The team of Green Queen - a Singapore based media company- have researched sustainable plastics for several years, arguing that the climate impacts of plastics and petrochemicals production are being neglected, as the debate so far has mainly focused on later stages of plastic life-cycles. This resulted in a research project in which they mapped and analysed the fossil lock-ins of plastics and petrochemicals. More recently, they investigated major plastics producers and the investments they are making which are likely to increase the production of fossil-based virgin plastics around the world. Thus, they discovered that the 12 largest petrochemical companies have cumulatively announced 88 new projects for production capacity increase and infrastructure expansion between 2012 and 2019, reaching levels that have not been seen before. These new and expanded facilities will operate for decades once they are opened, adding to the current greenhouse gas emissions of the chemical industry – which are already the third largest of all industries. Information about the industry and its growth being scarce, they spent the last year collecting data about recent projects from trade press as well as information released by the firms themselves, cross-referencing to identify unique projects. Two key trends emerged in their analysis: the move towards primarily using oil for plastics and chemicals rather than petrol, and the explosive growth in demand for US ethane, a byproduct from shale gas produced through fracking. The first trend is most manifest in China and the Asia-Pacific region, where industry experts estimate that 70-80% of new refining capacity in the next five years will be plastics focused. The large oil firms are therefore strategically partnering with chemicals and plastics producers in the region. The huge demand for plastics in the Chinese manufacturing industry has also spurred Western chemical firms to make record investments. The world’s largest chemicals company BASF, for example, is investing US$10 billion in a new site in China – the largest investment ever for the company. The second trend has mainly materialised along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico where ethane is produced. While ethane cannot be used as natural gas in most applications, it is an excellent feedstock for the production of common plastics – and is very cheap. As ethane production in the US has soared following the shale gas boom, so have the investments in ethane-based plastics production facilities as well as other chemicals produced from shale gas. Learn more in this thorough article https://www.greenqueen.com.hk/fossil-fuel-plastic-production-study/