19
This saddens me to no end. I’m 24 years old, and by the time I’m 64 (the planned life cycle of manufacturing plants like this) this facility will have dumped 88,000,000,000kgs of carbon into our atmosphere.
Our oceans will be higher, their executives will likely be dead, our planet will be hotter, and not a single once of the plastic produced here will have decomposed.
41
After watching a free showing of Plastic Ocean, our small community is focused on not purchasing products that are packaged in plastic and, wherever possible not buying anything made of plastic.
Eventually industry will 'get it'. Eventually.
15
Like plastics, trump's legacy will be inconveniently around forever.
"Shell is involved in a broad industry effort to clean up the world’s largest sources of plastic waste." Yet China (in another NYT story) is refusing recyclables from the world. Perhaps all plastics should be sent back to plastic city (Pittsburgh) for processing, handling and proper disposal. At the very least all non-biodegradable plastics this plant produces should be returned there for recycling or PROPER disposal.
The problem with plastic IS the production of something that cannot be properly disposed of - economically, at least - or that's the excuse capitalists use for not recycling, it's too expensive. So that the planet we all live on is used as a dump. Until a long term recycling program is set up, starting up any new production of plastics is the height of irresponsibility. At the very least, the $1.6 billion tax cut give away should be used for recycling.
A mere 5,000 people are building the instrument that will negatively affect the life of billions of people for generations and all life on Earth. And they're entitled to "the largest tax breaks in state history" to pollute the tax payer's environment? Is that an appropriate or decent trade off?
What will our descendants say of us as they choke down their daily plastic-digesting pills? At least steel rusts away - now Pittsburgh is Stealing the future environment away from their own tax payer's descendants to enrich a few.
25
Thank you for this article! The situation in our state is terrible. As your article noted, our Democratic governor's energy agenda is completely in line with his predecessor's and our current president's. He is proposing (yet again) a severance tax on fracking that would pay for an infrastructure spending plan he has proposed called Restore Pennsylvania. It would take 20 years of severance tax dollars to repay the $4.5 billion the plan would spend on a laundry list of things including fossil fuel subsidies to, among other things, grow the petrochemical business. As Governor Wolf tours the state to sell his plan, he has rejected our call to investigate a spike in childhood cancers in the area of the state where fracking first came to our state. You can read his response to me and the more than 100 organizations and 800+ individual signers here: https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/4825d0_5eb3e9cfe3984a03b2be78cc74177bda.pdf
Our Better Path Coalition invited Barb Goblick and her neighbor Karen Gdula to meet with Auditor General Eugene DePasquale who is doing a report on climate change. They told him that they have great fears about the fact that a new pipeline is going in that will cross the path of the Revolution in the spot where it exploded. It reminds me of a Post-Gazette story when the Texas Eastern blew up in Westmoreland County that said that area was "saturated with natural gas infrastructure" sitting atop a 39 square mile storage facility.
The insanity must stop.
29
Pennsylvania serves as a warning to those who would “vote blue no matter who.“ Despite our Democrat governor, destructive fossil fuel industries rule here, as they have done for more than a century because people have no respect for the natural beauty of our forests and rivers, and their inherent value. Fracking, its toxic wastewater, drill pads, roads and the truck traffic are destroying our forests. Our state parks are very popular, and eco-tourism could grow into an even more profitable industry given a fraction of the support we give to Shell, Chesapeake and others. Please, people, let’s look at long-term costs and benefits. And when choosing our representatives, remember Rachel Carson’s caveat to always ask, “Who is speaking, and why?”
30
@Lynk Establishment democrats receive money from the same big donors as republicans. The only ones who do not are few and far between, but a few have been elected and more are refusing corporate money in 2020. They are the only ones uncorrupted and free to criticize the destruction of the natural world.
12
If one believes in global warming due to anthropomorphic CO2, plastics are one of the solutions to the problem. As noted in the article, using plastics instead of metals in cars, planes, etc. significantly reduces their weight and therefore energy consumption. Perhaps an even greater savings in energy is in their use for a product that many folks love to hate, bottles. The weight of a plastic bottle is negligible compared to the weight of a glass bottle, thereby saving huge amounts of energy for their transportation. The only thing similar in weight savings to plastic is aluminum, although making an aluminum can requires much more energy than making a plastic bottle.
While it is easy to demonize plastic because of environmental waste concerns, it is important to consider the environmental benefits of plastics.
4
However, just having left Pittsburgh after a visit with family, I saw a big push for “reusable” glass, as in milk bottles using locally produced milk where the empty bottle is returned to the supermarket and reused.
I don’t see that so much with plastic. In fact, not at all.
I hear you on weight efficiency issues. But plastic is forever.
19
@Greg Pitts Reusable glass bottles is an interesting issue. You could do the same thing with plastics if you made the bottle stronger. From an energy perspective it would be interesting to see the energy balance of reusing a glass/plastic bottle versus manufacturing a new one. I am not sure where it would fall as the energy usage to wash and transport used bottles is nontrivial.
3
@Rob-Chemist The source of the plastic is gas - fracked gas to be more precise. Fracking emits methane and the process uses millions of gallons of clean water for EACH well - many wells are fracked multiple times. The fossil fuels used to extract, transport, refine and ship the products around the world is also NOT clean NOR sustainable.
11
The article makes it sound like the ethane is a byproduct associated with methane.
It's my understanding the production is almost all ethane.
Ethane is very tricky to handle and a project this size really is terra incognita.
I spent the first 20 years of my career in oil & gas exploration on the Gulf Coast. Most of the land is flat as a board and most knowledge concerning the transportation of hydrocarbons is derived from experience with flat land.
Recently, I've worked in Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky. I've seen that the producers have had nightmarish problems operating in a mountainous area. Catastrophe is a regular occurrence.
Put transporting ethane together with operating in a mountainous area and you have a recipe for disaster. Most of the operators can't pay their bills now---they just can't. Consequently, many corners will be cut, things will get done on the cheap.
I've got a bad feeling about this project.
35
"plastic, in most of its forms, is good for humanity"
What movie quote does this remind me of? Oh yes:
"Greed, for lack of a better word, is good."
My hometown Pittsburgh deserves better...sigh...
19
This is completely irresponsible and Shell knows it. We have far more than we know what to do with now - why make more?
A better project for Shell would be coming up with safe and effective ways of recycling plastic and ways of effectively disposing of it.
15
Hard to believe ANYONE wants to load the earth with more plastics! I though we were trying to figure out what in heaven's name to do with what we already have.
14
Microbeads is in our medicines and cosmetics and is banned in my county along with plastic bags in 2020. Water treatment plants cant handle it and it winds up in the oceans. Plastics are flammable and should never be in the kitchen like melamine and pressed wood cabinets. We know from frogs what deformities and estrogen enhancement is causes by them. Any fishermen will tell you its bad. The governors and politicians are poisoning their population. Wasn't PA the state that poisoned the farmers wells with fracking and caused earthquakes and sink holes. Ms Mercer's knowledge of what is good for humanity has tunnel vision. It is good for Shell's shareholders. If fracking natural gas is too cheap, there are plenty of countries and states it can export to. China wont recycle cell phones any more and without billionaires like Bloomberg to fund the recycling plants she seems delusional. Plant based resins seem like a shorter shelf life based option. What really needs to happen is if we became a less disposable and mobile economy.
8
@Nadine So wood cabinets in the kitchen are bad too?
3
Time to boycott Shell.
Right in the wrong direction on the highway to destruction.
The children of today will disparage the previous generations when they suffer in the heights of climate change for the greed and the lack of both personal and political will and urgency to mitigate climate change.
11
Plastics are essential to a modern economy. They are used throughout the world, by all of us, directly and indirectly. They will be produced to meet demand, somewhere in the world. If you want them to be recycled more, then change the regulations on how products using plastics are manufactured and disposed of.
The 600 jobs in Beaver valley will be an enormous boon to the area between Pittsburgh and Youngstown. Many of the jobs will be semi-skilled to skilled workers without college degrees paying $60-100K a year. For each job at the plant, many more will be created in the ecosystem of suppliers and contractors that service the plant, and even more in the ecosystem that serves the workers whose tradeable goods will bring cash into that region.
Any person or political party that claims to support the interests of the US worker should support this investment into American jobs, expertise, and trade balance. This plant will abide by all of the rules that make US water and air the cleanest of any industrial country in the world (much more so than Europe). Knee jerk objection to any industrial enterprise is one of the many reasons why red state voters so despise the bi-coastal urban elite, and why Trump is president. You wouldn't want the residents of Beaver Valley to tell you how to run NYC; I can assure you the sentiment is shared.
9
@Tom Meadowcroft
If a product is detrimental to the survival of the planet, it would be the responsibility of all people to protest the manufacturing of that product. While plastic may be a necessity in some areas, the proliferation of plastic has to do with profit. It’s cheaper than aluminum or paper. We are still discovering the health ramifications of micro plastics in our water, food supply and our bodies.
17
I just looked around my livingroom, kitchen and laundry room — hundreds and hundreds of items made from or packaged in PLASTIC.
From an environmental point of view the stuff is awful.
Does anyone have a comprehensive plan outlining how we live without plastic?
At present, it’s everywhere!
14
Right. It is jobs. It is climate change denial. It is pollution denial. It is right up the Trump voting Pennsylvania alley make a buck no matter what economy. GOP legislature mean money over people. This story is just liberal hand wringing over a done deal.
4
On a recent trip to Pittsburgh, it was pointed out to me. It’s enormous and enormously worrying.
10
This seems like a terrible idea Royal Dutch Shell. Maybe we can create an entire new industry of collecting plastic and mulching it to use as filler for furniture, concrete, new plastic...
6
A 1.6 BILLION dollar tax break to create 600 permanent jobs. This is the Republican way of “rebuilding” our economy.
Sprinkled with condescending lip service to circular economies and the plastic used in wind turbines.
It’s criminal, grotesque, tragically shortsighted. At least we can sell suuuubsss while the planet burns.
27
Giving Shell a tax break to build a refinery that is sitting on an ocean of ethane is like paying someone to eat ice cream. I'm so happy for the inhabitants of this region, whose children will have no jobs, no money, no future, but all the plastic they'll ever need.
15
Maybe it’s time to require companies who make plastic to then recycle it so the waste isn’t covering the earth. O yeah, and leave a natural gas in the ground - we may need to use some of it in the future, if we have a future.
16
Why not require that all plastic be heavier than water so that it will sink to the bottom of the ocean where we can't see it?
2
@Robert David South
Robert, I don’t believe we own the bottom of the ocean. There are living creatures down there.
Sweeping trash under the rug, that is, putting it out of sight, is probably not the answer.
5
@Robert David South putting plastic at the bottom of the ocean will create havoc for millions of live forms . lets start refusing to use it.
4
Today’s headline in my Minneapolis StarTribune “Plastics threaten Great Lakes “
Enough said.
21
This is just the normal workings of capitalism. Money first and Humanity and Mother Earth come last.
We are doomed under capitalism.
M
18
Coming to a courtroom near you: the 2040 lawsuit about all the plastic filling up our bodies and killing us.
10
The only invective to action is money.
Therefore, everything manufactured and consumed should come with a disposal price. Items that are used once and then tossed and do not biodegrade should have the largest cost. A plastic shopping bag for example, should be priced according to the negative impact it creates.
I suggest the following: $0.001 cents per day of post-use existence. A plastic bag can expect to have a 10,000 year life. This is 3,650,000 days, so the cost is $3,650.00 per bag. At this sort of cost, people will actually pay attention to their actions.
20
I’m so angry about this as a Pennsylvanian and as someone who actually cares about this planet’s survival. More plastic pollution, more air pollution, more cancer diagnoses, more carbon emissions. This is the last thing we need. I feel ill thinking about it. I want it cancelled.
21
@Rachael How about just stop using petrochemical products. Any of them. All of them. You don't like plastic pollution?? Fine. It's a bad thing. Don't ever, not ever, buy anything containing plastic.
Until *everyone* adopts this, there is no incentive for governments (any of them) nor corporations to cease.
YOU PAY THEM for petrochemical products.
until and unless YOU STOP USING the product, you are wasting your breath.
2
Let,'s start with a 5 cent deposit on all those billions of single use plastic water bottles. Then add in plastic food containers. Plastic product bottles. The the unredeemed charged fund serious recycling efforts on all household goods. A 25 -50 dollar deposit on all large appliances returned when disposed of whould also help. Lets make sure the legacy we leave our grandchildren in no a trash strens overheated planet with no animals except rats and seagulls.
14
@GUANNA You are a genius !!!!
2
“We passionately believe in recycling.” It's sad that Ms. Mercer and Royal Dutch Shell didn't plan and then implement this project in reverse: Build out the infrastructure to collect and properly dispose of (recycle) these plastic pellets, THEN build the facility to create those same pellets.
Countries like China that used to take in and recycle plastics are now exiting that market. Yet the world economies continue to consume and dispose of plastics. We and our environment are drowning in our own waste. Hilary Mercer is part of the problem.
19
I live several hrs east of Beaver, in a county that has seen it’s air quality plummet & storm water problems explode due to astronomical increases in truck traffic, million-plus square-foot warehouses, & poorly-planned & executed development.
PA has some of the worst enabling legislation for planning & zoning in the country; municipalities are undercut, when seeking to determine their own development guidelines, by the legislature’s favoring out-of-town, out-of-state, & even out-of-country development interests. Those interests have far more pull through lobbying than local officials do.
PA is “provincial” in the original & derogatory senses of the word: 2,600 local govts make land-use decisions. The vast majority of those decisions are made by untrained, under-educated, & unpaid local officials. Some officials are elected by as few as 600 TOTAL voters. They are no match for multi-nationals.
I know this as planning commissioner in my area. Our PC is highly trained, unlike many. Like most towns our untrained elected officials make the decisions, not us.
Transportation infrastructure has been woefully underfunded since the Rendell administration; fracking interests have bullied their way through the entire state regulatory process. Under Corbett, DEP & AG pro-fracking lawyers were hired; many of those folks were fired or resigned bc they had been freely sharing racist & sexist emails & texts (w/a PA judge or 3).
None of this surprises me, unfortunately.
33
I imagine that when the executives who green lighted and now manage this project end up in front of the Pearly Gates, they will feel hungry and will be offered a sumptuous feast. All the food, however, will be made of plastic, so they will fill their stomachs with tasteless. indigestible fare, causing them to vomit and they will still be hungry. And like Sisyphus, they will keep gorging frantically because of their hunger, the table enticing them with platters abundant with meats, fish, vegetables and desserts; eating, vomiting, and eating...for all of eternity.
9
I think that it has been widely observed that few animals will foul their own nests. We seem to be a striking exception while also having the capacity to understand exactly what it is we are doing. I am greatly comforted in the thought that after our species finally manages to exterminate itself, in a relatively short period of time (geologically speaking), all traces of human habitation will be erased.
12
This is where the green new deal would be so much better. Shell could be investing in and making plastics with green circular chemistry. Instead it continues to focus on extraction and adding to the atmospheric carbon load along with plastics pollution. Shell is trying to put lipstick on the pig of fracking with this plant.
Maybe a short term boon for a few workers, but it is likely this will be very unpleasant, in not outright dangerous, for nearby residents. Bear in mind, if can smell it, it is in your body. And even when you can't it still is in your body.
13
I read the book "Amity and Prosperity" last year. Its story of the impacts of fracking on people nearby is telling. This is especially true when the people are of limited means and huge profits are at stake. As someone born and raised in the greater region, I hope that residents are very suspicious.
6
I think of polyethylene as a net positive. PE replaces other materials that have their own downsides. If anything, the neo environmentalists seem to decry plastics because plastics help more humans exist with available resources-- and therein is the rub. For a given number of humans, plastics are a more efficient solution than the preceding solutions; thus plastics are a net positive. Finally, most of those complaining humans want everyone else to live a short non-reproductive life of asceticism, not themselves...
3
@MH GOP Spokesman: "Good for Business; Good for America".
1
Fossil fuels, however they are used will finish us. We are done.
7
Always reminds me of the line from the Graduate; “the future is in plastics”; sounded great didn’t realize it would be the future forever and ever, entering every biological being in ways we never imagined. That was the 1960’s thinking should it be the same thinking nearly 60 years later.
8
The article was somewhat vague on what the plant is actually going to produce, polymer wise. Polyethylene was mentioned. If that is all they are going to produce then the statement about how that is going to contribute to "lighter weight cars, etc." is nonsense. Polyethylene is not an "engineering plastic", i.e., it has little mechanical strength and softens and melts at low temperatures. Only very small amounts would be used in vehicles of any type. Polyethylene is the plastic that is used for plastic grocery bags, garbage bags, milk bottles, drinking straws and other disposable products because it is cheap and easily molded/extruded. Polyethylene is only one step away from paraffin wax. On the other hand, it is one of the most easily recycled plastics (so called plastic lumber is a mixture of recycled polyethylene and wood fibers), assuming there is any concerted effort to collect it, which is generally not the case.
11
@Dav Mar - Polyethylene makes good pipes for some applications and membranes for (among other things) lining reservoirs and landfills. The relatively low melting point means pipes and liner seams can be welded easily.
Not all bad.
1
If they would build a recycling plant to go with the plastic factory, I might be inclined to go with this, but the fact is we don't have enough recycling facilities in the US to handle the amount of plastic and other materials, which is why so much trash ends up in the oceans killing our wildlife there.
15
Couldn't this new plant have a built-in recycle center? Where they could take the plastics they make that are no longer needed and then melt them down and use that to form new pellets for new products?
27
@Brian Sommers Why would Shell Corporation ever fund something like that? It would cut into their profits.
6
Mr. Corkery's article fails to mention the devastating public health impacts Shell's plastic factory will have on people living nearby, as well as those living on the front lines of fracking for the gas feedstock that will fuel the plant. We are experiencing a significant spike in rare childhood cancers in heavily fracked areas in southwestern Pennsylvania, and radioactive water from frack waste is being discharged into our rivers. The Shell plant will be the anchor of a 500 square mile petrochemical hub in the Ohio River Valley that will require a massive increase in fracking, gas processing infrastructure, pipelines, gas liquid storage facilities (including in salt caverns under the Ohio River) and ancillary plastic and chemical plants. All the products mentioned in this article can be created using materials that will not contaminate our natural resources, exacerbate climate change and harm public health. I wish Mr. Corkery would have done a more thorough job of researching the full story of the destructive plastic factory Donald Trump will visit tomorrow in Pennsylvania.
38
Plastics is an aesthetics issue. Other than that, it causes few problems.
Sure, we are shown photos of and told stories about animals that are killed by plastics, but it's really a relatively small number and it certainly fits in with Darwinian evolution: More animals are born than can survive; this is just another way that they can die. Unnatural, you may say, but dead is dead and it leaves more food for others and they, themselves, become food for others. It may be sad when we look at an individual, but they are part of a whole: The Web of Life.
We read articles about the great mass of the plastics in our landfills, but who really cares how much a landfill weighs? And why should we? It's certainly isn't enough to set the Earth off-kilter. In NYC and environs, we covered the mounds with earth and made parks.
There is a great gyre of plastics in the ocean. So what? Unaesthetic, perhaps, but very few people even see it and how different is it from the Sargasso's weeds? The plastics become safety zones for zooplankton. And little of it comes from the U.S. as we ceased ocean dumping decades ago.
The people who are incensed by these things are well-meaning but in terms of human or animal life it is inconsequential.
@Anonymous The aesthetics of ubiquitous inescapable pollution, much of which is actually not visible and is profoundly disrupting might be fine to your taste, but not to mine, and I would say not to most people.
Do some reading about how far plastics, micro-plastics in particular, have made it into the food chain. Plastics have contributed to hormone disruption...with very serious health consequences. And disrupting the ecosystem is non-trivial. The destruction of one species could lead to the unraveling of our food chain.
The Darwinian consideration is almost correct. But it is really about us. Ultimately we are connected to the the things we destroy. We are creating the conditions that will lead to a really big population reset. When that happens, what remains will be pretty unpleasant, and we will have to evolve or go extinct.
So no, it is extremely consequential.
15
Your ignorance about how the living Earth functions takes my breath away. Human activities on a global scale now dominate the geophysical operations and internal dynamics of the Earth Systems. Colossal plastic production and use, and its long-term negative consequences for all living species within biological ecosystems, is only one of many human system effects occurring at incomprehensible and little understood complex scales. Chemical pollution, ocean acidification, nitrogen and phosphorus loadings, biodiversity loss are having equal negative effects at colossal scale turning the oceans lifeless and dead. Please learn about the Anthropocence equation now functioning on the one life giving planet we all share in the 21st Century together.
8
@trebor: [Do some reading about how far plastics, micro-plastics in particular, have made it into the food chain]
One of the things that I noticed when I read actual research articles in actual science publications was the use of terms such as potentially and may. While these items are certainly a concern (another term used), as of now there are no known deleterious effects on humans, marine mammals or even food fish from microplastics.
Keep in mind that microplastics do not come out of the digestive tract into the flesh of the animal. Unless you eat a marine animal whole, you do not ingest the micro-plastics. Since humans do not digest them either, microplastics will not enter our bodies and will most likely act as roughage.
This will go down in history as the worst decision local and state lawmakers ever made.
15
All of this and so much more could have been avoided with judicious use of hemp fiber products instead of plastic—and that is so for the last 80 years since the federal government outlawed the growing of hemp to protect the burgeoning plastics industry.
23
A 1.6 BILLION tax break! Its own rail + pipeline.
What that could have done for renewable energy infrastructure in the same region + public rail service!
(But then it would be called manipulating the market - or socialism)
49
@msf
You understand they aren’t given any money, right? The incentive is a reduction in the amount of taxes that are paid to PA. There is no money if the plant isn’t built. For example, if the plant would have generated $5 billion over 10 years, it will now pay the state $3.4 billion.
1
@msf
And here in the great Commonwealth of PA, we can’t get our state leaders to meaningfully boost commuter or goods rail funding, much needed highway infrastructure improvements and additional capacity, or state-wide programs to help individual homeowners and business owners pay for proven technologies to keep them off the carbon grid.
It’s a complete failure of leadership.
Plus, my county is downwind of Beaver, so those 480,000 cars-worth of CO2 emissions that this Shell plastics plant will generate is heading towards me, inevitably worsening our already poor air quality because of all the truck traffic and truck warehouses. And it’s not just the CO2 emissions, it’s the PM 10 and PM 2.5 emissions as well. Those small particles have already caused a spike in asthma and lung cancer deaths in our county in the last 25 years.
Only 600 max people will be employed at the Shell plastics refinery when it opens; far more in my county will be sent to the hospital in the coming years resulting in this plant opening across the state. Shell isn’t proposing to build air treatment facilities in my area!
13
@Bill
...then everything's OK is that it?
The costs to infrastructure, the costs of the inevitable (and already noticeable) environmental damage, the the social and logistical supports for the temporarily significant number of workers, soon to shrivel to nothing, all born by government (that's you, by the way) with no help or investment from Royal Dutch Shell.
Who's to say the chosen 600 will come from the area? If not, school expansion, medical resources, sewers, water, all come without any involvement of Royal Dutch Shell.
They are, essentially, rich unwanted house guests, who will more than pay their way but have no interest in the health or upkeep of the household and, as our recent Midwest experiences have shown us, as likely to leave in the dark of any old night as not.
You may love plastics. You may think a billion and a half for 600 tenuous and not very high level jobs is brilliant. It could be you believe the sooner all them trees are gone the better and if this can kill off a few, good deal.
Even so, this is a horrible deal, "crafted" by politicians, like our Trump, eager to say they did something, they brought something, at any cost.
One thing to consider: aside from the wonder that is Western Pennsylvania, is that Royal Dutch Shell will never find another country with so much money, so vast an infrastructure (to which they will also contribute zero) and such stunningly lax regulation, so very little concern for precious environments and resources.
6
As a retired union hardhat, I can't help but smile at the sight of all the cranes and the statement that the project site employs 5000 of my former brethren. But all this for more plastic pollution is a mega-downer.
24
@P. Liddle Right? It would be a lot better if it were a recycling plant or a solar panel factory.
12
@P. Liddle
I am pro union. But I wish when large blanket statements of "1000s are getting union jobs!" was backed up equally loud the reality is the jobs for this project are for 2 years. Thats not long term, that's until the election. They estimate only 600 permanent ones, and a commenter down the line here said they were at a recent town meeting regarding the pant and the estimated number of workers need full time is shrinking. Also, MANY of the workers will probably be from out of state, having previous training and specific experience. Thats cheaper for a company than hiring only locals and having to train them. ...Union workers MUST start thinking farther than the foot of the bed and pressing for the REAL details before jumping for joy.
5
@Justine News flash--all construction jobs are short to mid-term--it's the nature of the beast. If you're a hardhat you know the way to the unemployment office. And yeah, most of the jobs are skilled--union hardhats are a blue collar elite. You want locals trained?--join a union and enter a 5-year apprenticeship.
1
Why does she passionately believe in recycling when it is a fact that recycling is not the solution?
8
@Farah
Bingo! I’ve stopped recycling plastics because 1) I can’t keep up with which plastics are or are not being accepted by my recycling company, and 2) our trash/ recycling company has already been lobbying on social media that huge increases are coming- because of the high cost of recycling, not garbage disposal. My family can’t afford a big increase in trash - we’re already looking at a new tax of $100 per month for storm water costs because our water/wastewater company and our municipal government ignored for the last 20+ years the actual costs of replacing and improving infrastructure (we moved here <5 yrs ago).
2
in other words,
ExxonMobil and Dow still solid contenders for the title of 'Worst Corporation in History'.
13
Of course Ms. Hilary Mercer thinks it's a good thing. She's part of the system/problem. And Monstanto thinks what it does is the cat's pajamas. What is wrong with humanity? After all we know about the horrors of plastic, what does one find in stores today? More plastic than ever, industrial strength wrapping to boot - near impossible to open. Buy any electronic and it is wrapped in two or three layers of plastic. Boycott, anyone? Not worrying about the future of your grandchildren or great-grandchildren? Hello, family values? Talk about a suicidal culture. What's good for business is the death knell for humanity.
30
@Zoli
OK. Every american needs to Express mail ALL of their plastic recyclables to Ms. Mercer, every week to help jump start her "circular economy". Little wonder, the Republican governor gave the company a $1.6B tax break. A temporary hero to unions, who will lose roughly 4400 of those workers when plant comes online in 2020. Gosh, maybe then more tax breaks for more ethane pipelines to blow up.
This is the new America. Temporary economic boom, followed by centuries of irreplaceable environmental doom. You go Pennsylvania, Ms. Mercer and Mr. Scott. So sad to read the ethane has muddled your critical reasoning.
13
@Jimd
Sorry, the Union doesn’t lose anything. Construction jobs are 100% temporary. They always end when construction is finished. $5,000 men, earning $80,000 - $120,000 per year for 6 - 7 years is a huge impact on their lives. Plus, as the plant ramps up production it will stimulate construction of other downstream facilities that will employ thousands of workers for years to come.
1
@Zoli
and a death knell for all other species on earth
4
This article fills me with despair.
The only thing I can figure out to do is NEVER EVER BUY SHELL GASOLINE AGAIN.
I realize that’s ridiculous. As filling up with Exxon is just as bad.
But to realize that oil companies, concerned that their exorbitant profits are now only huge, looking around for ways to make more money, light on plastics-is almost the definition of EVIL.
And The woman spokesperson for Shell saying, “we believe plastics are good for humanity.”—she’s like a villain in a campy movie. And the sorry situation of the unions of Pittsburg workers. Looking at this as a boon.
It’s enough for me to vote for a Socialist candidate.
20
Will the Pittsburgh Steelers now be known as the Pittsburgh Plastics?
28
Imagine if your life's work was polluting the Earth for millennia to come. But hey, at least some CEOs get their 10 car garage.
17
So much wrong in these two sentences:
"Will you eventually see everything renewable? Probably in 100 years,” Mr. Corbett said. “But right now natural gas is giving a future to your grandchildren.”
7
@Christopher Hughes
so unbelievably true what you are highlighting here. Germany instituted a cradle to grave policy some years ago. Recycling is doable in the next decade. And so is the severe reduction of carbon emissions. Journalists are doomed to report on this because it looks like they are endorsing the economics or the offsets or whatever. Because then anyone reading with a clear understanding or the big picture will come away in despair. So many people will read the part about grandchildren and forget the gamble that big oil poses for those grandchildren. They will skim it over and think how this is just one more reason to dis the snowflakes. Even more will accept the inevitability and post it on the "positive attitude" of their unprovable assumptions.
4
@John
You do know the movement towards 100% renewable energy in Germany has failed, right? Germany is in the midst of constructing more coal fired power plants as they move away from nuclear power plants.
600 jobs is that all?
7
@slater65 That is the company's estimate, so it could be less. As a resident of Pittsburgh, I am asking Connor Lamb, Governor Wolfe (both Democrats) and other politicians how they can justify destroying our future for 600 jobs? Not to mention giving Shell less stringent pollution caps and billions of dollars in potential tax breaks.
24
@BobN I live in Beaver, PA and attended a town hall last weekend about the environmental effects of the cracker plant. The speakers confirmed that the number has actually dropped from 600 future employees to 400 employees. County officials are bragging about this bringing local jobs....while it may have brought some, there are many, many more workers from out-of-state working at this plate as evidenced by the number of Texas and other non-Pennsylvanian license plates seen in our area.
14
@slater65 Back when this was first proposed and Shell was seeing what PA, OH, and WV had to offer, the American Chemistry Council was touting "17,000 jobs in chemistry and other industries." They got their government subsidies, and now we are down to 600. https://www.toledoblade.com/Energy/2012/01/03/Ohio-pursues-ethane-cracker-plant.html
3
A minute in our kitchen or in our products and then forever in our oceans, our fish, our mammals, our bodies, our landfills. End single use plastics. Grow a brain. Stop allowing money interests to ruin our lives.
22
Profit now, environmental damage forever. Nice legacy, eh?
15
Nationalize this company and shut it down.
8
Nowhere is it mentioned or discussed that this plant is only the first in a planned petrochemical complex to line the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to Kentucky, including perhaps five to seven crackers and then the plastics or other chemical plants to use the products. There are plans to run not one but several pipelines under the Ohio River, as well as six big ones along it to tie together all the components. And that all this will wildly spur the drilling and fracking in the region, which overlies the richest shale gas play in the country, the Marcellus (and overlapping Utica). Or that the gas in this particular deposit is quite radioactive--how about the natural gas liquids? Or that Cancer Alley Number one in Louisiana at least has flat land and a nearby ocean to blow away the polluted air; this one has hill country with air inversions and little wind. It's the region of the infamous Donora smog death event in 1948. The area already has high cancer rates. All of these factories pollute, all with come with a health price tag for both workers and the unfortunate neighbors. All will also have a contribution to climate changing emissions. And when the young but burgeoning anti-plastics movements kills the market for this and the many other new facilities in planning stages, the area will be left with a huge, hideous white elephant on the river...think maybe Shell will pay for cleanup? Nope, they will be GONE, looking for a fresh gullible public.
44
If Shell believes so passionately in recycling, why isn't it buying recyclables? Why isn't it investing money in finding profitable ways of using the plastics already in our environment -- which, if you think about it, is now an abundant resource that people would actually pay you to take off their hands?
Because it's just a talking point, that's why. These people care about one thing and one thing only: profits.
42
Plastic is not bad, it has many good uses. Plastic packaging keeps food fresh and free of bacteria, keeps medical devices sterile, and protects products during transit.
There are downsides to plastic to be sure; it does need to be properly disposed of or recycled, but plastic is not inherently evil. Limiting the use of disposable plastic bags and straws is good and we should continue those efforts, but being outraged over a new plastic factory is ridiculous.
3
@Ben What a strange attitude. The issue is not that plastics are somehow inherently evil. It's that to date, human societies have been abysmally poor at dealing with the consequences of massive conversion of carbon, that has been secured in geological deposits for hundreds of millions of years, into consumer products. What is your plan for recycling plastic? One approach is to state that your corporation is committed to recycling, but to do as little as possible. Wait for government to act? Industry has government in a stranglehold. There is nothing ridiculous about recognizing that increasing plastic production will absolutely increase the plastic trash that is infiltrating all of our lives, in ways we probably cannot even understand yet. Only those who will not recognize the huge consequences see no problems with building many new cracker plants worldwide. I guess you will not be around to see the consequences of these actions, but your descendants, if you have any, absolutely will pay the price.
2
600 eventual full time jobs and they got over a billion dollars in tax advantages. Anyone else have a problem with this?
35
@Shellbrav
$3.5 billion in temporary salaries
$7.0 billion in capital investment (possibly higher)
$600 million in annual payroll
Billions of dollars annually in other expenses
Offset by $160 million per year in lower tax revenues that wouldn’t exist if the plant wasn’t constructed. Sounds like it’s a time least defensible. The state will generate lower tax revenue for 10 years and then get the full bill for as long as the plant operates. Not to mention all the support to local and state businesses.
Recycling plastic is just not feasible.
Let's cut down on consuming.
14
@Bruno Mariani Having worked in local and county government as solid waste and recycling director for 34 years, I have witnessed the highs and lows of public sentiment regarding recycling. Unfortunately, convenience seems to trump conscious almost always. Forward looking individuals are a minority, but NIMBY nearly always wins.
2
Plastics should be the responsibility of producers and not to society as a whole.
9
@Bruno Mariani
Why? If you do t want to recycle then don’t buy or use plastic. Forcing a third party to get you to recycle isn’t going to work.
1
I am sympathetic to the conclusion that plastics are a problem but this article seemed from the beginning to imply there was something bad about this plant. The problem has very little to do with this plant but rather with the plastics industry as a whole. We need to stop focusing on one plant and focus on the entire system. Whether this plant is built or not is meaningless. What matters is what we do as consumers and citizens regarding plastic packaging.
3
@Matt J. Obviously you don't live in the area. There are more plants like this one being planned PA, WV, and OH. Each one can destroy the environment surrounding the plants; and further downwind (air pollution) and down river (water pollution) from the plants. And this does even consider the effects on climate change from the plant itself and from all frack wells that will be needed to support it. I do agree that we need as a society address the plastic problem. That needs to be done in addition to addressing the environmental impact of this cracker plant.
11
@BobN
Do you use gasoline, chemicals to wash with, feed plants, wear clothes made from petrochemicals? Most of what you consume is made somewhere else. If everyone took your position, nothing would be produced anywhere.
Your gasoline, for example, is refined In Philadelphia or Texas and moved by pipeline to Pittsburgh. What would you do if we shut those plants down because of local objection? I know one thing you would do, drive a car.
@Matt J. Individual action is just the good guys sacrificing while the bad guys laugh. The rules need to change for everybody and everybody needs to obey the rules. Tax plastic and it will diminish. Look what happened to smoking.
2
I viewed a program an 60 Minutes that profiled a company in Washington state who has found a way to separate cellulose from plant material. Cellulose is one of the most plentiful resources on Earth. Up to this point, research into accomplishing this has been stymied by the huge amount of energy and processing needed to accomplish the separation.
This company has found an energy efficient way to do it. One use for the cellulose is a plastic like material. The difference is that the cellulose can be "programmed" to breakdown. Any time frame from weeks to years can be used in everything from "plastic" like utensils and straws to more durable products.
We can only innovate our way out of this problem. Bemoaning plastics and hoping the government or industry finds a way out is futile.
6
“We passionately believe in recycling” said Ms. Mercer. If so, why aren't they building a plant to recycle old plastic into new? I'm sure she would say "You don't understand the chemistry" and I don't. But it's not about chemistry, it's about money.
20
What would truly be worth a $1.6 billion tax incentive is for Shell to build a plant that hired 600 people to recycle 100 million tons of plastic per year.
Don't you agree Ms. Mercer?
37
Making plastics from fossil fuels is better than burning them in cars or power plants. Plastic is useful. However, without a very well thought out plan for the end-of-life of these plastics then this plant is simply socializing the problems the same way they did with gasoline.
Are these plastics being designed to be recycled? Are the products they will be used in durable and designed to last? Or will they be chucked into the earth without a thought?
Without a very clear mandate to think this through, this is just another pestilence. I remain to be convinced.
11
SO glad husband and I are old.
We did not sow the seed of this tragedy and we will NOT be around to reap the whirlwind.
Alas, I fear for what our grandchildren will inherit.
15
@Lee Me too. When I try to look on the bright side, all I can see is I'll be dead. I feel bad for the kids. They are going to hate us for this.
8
@Lee
I agree. And my husband and I have been telling each other daily that we're so glad we didn't have children.
6
Western PA ,and Pittsburgh is experiencing a lot of growth from many sectors. A number of major universities and a substantial tech sector have been driving a population increase and skilled job market. Steel production is greater than most realize ,most pipe is made in the Western PA region.The cracking plant would have been built somewhere and there will be others .Yes Democrats run things here ,but Democrats like money ,just like anybody else does.It's unfortunate that NY state hasn't allowed fracking ,NY doesn't allow much ,but they will take your money.
1
@Alan Einstoss
Good, keep the pollution in PA, you can have your 600 jobs at a cost over a billion dollars.
1
When someone talks about the time one hundred years from now, it causes me to shudder. The natural systems of the Earth will not be like they are now, I fear. It's trite, but good luck.
8
It doesn't matter what a drilling company drills under because no one without a map will ever be able to tell that production is taking place. Petroleum deposits are usually thousands of feet below the surface. Where ever the well head is it is many times smaller than the world's smallest house. and unlike a house it won't be leeching fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides into nearby streams and rivers. Everything we use everyday is created with petroleum products that we will never see. Electricity for example is increasingly being generated by natural gas instead of coal or nuclear fuels. Our lives for the most part depend on it to run our doctor's offices and hospitals and to make syringes, scrubs and the drugs we use. I think the biggest problem is that outside of Louisiana mineral rights are separate from land ownership which means people don't get paid a share of the production even if it's in their backyard. That can be done here but after production ends the mineral rights default back to the real estate.
Recycling needs to be a part of every new manufacturing plant and retrofitted to existing plants. We need to take ownership of the consequences of our innovation.
20
I won't explore the need to replace plastics. They are so ubiquitous at this point that it will take a very novel innovation to replace them.
At this point the problem lies in plastics as waste. That will also require innovation. At this point, I believe all companies making or using plastic products (medical uses possibly excepted) should pay a tiny fee for each pound they produce or use (this will amount to a great deal of money). The money from that fee should go to research and development into producing plastics that are less harmful to health (like BPAs) and that degrade more readily depending on their length of use. Money from the fee should also support recycling efforts even if that just means adequate storage for decades until a use or way to safely break down the plastics is found.
Not as pie-in-the-sky as trying to use glass or paper to replace plastic.
6
Proper recycling is needed, but we really need to focus on sharply reducing the amount of plastic packaging & single-use plastic. In Europe they are enacting laws to encourage companies to reduce plastic usage and more accountability for recyclablity of their products.
7
With all these comments that wish for better plastics, either easier to recycle or more biodegradable, I expect many young readers to switch majors to chemistry and chemical engineering.
Right?
4
The truth is plastic, like most things, is neither good nor bad. It is what people do with it that is good or bad. Plastic has many good uses. However, too much plastic is just discarded along roadways or in water by consumers.
Plastic recycling, or at least responsible disposal, should be mandatory. Instead, in Pennsylvania, it is all over the side roads thrown there by slovenly people. We spend summers in NY where there is a 5 cent deposit on plastic bottles. Very little litter on roadways. In PA our Republican legislators call it a tax and refuse to enact one.
I believe that companies that make things should also be responsible for dealing with them when they are used up or out. Why should companies be allowed to produce products which are difficult to dispose of when used up claiming they are good for us? If they can’t be disposed of properly or recycled they aren’t good for us, they are pollution
15
If it was really “circular” all the discarded plastic out there now would be recycled and reused for all these wondrous new plastic devices that will save the world rather than using such a phony argument to justify making millions of tons more. It obviously doesn’t really work that way but such sounds good, especially when coming from Oxford grads.
12
Just what we need - more plastic and more pollution. It's time to turn this mindless obsession with plastics and disposables around. I live in the cracker plant region and I oppose this abuse of the land, water, and air - which results in the abuse of our bodies. Let's be creative and get out from under plastics. There are other more sustainable and far less polluting options. Few people want to live in a petrochemical hub. PA is beautiful. let's keep it that way. The PA Constitution states that residents of the Commonwealth have the right to clean air and water. The cracker plant violates that.
12
Potential fixes
1) make plastic heavy enough to sink - that makes it easier to clean up because if you pollute it will be localized. Sit in your own mess.
2) Make plastic stronger so it is harder to break down - again, more localized and easier to clean up.
1
You can't stop what's coming, and processing fracking gas into whatever it can be used for is going to keep happening. We'll learn to live with all of it, or not. But keep your eyes and ears open, because when the plastic President visits, he going to want to take credit for its inception.
2
What a mess! How about a giant plant to turn all the existing plastic into usable materials instead of pumping out more plastic pellets?
And $1.6 billion in tax breaks for 600 jobs (~$2.7 million per job)! Come on.
17
@Joshua
Wonder what the politicians cut is.
1
We want jobs, but at a cost. We want solution, but none exists. We demand everything, and we are dreaming.
When will we wake up to this world of reality? Shell definitely is not along doing this kind of things to local residents. Many are doing the same. It is beyond the control of local government. It is up to the Federal government to decide & regulate. Unfortunately, it is the so called "pro business" Republicans in charge. Cast your vote carefully the next time.
10
Some states and/or stores are banning plastic grocery bags. Take a pad and pencil and walk up and down the grocery store/supermarket aisles writing down every item you see packaged in plastic. 95% of dairy aisle. Same for chips and snacks. Meat is all covered in plastic. Juice, soda, bottled water, sports drinks. Frozen foods in plastic bags. The list is endless.
Now, think about how that has to be repackaged. Liquids in either old style waxed cardboard milk containers of glass. Meats wrapped in brown paper. Everything else in paper or cardboard. We have a tremendously long way to go here. Let's focus on the biggest problems 1st before we start getting caught up in the minutiae
4
@bored critic, so you really think plastic wrapped in plastic placed in a plastic bag is redundant? Humans should just reformulate their gut bacteria to digest plastic and only eat that, then all we have to do to survive is pop those little plastic pellets all day. Yum!
1
Energy companies created too much product while destroying the environment so let’s bail them out and help raise prices on gas by creating another product that destroys the environment.
These people need to be forced to live in a very small room filled with their products.
14
The bad news folks is you ARE going to die. The good news? Not right now..well, not for most of us anyway.
We could all chose to stop progress completely, stop plastics, do nothing but recycle everything and likely die in dire poverty or we could be relatively prosperous in the meantime and THEN die.
I'll never meet my great, great grandchildren in this life so worrying about their future is dicey at best. Perhaps their generations will fix things, perhaps not. Perhaps they'll never be born, but either way the only outcome most of us have any control over is the lives of our own and our immediate offspring and theirs. As it sits now we have millions upon millions living well beyond their sell-by dates. My father, who probably would have died 20 years ago if not for modern science just turned 90 and is by any measure quite a burden on my immediate family and on society in the form of medicare payments and such. How sustainable is that when millions of others, including ourselves get to be included in the never ending expiration dates?
The short and skinny is we're not going to solves all of societies woes with the elimination of some plastic or even all of it. Plastic for better or worse allows us a relative amount of immediate prosperity while likely denying the same prosperity to future generations we'll never meet.
5
@Martino, most generations tried to leave the world for their offspring better than they found it. I guess this one is going against that principle. It makes me grateful that I don't have kids to pass this mess on to, even though I tried not to contribute to it and still try to be as green as possible.
I fear that we are now living in the dominance of the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us was coming. And here it is, unchecked by a government that is allegedly supposed to protect us. What a mess.
5
Every ounce of plastic should have a built in cost, paid by the manufacturer to a government agency and held only by that agency for the cleanup of plastics. If that makes your product too expensive the business model is flawed and too bad, that’s how business works.
That they gave away taxpayer’s money for this or any other project should be illegal. Did they have a vote on this?
13
@Paulie
Because, as always, oil companies are allowed to privatize the profits and socialize the cost. In this case the cost is a livable planet.
13
“That’s when it hit me,” she said. “I looked at her and wondered what is life going to be like when she is 99. And for the first time I wasn’t hopeful. I actually started to cry.”
I wonder why she didn't figure that out more than 14 months earlier.
So much unnecessary suffering, but nature encourages even this in the face of folly.
4
Transporting glass instead of plastic uses more energy.
Why don't we have single use water bottles that can be refilled by the consumer? Consumers are warned not to reuse them.
Why are drinking soda?
2
"Shell agreed, and was offered a tax break that was projected to save the company an estimated $1.6 billion".
Great, Make America Great Again and Again!
6
Govt needs to come up with some plan to enforce the manufacturers of plastic to make it more environment friendly and biodegradable under normal condition that any municipality landfill in USA and in other countries handle. One alternative is biodegradable plastic, already in the market. It's a better alternative than petrochemical based plastic but not that biodegradable under normal conditions and need special treatment plants to do that job. Quality of currently available bio-plastic also needs to be improved in terms of its environment friendliness.
One good aspect of this US - China trade war is slowing down of our insanely high consumption of goods fueled by cheap products from developing countries like China. More we consume, more we pollute the world. Many of our consumption are totally redundant and some downright dangerous for our own good. Companies and Govt, both of whom are obsessed with growth-based economic growth model, tend to encourage higher consumption. But almost all consumption do increase use of plastic in some form or the other.
6
“Where we are coming from is that plastic, in most of its forms, is good and it serves to be good for humanity,” said Hilary Mercer, who is overseeing the construction project for Shell.
This quotation calls to mind Dustin Hoffman's expression of incredulity and puzzlement when his character in "The Graduate" is given the one word of advice: "plastics".
4
Monaca, PA. I’ve wondered what to do with all the plastics my local recycling company will no longer accept. Since this company is into recycling, can we all just box up our plastic wraps, trays, bottles, bags and ship them to Monaca?
And if all these light weight plastics are good for cars, why aren’t they using some of that to build their- campus? All I see in the accompanying photo is- steel.
4
Govt need to come up with some plan to enforce the manufacturers of plastic to make it more environment friendly and biodegradable under normal condition that any municipality landfill in USA and in other countries handle.
One good aspect of this US - China trade war is slowing down our our insanely high consumption of goods fueled by cheap products from developing countries like China. More we consume (of just any goods) the more we pollute the world and many of such consumption are totally redundant and some downright dangerous for our own good. But almost all consumption do increase use of plastic in some form or the other.
1
Let's put aside environmentalism for a moment.
Royal Dutch Shell, per Forbes 2000, is one of the ten largest public companies in the world with assets at $400 Billion and sales close to that.
The product they want is right there—you’re all sitting on a gold mine.
So, why on earth did you give them $1.6B in tax credits? Were they sobbing poverty because oil and gas prices have slumped? It’s crumbs to them…but I bet that money would mean a lot to the people of the Pittsburgh area. I can hardly wait to read future articles about the giant mess they will make which they will then decline to clean up. (Whoops, a little environmentalism slipped in there.)
67
Since coming down with Prostate cancer 5 years ago I have made a mad dash to travel the world as much as I can. In my travels I have found one plague in all the countries I have traveled and that is plastic garbage. I have over time developed garbage glasses in my mind to filter out the nightmareish sights I have seen in plastic garbage, other wise it would have ruin the entire trip. We people on the planet have to find something other than plastic to fill the needs of the products that plastic has been filling. It's that or living up to our necks in plastic filth that never goes away.
20
Its true what whoever it was said about Capitalism (and many have suspected a long time): we're going to kill ourselves.
All poor Mao had to do was hang on. Too bad for him he couldn't.
Not in the face of governments so foolish they allowed the richest to become the most powerful.
Not in the face of a people so damnably weak-willed they gave themselves over to "The business of America is business" lunacy.
Not when confronted by a people so greed-addled that, even standing and watching the literal destruction of their physical world, they invite even more just to make the rich richer.
Not when all the power has gone from "the people" to the people who run, and hide behind, corporations.
Little plastic pellets are among the worst of what we do to this planet. They'll be the death of whatever waterway they spill into. Spill they will, as pellets and as the chemicals of which they're made.
Our regulations too weak, our regulators in the pocket of the polluters, our states, notably Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia willing to abide any assault to grab maximum cash for investors and the politicians.
Its heartbreaking: these people are literally that stupid. They actually believe more cash in their hidden accounts is worth destruction of the only place they have in which to exist.
I'm glad the Ohio flows away from the Great Lakes. Look out, Louisiana, here it comes!
You guys don't believe in this stuff, so you'll be fine.
23
@oogada
Speaking of Louisiana, read Strangers In Their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild. In spite of polluted waterways, the land literally sinking, and high cancer rates, there is huge support for petrochemicals and profound distrust in government (environmental) regulation. They believe pollution is an acceptable price to pay for corporate jobs. Hochschild tries to understand the people and what forms their ideas and belief and presents a "deep story" analysis. I found the book to be eye opening and at the same time depressing.
8
Of course Shell's in it for the long-term good of humanity.
Doubtless Ms Mercer's degree is in cultural anthropology.
4
It’s beyond absurd that they quote the construction manager of the project. “Plastics are good”.....
Not the brightest light bulb.
6
The cover story this week at the magazine I work for, Chemical & Engineering News, is about chemical industry-community relations, with a big focus on the Shell cracker. Check it out: https://cen.acs.org/safety/industrial-safety/Community-outreach-35-years-Bhopal/97/i32
3
Why is it not feasible, in this age of science and technology, to create plastics which have, within their own makeup, a self-destructive component, in which the plastic breaks down into non-destructive parts???
6
@WJA, there have been experiments in making plastics from hemp. from cornstarch, and from mycelium, which do break down though some take industrial composters at higher temperatures than your backyard compost pile. But these do no good for one of the Shell plant's primary purposes: to provide another revenue stream for the shale gas drillers, who have never managed profitability. The other scheme is those pipelines, which are not intended to supply already saturated US markets, but for export.
3
A sad confluence of a petroleum industry that values its profits over the damage it's doing to the environment, and a desperate part of the country willing to ignore the long-term consequences and trade $1.2B for 600 measly jobs.
Good for humanity? Perhaps Ms. Mercer has plastic where her soul used to be.
9
After reading these comments, I've come to the conclusion that most people don't know how modern manufacturing works. While the Shell plant will employ 600 people, there are myriad other jobs that will be supported, including maintenance contractors, construction workers, service contractors, etc. The Northeast already has a large plastic processing and medical equipment manufacturing presence, which until the Shell plant is built, must get its plastic pellets from either the Gulf Coast or import it from overseas. This long-distance shipping increases fossil fuel consumption dramatically. It also raises the price of pellets for those who process them.
5
@James Brotherton
Given your explanation, I think PA should should given Shell at least $2.6 Billion.
Royal Dutch Shell is "committed to recycling" and their effort is to help extend the local community recycling center??
Their engineers and smart and ought to be furiously figuring how to make plastics that can be recycled efficiently and used forever. Trouble is, they have no incentive - our tradition of privatizing the profits and socializing the costs absolves them of any cleanup responsibility. This needs to change - a tax on carbon will help.
18
With this new facility USA will be "leading the world" in its efforts to mitigate miseries of climate & environmental change.
1
"Plastic is good for humanity." Let's hope so; it's now turning up in human digestive tracts. 5000 people get a paycheck, a corporation stays rich and this is supposed to be good news.
Find safe alternatives to plastic to build your world out of, or suffer the consequences.
11
This is being done by the republicans and our democrat governor as we look on in dismay.
And the Green New Deal is pooh-poohed by our leader Nancy Pelosi.
There are jobs and there are planet-killing jobs. The unions should not be party to this. I was nauseated by the Shell Polymer "Constitution." Have we entered the brave new world of doublespeak?
Where are the real democrats?
8
@betty durso, on the contrary I liked that Constitution. I think it should be emblazoned all over the place, so that when the consequences become apparent and the bills come due, the people who pushed this can be held accountable.
1
Would it be too much of a stretch to assert that oil companies see demand for gasoline declining because of electric cars, but that demand for plastic is increasing?
Just who is it who fuels this rise? Couldn't be us, could it?
Ah, humanity. Your ambitions shall soon shrink in most unpleasant ways.
5
A German company (see this Arte video: https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/085744-159-A/arte-journal-junior/) has begun recycling of plastic refuse that can be used for new plastic products (like packaging etc.) AT least it will not end up in the streams of Indonesia, but re-use and re-use.
Of course, the use of less and less plastic is, above all, most desirable.
6
As a filmmaker/photographer covering events and resistance related to the Shell Ethane Cracker Plant for over three years, I am deeply disappointed that the New York Times did not write about interviews with any of the grassroots/regional leaders and organizations pushing back against Shell's narrative. There are many, many people in this region who are deeply disturbed by the prospect of not just the Shell facility, but of the massive petrochemical hub it may anchor in this region - big enough to rival Cancer Alley in Louisiana. The Shell plant will emit extraordinary amounts of VOC pollution in an area suffering from poor air and elevated cancer rates. It will be a massive CO2 emitter that will likely need to be shut down (i.e. become a stranded asset) due to climate necessity. It will increase local fracking right as global communities are seeking to ban the dangerous practice. It will produce plastic as the oceans and animals choke to death on the stuff. We see Shell's influence undermine democracy in the region as local politicians (including many Democrats who supposedly support the Paris Climate Agreement goals) are largely silent about the drawbacks of this development. And Shell has a horrific record of "community relations" as documented by the United Nations in Ogoniland, Nigeria. Come back and try again, NY Times.
217
@Mark Decker
Excellent and important points about efforts to block this environmental and sociopolitical disaster.
NYT, do you plan a follow up article to provide this fuller picture?
10
@Mark Dixon thank you for shining a light! And keep up your good work!
13
@Mark Dixon
Can you recommend local organizations fighting this plant that I can help support?
4
Plastics, aka petrol based chemicals made from Fossil Fuels and all its derivatives are EVIL - plain and simple. Plastics is what brilliant and prescient writer Kurt Vonnegut called Ice-9 in his classic Cat's Cradle. A myopic, man made, toxic lab creation that multiplies exponentially and destroys the world. Toxic, cancer causing micro plastics are everywhere from the bottom of the deepest oceans to the top of the highest mountains and sadly even running through our veins in our blood. Don't even get me started on the fossil fuel caused Global Warming nightmare that has already began! Hubris caused by greed and apathy. Just take the a off of apathetic = pathetic - that's humans in a nut shell.
5
Short term “benefit for the grandchildren”? And perhaps extinction for the great grandchildren? Shell Corporation double-speak with Trump’s blessing tomorrow. Extraction economy is extinction economy.
17
Interesting that the local community is somewhat skeptical of the long term value of a mega plastic complex.
I would be curious to know how many are also concerned with global warming while living in an area propped up by the natural gas boom.
As some other commenters pointed out, trillions of valuation associated with fossil fuel reserved are pushing pumping gas and oil out of the ground. A larger fraction will go to plastics as gasoline consumption drops. Saudi Aramco is rebranding itself as a chemical company while developing plans for even larger scale plastic production capacity.
Ideally we would pump out less crude and oil out of the ground. More plastic production if not for single use plastic (bags, bottles) is preferable to just burning the stuff for power in my mind.
4
@Joel, Many of us in this area are fighting the drilling and fracking, and the pipelines, as well as the petro complex. But it's a David and Goliath battle. And California is not as green as it pretends--I've read that there is fracking off the coast and they are allowed to dump the toxic flowback water right in the ocean. And that the state government has a conference with the industry to show them how to get around regulations protecting pristine drinking water sources--by contaminating them quickly so they don't count as pristine.
3
There's nothing wrong with recyclable plastic products, but we don't need any more plastic bottles.
3
@Ryan, Wrong. In theory, recycling would solve the problem with plastic waste, but in practice barely 9 % of the world's plastic was recycled before China, where most of it was done, got fed up with accepting the wold's dirty plastic and refused to take most used plastic. The recycling process is itself polluting and hazardous to health. Shifting to biodegradable plastics would be a real solution, but would not achieve Shell's objective of making their fracking profitable.
2
To save the planet, we must start thinking circular. Circular design, as in nature, generates no waste -- everything becomes food for something else. Plastic is the exact opposite. Most plastic is not recycled, even if it could be, and it ends up in landfills and oceans where it It takes hundreds of years to degrade, wreaks havoc on marine life and breaks into tiny microparticles that are absorbed into our food and water systems. Scientists have even found tiny plastic particles in sea salt harvested from remote areas. Plastic is a serious health hazard to all living creatures and while its uses are manifold, it must be replaced with a more sustainable option. The time is now for imagination and innovation. Our survival depends on it.
3
Privatize the profits and socialize the costs. That’s the corporate mantra we have in place. The system rewards short term financial gains. That’s the problem that creates projects like this and everything else that creates more wealth for the already wealthy and long term costs for the rest of society. Until we can attach the long term environmental and social costs to any corporate venture, the status quo will continue.
43
Just what the world needs -- more plastic. If this were a plant to recycle plastic instead of make new, it'd be different.
And while we're on the subject: The billions of dollars made off plastic — whether it's used directly to make the product or used in the packaging — should be heavily taxed on a worldwide scale and the money should be used to clean up plastic pollution. Billionaires should be putting their money into a heroic effort to clean plastic from the ocean instead of sending their cars off into space in some ego-fueled space rocket. What a waste.
17
I am sure shell and US govt will have plans to ship these wastes to some under-developed country, with no regulation, for a tiny tiny fraction of what shell, US govt, shell employees etc will earn.
4
Where's the Democratic presidential candidate that wants a tax on plastic and tax-breaks for biodegradable packaging? Where's the outrage at Trump selling his plastic straws on his campaign website---so his supporters can make fun of those that care about the planet and don't want to commit collective suicide.
24
Plastic is pollution. As it breaks down it gets smaller and smaller and enters a great part of the food chain. It is used in enough products that it gets in to our bodies. It is made from fossil fuel. It is convenient....in the short term. It is poison in the long term.
14
@peter bailey - No, polyethylene is not a poison. It's inert. I'm not saying that dumping plastic everywhere is ok. It's not. The first step should be to adopt bottle deposits. The states that have deposits have much higher rates of recycling that those that do not.
8
Don’t tell us polyethylene is inert.
You have no idea.
Come back in a thousand years and give your report on this.
7
@James Brotherton
Polyethylene is not inert. Even if in the biosphere it is slow reacting to the point of being almost inert, that wouldn't make it harmless.
Asbestos is inert. Asbestos isn't harmless.
8
What is being asked of Americans? There is nothing Americans can do when this country more resembles Brazil than advanced economies of East Asia.
People don’t recycle and those that do have their recycled waste dumped to landfills by the municipal government. People don’t put trash in receptacles but drop them down storm drains. People complained endlessly about proposal to replace foam food containers with paper ones; plastic bags and straws with paper bags and straws and incandescent bulbs with CFL/LEDs.
There is nothing anyone can do when the whole country is against progress. Even the party that “represents progress” wants to adapt policies from trash filled Europe and not clean East Asia. What can anyone do against the tide of history?
@AmateurHistorian
Huh? pollution in china is epic. Japan and South Korean were literally made possible by American military protection and trade support. Are you suggesting that the U.S. should not have done those things and instead focused on sorting out it's garbage instead?
@Matthew Hall I suppose in the long term we get to decide whether to die in a horrible, global war or to die from being slowly poisoned. That's not much of a choice when you get right down to it, but one undeniable fact is that we ALL are going to die. The only question is when and how, but it's going to happen regardless. So really it boils down to dying in poverty in a global war over resources or die relatively prosperous and still die from poisoning.
I don't mean to sound overly cynical, but given my option of the two I guess relative prosperity sounds better than dire poverty before I die. I think most people would agree.
@Martino, just for clarity: building a petrochemical complex will slowly poison us (I agree with that part) but if we don't build it we will somehow be locked into a global war for resources? How do you figure?
The saddest part of this whole article beside more plastics being produced versus recycled, shell needs huge profits for low corporate taxes and getting more free money in huge tax breaks.
Technology exists to recycle plastics, what it takes is careful separating types and this will to do it. However, America and lots of the world are not caring!
ripe what you sow!
5
I thought it somewhat interesting and ironic that Amanda Millers children’s playground surface appears to be artificial turf made out of plastic.
2
@M Oakes
In Pittsburgh many homes use putting green sod for lawns as it grows wonderfully in the climate. She is standing on live grass!
6
Does PA have a container deposit program?
Do we have a producer responsibility program for packaging in our Country?
How many of us really follow recycling regs in our community?
How many of us search out products to close the loop?
It's first about personal freedom in the U.S.
Until we are forced to make lifestyle changes most will do what is best for themselves.
4
plastic manufacturers should be required to recover and recycle an increasing percentage of the plastic they manufacture, or pay for offsets to cover the cost for others to recover and recycle it, like a cap-and-trade scheme for co2. the new plant should also be equipped with technology to wash and repelletize post consumer plastic. they should make a commitment to accept all plastic waste from the Pittsburgh area, which is currently going to landfills because the global demand for waste plastic is so low after China shut down imports last year.
10
@Gabe - You can only repalletize plastic about 2 or 3 times before it degrades. More money has to be put into research on molecular recycling, which turns the plastic waste back into its fundamental building block (i.e., the monomer). Efforts are underway and they've already piloted a project that can do that with Styrofoam.
2
agreed, I should've said reprocess, not repelletize. I'm pretty agnostic on the technology they use as long as they continue to bear the cost of recovery and recycling. if chemical recycling is the best option, the manufacturer should bear the cost of research and development, and for operationalizing, chemical recycling, which is not currently financially viable.
@Gabe - Looking at news reports and business journals, the companies are funding the R&D at universities and starting joint ventures with recycling firms. But this is only the beginning. Consumers also have a responsibility to stop littering and governments need to provide an environment where recycling is encouraged.
1. The polyethylene made in this facility probably won't be in phone cases or auto parts but will be in packaging. Polyethylene doesn't have the property profile suitable for those industries. As we consider the environmental impact of this remember to also credit the use of this polymer for its role in reducing food waste.
As was covered last week in a variety of publications, like the NYT, reducing food waste is a significant way to reduce the negative environmental impact we humans have on the planet. The companies who add plastic packaging to the supply chain of food to consumers do so at a cost. That cost reduces spoilage and overall is a savings, otherwise they would stop.
Oh, and a quick thought experiment, imagine you are in the shower and drop your shampoo bottle. What if it were glass?
What I find most troublesome in this article is the PA governor who thought the existence of all that ethane under his state wasn't enough to compel Shell to locate there and to keep him from moving a hundred miles or so west, north or south, spent a big chunk of his citizens money. I'll bet he didn't even look at the incremental costs of piping the ethane further to those locations. Shameful.
16
The planet is not going to survive what we are doing to it. Forget about pale blue dot. Think barren brown rock. The oceans are being denuded of fish, the atmosphere is being turned into an oven, and the land is being turned into desert.
It is amazing that people have no power to stop the corporations doing this to them. If we could act collectively, there is a clear action that could be taken here.
Institute an "ultimate disposal fee" that would have to be deposited for every product manufactured. The fee would be collected at the point of sale, and would cover the cost of removing that product from the waste stream and rendering the waste harmless when it had reached the end of its useful life. If it kills throwaway coffee cups, and Starbucks goes kaput, so be it.
I love my latte, but the alternative is that the planet goes kaput.
22
As they say, read it and weep. I do agree that plastics will provide a bit of fascination to archeologists millions of years from now.
3
@bill Well, those archaeologists will have to come from another planet, because this one will long have ceased being well enough to sustain human life.
13
We really need to develop recycling technology for plastics, so new plastic products can all be made from old plastic. This would be a good place to target government subsidies. Don't forget that an advantage of natural gas is that it's low cost has been driving the closing of coal-fired electricity plants. Sustainable energy sources still need better storage technology to become economically competitive, and natural gas can take up the slack until then. One big business question, though. Since fracking has already produced an oversupply of natural gas, why are there still demands for more fracking and drilling, driving prices even lower? American business people don't seem to understand basic supply and demand principles, and then expect the government to bail them out when they get in trouble.
5
@Alicia Lloyd - A major part of the reason is that most of the natural gas is coproduced when they are producing oil.
Maybe Shell can take these expensive plastic pellets and use them to fill in the damage done to the Appalachians via Mountain top mining. This is all just a big shell game. Earth will lose.
84
@cuyahogacat The only thing the earth will “lose” will be humans ( and regrettably additional innocent life forms). The planet earth will continue. Mankind will not.
19
I don’t understand why this behavior continues. I have changed my lifestyle dramatically why can’t others. No take out food, but local wo packing. Stay off the Internet so you have more time.
4
Vote for the Democrats and it will be shut down. Trump supports environmental destruction.
8
@Ralph Petrillo The Democrats may pass a few regulations, but they won’t shut it down.
1
@Ralph Petrillo - I guess you didn't notice that this project started long before Trump was elected. You probably didn't notice that PA has a Democratic governor either.
3
Think global and act local: what are all of you, Dear Readers Who Comment, doing to counterbalance the effects of the plastics commerce? All of us consumers drive the demand for this material. The response to Shell's efforts to produce is in our hands. I try to buy foods in glass containers, not plastic, and my family lives in a small house near public transportation, so we drive our one, old car very little. (And if we replace our second-hand car, it will be with another second-hand car.) My son's job's transport is on a bike. We do not have central air conditioning. I encourage my family to buy used clothing (vintage!) and we recycle and compost a great deal. I would also list vegetarianism, but I know this is the "third rail" of environmental conservation. On the other hand, I will be the first to admit that plastics are essential in medical equipment and much personal care and this is not going to change. I feel sorry for the resident of this Pittsburgh suburb. Maybe some new local political leadership could help.
11
I only buy FLOW water which is in biodegradable package.
It figures that FLOW is packaged in Canada.
1
@East Coast Why do you feel the need to buy "packaged" water? If you're really concerned enough about the environment that you are buying water in biodegradable packages, why not just use tap water or just buy a water filter? That would eliminate the huge environmental impact caused by the packaging and transport of packaged water.
1
We, in America, have to exemplify the change we want to see in the world.
6
@Totally Exactly. Live the change you want to see, and others may follow you. Preach the change you want to see, and others will change the channel.
4
We, the people, must take charge. We must step up together to demand that plastic use is reduced, not increased.
The plastics industry knows that the demand for plastic will not diminish in the foreseeable future because it has done its best to prevent or delay the inevitable realization on the part of the public that plastic is unsustainable and must be urgently fazed out in the coming decades.
If we continue to ignore this truth, there will continue to be fortunes to be made for big business shareholders but we will eventually kill the Earth.
We must act now and demand that laws be enacted to ensure that plastic packaging is reduced drastically and that all plastic and paper used in packaging is recyclable. We can not afford to allow the financial interests of big business to jeopardize the future of our children.
18
@RHR - Says the person typing on a plastic keyboard.
1
@James Brotherton, You are so right, we must not take anyone criticizing plastic (or fossil fuels) seriously until they live in a world with zero plastic and fossil fuels, which will only be possible if they win these battles without fighting them. Sorry, but this is a large pile of recycled oats, this idea that one is not entitled to point out the harms of modern materials and technologies unless one has somehow achieved the impossible, eliminating all plastic and fossil fuels from one's home and life--and yet somehow still commenting online (does this comment line take snailmail letters? It's fair to point out hypocrisy if, for example, one flies in a private jet to a conference on climate change. But people who have eliminated much plastic from their lives can't avoid plastic keyboards, like the one I'm typing on now. My computer is powered by the solar panels in my yard--and I don't believe there is any plastic in those, despite what the PR person said--but they don't make computers without plastic components. And it's the single-use plastic that is the first and foremost problem.
1
$1.6 billion in tax breaks? For 600 permanent jobs? Why not just entice 600 new families and entrepreneurs to move to the county and give them $2.5 million each. Is Big Oil and destruction of the environment the only way to meet job creation?
256
@James L., the tax credit is production-based, so it will only be paid out if -- and to the extent -- that work is done. The upfront capital investment by Shell will be more than $6 billion, so even if the credit is fully used it will only be a fraction of that, remitted over many years. This was a great deal for PA, and we are very proud to have earned this facility and all of the value-added and economic dynamism that will be generated by it.
3
@David N. Taylor
"... a great deal for PA"?
As a PA resident I'd like to know how we benefit, other than the lady selling as many sandwiches as she can make.
Is it cynicism or realism that makes me suspect that this monstrous pollution machine is "... a great deal for PA politicians in Harrisburg".
21
@Steve M -- I'm glad you asked. Manufacturing is the sector that adds the most value, has the strongest multiplier effect on job creation, and provides above-average wages and benefits for employees. All of those tax dollars from the facility, its employees, vendors, and logistics partners fill the state coffers to provide public services to all 67 counties, including Bucks. Also, considering that ethylene goes into every kind of paint, glaze, coating, solvent, adhesive, plastic, rubber, and Styrofoam that are part of every consumer good that you use every day, it will provide an economic reason for more manufacturers to come to Pennsylvania to be closer to the feedstock that the Shell facility will be producing. Unless you grew or whittled it yourself, every single thing you own has ethylene in it -- the wood stain on your furniture, the colored dye in your clothing, the ink on your magazines and books, the paint on your car and home, the coating on the lenses of your eyeglasses and windows, everything.
2
To see climate change ignored and the use of plastic proliferating shows not a failure of leadership and a lack of collective human will to save itself. Replacing fossil fuel with alternatives and compelling all manufactured plastic products to be returned for real recycling would together create millions of jobs world wide. If the goal of society is to produce the most wealth, it will fail in its essential responsibility to protect the great organic systems that support all life on earth. It's fantastic folly
11
Will you eventually see everything renewable? Probably in 100 years,” Mr. Corbett said. “But right now natural gas is giving a future to your grandchildren.”
i cannot believe i have to read this. what planet is this guy talking about? what we are giving our grandchildren cannot be measured as most proboly we will never see grandchildren thriving on any semblance of livable planet.
sad.
66
Well we gotta manufacture something to serve the modern demands of billions of consumers. Industrial-scale anything gets some people upset. Heck, if we all wore burlap and scaled up jute production to meet demand, be assured that there would be environmental consequences. The problem is population and rising living standards - we all know that third world, sustenance populations are efficient. But unless we’re forced by circumstances beyond our control, we’re not going backwards. Better to manufacture stuff here, where environmental controls are best, than to ban it, naively thinking the demand won’t continue, only to have plants built in countries with truly lax or altogether absent environmental (and labor) controls.
9
@MWR
No. Better to put money into research to find an alternative while doing our best to reduce the use of plastic and recycle as much as possible. Better to look to the future and imagine something different than to say 'Let's just go on the same way and hope for the best'.
6
‘War Is Peace. Freedom Is Slavery. Ignorance Is Strength.’ George Orwell
‘Plastic is good.’ The Fossil Fuel Industry
They claim it is ‘good’ even though it is destroying our planet, contaminating our bodies, and turning us all into mindless consumption machines.
Thank you, NYT and Michael Corkery, for keeping us informed about the devastating choices that industries continue to make, encouraged by the tax breaks offered by our government leaders.
How about an article (naming names) about the history, power and influence of the military-industrial complex?
Our leaders should ONLY be allowing industry that is sustainable, renewable, and healthy for all living things.
Plastics and fossil fuels are NOT the future.
107
@Teresa - How about the choices consumers make? How about the lack of decent municipal recycling programs?
2
This is Kafkaesque: In Ms. Mercer’s view, this is a positive development for the environment. WHAT?!! Species are dying, the planet is choking, the oceans are becoming a garbage dump. They passionately believe in recycling? How quaint. There’s no market for recycled plastic because the globe is already glutted. This project is so far beyond appalling; who would have predicted of the seven deadly sins it would be greed that kills us all?
96
It may seem surprising on it's face, but Greed is at the root of almost every misdeed.
5
@Sara
It's idiotic. A hallmark of Republicans is that they will say anything, whatever comes into their heads, whether it makes sense or not.
And now this tendency has worsened because the fish rots from the head, etc.
1
The value of proven fossil energy reserves the last I read was over 30 trillion dollars. Over 30 trillion dollars. Can we erase that sort of wealth from the global economy? We all know the answer. We can't and won't. One way or another it's all coming out of the ground. Every ounce, every liter, every gallon. There's nothing anyone can do to stop it. There's zero evidence of the popular or the political will for the unprecedented changes that would be required to achieve any of the Paris Accord targets. The recent riots in France underscore this. We need to go back to the drawing board. Responsible family planning will be essential going forward. This has to be the priority if we're ever going to get serious about solving this problem. In the 60 years following WWII the earth's human population jumped from 2 billion to 7 billion. In short, the climate is warming faster because so many more people need energy. The left rarely addresses overpopulation since that would rob it of its cause, its chance to flap its very "woke" ethical wings over our fossil fuels use. The notion that we can tame climate change without resolving overpopulation is idiotic. We're targeting 9 billion-plus by 2050. The planet can't support those numbers. That does not incorporate other threats to our food supply such as floods, droughts, and heatwaves. How we can support a population of 9 billion, perhaps more? Not on carbon taxes. There's more to this than regulating the planet's thermostat.
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@Ed Davis
Overpopulation isn’t the problem. Most rich countries where nearly all carbon emissions are being generated have below-replacement fertility. High population growth is only happening in Africa, and all of Africa combined emits 1/4th of what the US does.
5
@Ed Davis
Over-consumption is the problem. 10% of the world's population use 90% of resources and produce 90% of emissions.
1
@Ed Davis One suspects that together, corporate capitalism and religion will suffice to reduce Earth's vertebrate population to near zero. "Go forth and multiply" can only endure as divine instructions if we take Gregor Samsa as an evolutionary model.
We recycle religiously paper, bottles, cans, and plastic even though most if not all of the plastic does not get recycled. At least we sleep a little better making the effort.
3
We are always sold "responsible development can be attained" and " it will create good jobs", when monied interests are at stake.
The one Earth we all share has always taken it on the chin, exactly in cases such as this fools errand of a project.
Never mind the tax giveaway that the good people of the region and their heirs will pay for over a very, very long time.
13
Can 600 jobs justify a crime against humanity?
71
600 permanent jobs doesn't sound like a lot.....unless you don't have job.
7
Why now with this story? It should have been addressed before the building took place. Plastic pellets of all things. Now every species on the planet can have a healthy diet of plastics. There are companies trying to clean up the plastic mess and now companies producing plastic pellets that will be impossible to pick up!
22
These pellets will be the feedstock for molding other items. It’s up to the rest of society to create bottle return deposits and a practical recycling system that can return these objects instead of letting them end up scattered as trash.
""Where we are coming from is that plastic, in most of its forms, is good for humanity,” said Hilary Mercer, who is overseeing the construction project for Shell.""
If humanity collectively is willing to believe these lies, then there is not much that can be done to turn the ship around. We do not need more plastics, and they are certainly not good for humanity.
75
We really have brought the climate disaster upon ourselves. So much for those who have made efforts to reduce our footprints and cut back in meaningful ways— the collective inability to look far enough in the future, unwillingness to adjust our lifestyles, and just plain greed have chosen all of our futures for us.
8
When it comes down to a contest between people and money, people will always come out on the loosing side as will the environment.
Politicians will rave about jobs and the economy without a thought about the damage this place and others like will cause to the environment, and the environment is us and we are it.
We, the supposed most intelligent creature on earth but bit by bit we are exterminating our selves out of greed and laziness. There should be enough recycled plastic out there by now to last a long time.
16
Viridor in the UK is building the first recycling plastic plant at Avonmouth to produce high grade pellets for manufacturing - not the scale of the Shell plant but the stock feed can be from graded recycled plastics.
5
In human time scale we are slowly destroying the planet. In geological time scale the destruction is rapid. In 200 years humans will be here but will civilization? Very unlikely. Humans are intelligent but not very wise.
16
@Don If we continue on this path, in 200 years the remaining humans will be stalking each other for food.
1
This is disgusting. The world is choking on plastic garbage, the seas are awash with it, and here we are throwing more fuel on the fire. The only answer is for governments to step in and ban their manufacture.
48
The recycling which people in apartments, condos and single-family homes do every day cannot possibly keep up. Their efforts will be overwhelmed by the gigantic factories in Pittsburgh, Ohio and West Virginia dedicated to producing the most recycled product: plastic.
Suicide was very much in the news this past weekend, and it appears that the fate of our planet will be death by suicide.
13
The massive tax giveaway is the first tragedy. More employees will bring families and there will be a need for schools, roads and infrastructure. Because of the tax break these will either not be funded or under-funded. This will then put stress on other tax sources---local businesses and homeowners.
Government bought a business but it sold out the locals. It happens again and again----whether Shell, Amazon, BMW or whoever.
39
If it were 100% recycled plastic that would be a win-win for the company. Great public image and getting the job done. And given that a lot of countries like China are no longer taking our plastic trash, it would serve a national need (not to mention a global need). I just don't understand why all shelf products are not 100% recycled: why all paper products aren't 100% recycled (e.g., my toilet paper is, but not all toilet papers are), why all plastic products aren't 100% recycled, and why all glass and aluminum foil isn't 100% recycled. Enforcing such requirements for manufacturing would not only clean up our planet but drive recycling innovation to be more efficient and cost effective. Else, we can look to a future of sitting in our own filth - oceans included.
26
As I read this, I remembered a spill of plastic pellets on our beautiful coast this summer. https://www.postandcourier.com/news/charleston-plastic-company-cited-for-pollution-after-nurdle-spill-on/article_8479e74a-b467-11e9-a589-fbf9673347a0.html
I also am reminded of our local recycling center. Here we have to take our garbage and recyclables to this center. Now that recycling plastics has caught on in this rural area, the plastic containers are often closed. When I asked an employee, he told me there is no market now for used plastics and that most of the plastic put in the bin cannot be recycled in the first place.
The plastics industry owns these problems. Will we demand they attend to them? Yes, all of this is worth our tears - and action.
66
What the residents near the plant really should be worried about is 10 to 20 years down the line after the plant opens. These manufacturing facilities are notorious for being underfunded in terms of repair of chemical leakage and safety to keep costs down as facilities age. I would never buy property anywhere near these petrochemical plants.
51
Thank you Amanda Miller and everyone else who makes an effort to not use disposable plastics even in the midst of the masses who couldn't care less about the future but only think in the moment, or believe their efforts don't matter. Government promotes plastics, individual efforts are all we have left.
44
Petrochemical companies and other polluters don't need a $1.2 billion tax break. Instead, a tariff should be put on their products to pay for the clean-up of their wasteful products.
342
@winall but it is going to create 600 permanent jobs! And each of those jobs will be worth millions of dollars. To Shell.
18
@winall
Multinational petrochemical companies have too much influence on governments all over the world. The people who own these companies, the shareholders (many of whom are pension funds representing our interests) must be persuaded by our governments (in other words by us) to change their priorities and act with a eye to the future.
9
“Where we are coming from is that plastic, in most of its forms, is good and it serves to be good for humanity,” said Hilary Mercer, who is overseeing the construction project for Shell.
The only way I can respond to this statement is to cry.
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@Ash
These wonderful business "leaders" are simply operating within the immoral confines of this economic system, where nothing but quarterly gains is important. Shell sees the writing on the wall, fossil fuels are on their way out, so how to make use of that disgusting black goop in other ways. I know let's double plastic production, what a great idea. This is what environmental injustice is precisely about. Find some corrupt politicians in an impoverished community, pretend that billion dollar subsidies will be repaid by economic activity (it won't) and proceed accordingly down the path of insanity.
9
My first thought was that hundreds of millions of Americans agree with her that plastic is good, since she’s just supporting our collective, ordinary decisions to grab the plastic fork and bottled juice, or get a smoothie in a single-use plastic cup, or go to the doctor and have blood drawn, or buy a new shirt. There are also plenty of cases, such as food packaging, where it’s hard to argue that it’s bad for the environment because it reduces so much food waste.
On the other hand, many individuals are forced to use plastics in cases where they don’t see value in it because the system cant efficiently facilitate individual choice. It’s inspiring to see the new options for shampoo ball, yogurt in glass deposit containers, ice cream in metal tins, and restaurants that avoid styrofoam, and I hope these options will become available through the standard channels sooner than later.
7
This sounds like twentieth century thinking, not twenty first. Job loss has been at the hands of multinational companies thinking dollar first, people second. We can and should expect multinationals to consider something other than money. How about Shell developing a truly new technology? Worry about microplastics in fish, but what about in the stomachs of 28 week fetuses, or lingering in the bodies of children? Will this be worth it, in the end?
54
The irony here is that plastic is an output from the fossil fuel industry which few people know. One form of environmental degradation enabled by another. What a sad world we’re leaving our children
118
Plastics have many virtues besides their very obvious downsides. Too bad about the environment. I sold plastics in various finished forms for almost thirty years. It is readily available as it is a petroleum derivative which makes the base material ubiquitous. It is relatively inexpensive to manufacture and is lightweight. It can be processed to make millions of different items. Much of the affluence we take take for granted is a direct result of this amazing material. There really is no viable, competing material in the physical world. The sheer numbers of people employed, worldwide, in the manufacture of plastics is mind blowing. If you want to save the planet, have fewer children, stay off of planes, the worst polluters, and emulate the lifestyle of the rural poor in third world countries. People sacrificing their lifestyle to "save the planet"? Please...give me a break. Not. Going. To. Happen.
25
@h king My great-grandparents lived their three-score and ten in this country without plastics. Not one of them left a note saying they felt deprived because they had to use compostable or combustible containers, and were thus deprived of the opportunity to use Mother Nature's body as a dump.
5
@h king
I think that you are wrong. Of course people will sacrifice their lifestyles for a good cause.
The best example is war. During the Second World War millions of people willingly sacrificed themselves and their lifestyles to save us from Nazism. They made the ultimate sacrifice. They gave their lives.
Now what we need to do is wake up and stop listening to people who only care about a quick buck today and realize that there is another war and it is threatening to annihilate us and our children and grandchildren if we do not sacrifice our lifestyles.
2
@RHR
The geniuses in DC can't even fix our healthcare situation and you're optimistic that they'll do something far more difficult, like fixing the environment? I'm not hopeful.
1
You're going to have a hard time explaining to the water supply, the aquatic animals, the soil, and the human body how more plastic is good for us all.
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Bill Scurry
And how much fresh water will be required in the production of yet more plastic? We are killing our planet in so many ways.
23
Close it down . This is an environmental disaster.
158
Jobs are always good, but 600 jobs doesn’t sound like many, in the long run, for a product that is literally eating the planet alive, or rather littering the planet to death. There’s a serious problem here. Ms. Mercer says she and Shell believe in recycling. As if it were the answer. But all you have to do is read to see that recycling is no longer viable.
Along with all the other bad news to read, this one makes me the most depressed, because il illustrates in no uncertain terms that the petrochemical companies will do what they want no matter what and governments will not only allow them but give them monetary incentives to keep doing what they’ve always done: make our lives “easier” as they slowly kill us.
189
@Anamyn . the tax break Shell got more than covers salaries, benefits, etc for these 600 employees. Horrors that they are building this plant. There were numerous efforts to halt it and it is set on adding blight and dangers to this idyllic town.
9
I am on a similar plant in Westlake, LA being built by Sasol. Great for the economy, not so sure as to the environment.
4
@Ratburi. How is it great for the economy? How are these good jobs? How does it enhance the affluent Westlake residential & business development? How will it impact the local water resources?
1
@Ratburi
I hear you but for decades plastics were made in the Middle East , shipped to Asia and then shipped here. With plants like this, cheap power and cheap robots, more manufacturing will come to the US — thereby significantly reducing the amount of CO2 emissions from global supply chains from reduced shipping alone.
1
@Sam Well, what a relief! I feel better now, knowing that mankind is playing Russian roulette with an automatic rather than a revolver.
2
As a 50-year-old man, I understand more clearly everyday that we are likely to be the last humans inhabiting a thriving, beautiful planet. The long-term damage we are doing to the only home we have is something that, most days, I simply try to avoid contemplating.
221
It sounds like Shell needs to work harder at finding a market for the end use of all this plastic. Other companies too. Plastic isn't going away, even though many of us try (bringing our own cutlery, using cloth bags for food shopping, etc.) so we just have to work harder at figuring out the use for the end product when it is finished with its purpose.
5
We need to work harder to find a use? Why is it our burden to find a use for this companies products? Plastic is an unmitigated environmental disaster, they’re putting this money and energy into antiquated technology when they could be developing solutions, and for what? 600 jobs in PA while the whole world will live with their plastic output for the rest of time.
294
@Meighan Corbett Our great-great grandparents lived without any plastic in their lives, but they died of smallpox and TB. If we can make smallpox and TB go away, we can make plastics go away.
4
@Meighan Corbett. Shell already has a market for the plastic this plant will produce, which is why it is building the plant. What I assume you were trying to say is that Shell and other manufacturers of raw plastic should be responsible for the conversion of used plastic rather than allowing it to fill our landfills and oceans. It is discouraging to those of us who recycle our used plastic materials, only to find that the local recyclers have no buyers for the stuff.
3
600 permanent jobs.
Once upon a time, Beaver County was home to B&W, J&L, Midland Steel, and many other companies that employed far more than 600 employees. Until these companies were sold, Beaver and neighboring counties had a high standard of living.
What western Pennsylvania needs to regain former glory is infrastructure spending.
The wealth that will be created won't "trickle"
into the community. For the state, this project is PR for the Republican Party and alms to the poor.
112
I assure you, Daniel, that many Pennsylvania Democrats support the Shell plant. Construction has been a massive kick to the local and regional economy. Much of the equipment & machinery has come from plants all over the US & Canada. And no tax collector has ever failed to cash anyone’s check.
6
@Daniel F. Solomon
Those steel companies, even if they existed again in western PA, wouldn't employ the same number of people. As anyone writing about this should know, real US manufacturing output has grown about 50% since 1988, even though US employment in manufacturing has shrunk from 17.5 million to 12 million over the same period.
Also, BTW, those electric cars we're all counting on reducing our CO2 production will contain lots of plastic, to keep their weight down, so they can travel a decent distance between charges.
The 1950s called -- they said they're not coming back.
8
@PghMike4 The 1950's are still partying with Fonzi and not likely to join the rest of us.