Demystifying the truth behind plastics and sustainability

On this episode of the Borderless Executive Live, our host Andrew Kris is joined by Chris DeArmitt, President of Phantom Plastics, and the author of The Plastics Paradox: Facts for a Brighter Future. 

What if everything we knew about plastics is wrong? What if the world isn’t facing a plastic crisis but rather a misinformation crisis? And what if decision-makers are making policies based on bad information that harms the environment and costs us billions of dollars each year?

In this episode, Chris and Andrew shed light on one of the most controversial topics in history by presenting us with the facts behind plastics and the real impact it has on the environment, as compared to other materials.

Andrew Kris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewkris/ 
Chris DeArmitt: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisdearmitt/ 
https://phantomplastics.com/ 

Transcript

Andrew Kris: 0:06

Hello everyone and welcome to Borderless Executive Live the Podcast. Today, I'm delighted to have joining us, Chris Dearmitt. Chris is a plastics material expert, who's got a very special view of the world. And I think most of you will recognise, listening to Chris over the next 15-20 minutes, that his view is as unbiased a perspective of the world of materials as we can find. Chris, special welcome to you. Thank you very much, Andrew. Thank you for joining us, Chris. We've got a lot to talk about, we already have talked quite a bit in our earlier conversations. But two or three things you've said that really have resonated with me, is that your perspective of the world is one of materials and not just plastics, and where plastic are fitting into all of

Unknown: 0:56

Yes, that's the trouble when people focus on something. this. I think we've all done it in relationships, let's say you have a great relationship and there's one thing that just drives you nuts about the other party, and then you end up focusing on that, and you might end up breaking up and ignoring the 99% of good things. And I feel that that's what we're doing when it comes to materials, we're focused so much on plastics, we're not really zooming out a little bit and seeing the full perspective and making decisions based on that perspective.

Andrew Kris: 1:22

Indeed, what you were saying earlier on, is that when you look at plastics in relation to other materials, you really see the true scale of the plastics industry. What is that in reality from your point of view?

Unknown: 1:37

Well, that's the fascinating thing. One of the reasons people are against plastics is that they feel that we're drowning in plastic. If you look at our total use of materials, plastic is about 0.5% by weight of the materials used.

Andrew Kris: 1:49

0.5%, so less than 1%. So, that's all materials used. So, what do you mean by other materials, Chris?

Unknown: 2:02

So, we have concrete, which is the dominating one. That's by far the biggest, it's almost 80%. And then we have metals around 10%, and wood around 6%, something like that. I actually have a pie chart here. And it's up on the website. So, that surprised me because I was reading a book about materials in general, it's a wonderful book. And I was just flicking through the pages and I came across this pie chart. And plastic was this tiny sliver of 1%, and I thought, this can't be right. I mean, you talk about people falling off their chair being surprised. But even I, as an expert who'd been at this for decades, was amazed to find that plastic is less than 1% of all materials. And I think most people are surprised to find that out. And I think this came from the fact that plastics grew from zero. So, this idea that we're drowning in plastic is due to the growth rate people have perceived over the decades, we're using more and more plastic. And that's certainly true because we started at zero by definition, you have a infinite growth if you start from the number zero. But if you zoom out a little bit, as I said, look at the perspective compared to other materials, you find out that if you were truly worried about using too much material, you wouldn't be focused just on plastic and ignoring the other 99.5%.

Andrew Kris: 3:07

And this is from a sustainability point of view, in use of all materials. When you think about what goes into concrete, the amount of energy that's used in making cement, for example, it's a really highly polluting industry and one which consumes enormous energy. And then you start to look at how you're shipping concrete, how you ship the other materials around. It's an incredibly polluting industry. What's being done about that do you think? I hardly

Unknown: 3:37

see any posts on that. If you were to make the tiniest improvement in concrete that would have more impact than eliminating all plastics. That's because the numbers are so big. So, as a problem solver, I always start with what's the biggest, that's what most people would do. Let's say there's somebody smoking next to your house, and then your house is on fire. You wouldn't put out the cigarette first, you would put out the house, hopefully. At the moment, we're focusing on the cigarette and ignoring the house on fire. If you look at - you mentioned what's good for the environment - if you look at CO₂or fossil fuel usage or waste, the biggest two there are steel and concrete. So, if you ignore those, those are like 80% of the problem in both cases. So, if you were to ignore those, you will never make an impact.

Andrew Kris: 4:20

So, all of this energy, and energy is the right word, all the time and attention going towards plastics. If part of that was actually used for maybe areas which have greater effect, it would make much more sense for the world, wouldn't it? But this is, of course, a counter argument you're suggesting here in a sense. How successful are you in getting this message across?

Unknown: 4:44

Initially, it wasn't successful at all. For the first year, there was a lot of pushback because I was the only person showing the evidence. I've read 3000 peer-reviewed papers unpaid to find the facts. And that's how you do it as a proper scientist, right? You don't make up your mind and go and find one piece of data that supports what you would like to believe. You have to go and read literally everything you can find, and then decide what you what you believe, based on the evidence. And so there was a lot of pushback. And I would get hate mail almost every day saying you're a shill and how can you say this? But then almost overnight, it changed because people went and checked the things I was saying. I always cite sources for everything, you can click on a link and go and check it and see for yourself that plastics are not harming turtles or whales or birds.

Andrew Kris: 5:27

So, I recall an illustration on turtles with some poor beasts getting caught up in plastic bags in the ocean. You told me there's background to that story when we first talked.

Unknown: 5:41

Yeah, there was a BBC article about the man who discovered plastics in the ocean and they had this picture of a turtle with a bag around its neck. So, I went and searched that picture, and I found it on Shutterstock. And the original picture had no bag, it had been photoshopped in. Of course, if you look at the number of the plastic bags in the ocean, it's incredibly small and the chance that a turtle would ever stick its neck through the handle of one is zero. So, any picture you've ever seen of a turtle entangled in a bag is photoshopped and fake. And that's not the only one. I've spotted many other pictures of turtles with bags all around and the original picture in every case had no bags. So, I busted the BBC on that and they actually changed the article, they apologised that they used the misleading picture and they updated the video as well. So, credit to them on that. They still have their data wrong, but credit to them that they did update the picture, based on it not being true..

Andrew Kris: 6:31

Well, the media is not totally innocent. Of course, their whole focus is getting information across but the number one focus is getting eyeballs. Now, I know you've been on 60 Minutes, you've been on the BBC, SKY and elsewhere. How are you finding yourself received when you pass these factual messages across?

Unknown: 6:51

Well, I will say the facts are not as exciting as fiction. So, there's a thing called Brandolini's law, he was an Italian software programmer, and he said that it takes about 10 or 100 times more energy to refute the nonsense than he does to make it up in the first place. And so, that means that I'm never going to win. And Mark Twain said that the fictions are halfway around the world before the truth has got his shoes on, or something like that. So, that's what I'm experiencing to some extent. But nevertheless, as a scientist, I'm worried that the things we're doing now are scientifically proven to be massively increasing harm, right. That's the problem. Give us an example, perhaps. Well, for example, it takes three or four pounds of other materials to replace one pound of plastic. And you can measure that in your own kitchen, weigh a plastic straw and weigh a paper straw or a metal straw. The weight of a plastic bag is six grams, the weight of a paper bag is 60 grams from the same company. So, that's a problem, right? If you were genuinely worried about how much material we use, you would not be voluntarily getting rid of something or replacing it with three or four times more material. And it's the same when it comes to CO₂. It's three or four times more CO₂ when you replace plastic. It's about two times more fossil fuel usage if you replace plastic because it takes so much more energy to make these other materials. So, in almost every case, we're banning or taxing the proven greenest solution and increasing harm. And that's not good. So, even if I know I'll never win this battle, and people are not that interested in the truth., the irony is that people who care the most are doing the most harm, because they haven't bothered to stop and check the facts first. So, I want people to at least have access to the facts. And that's why I give it away for free on my website, in my book, for example, all of its free.

Andrew Kris: 8:31

t's important to make the point that you're acting in this - I was going to say crusade but that's not entirely the right way. Because you're not crusading, you have a very rational view of the world. How important is it for people to know that you are an independent person? I mean, you're not being financed by the, I don't know, plastics association or anybody else. In fact, you were saying, you just don't work for these guys.

Unknown: 9:04

Well, they are financed to do this but they haven't done it, they've come up with useless arguments, like the plastics industry employs people and plastics have good uses. I hate those arguments. The argument should be plastic is the proven greenest solution. If you look at studies on bags, there are 30 lifecycle analyses now on bags, and every one ever done anywhere in the world shows that the plastic bag causes least harm. So, if you're waving your cotton bag around and feeling virtuous, you're in the wrong camp, right? Absolutely.

Andrew Kris: 9:31

When it comes to producing a cotton bag...

Unknown: 9:35

And when it comes to straws, just don't take a straw. That's the greenest solution. When it comes to water, use tap water, that's the greenest, that's been scientifically proven. Often the solution is known, it's proven, the information is there for free. You could type in LCA bag, for example, into Google and you will find these PDFs of peer-reviewed lifecycle analysis for free. You can find them in five seconds. And that makes me wonder why has no government politician ever done that? Why has nobody from the World Wildlife Fund or Greenpeace or Beyond Plastics, or any of these groups that claim to care about the environment, why have they never spent five minutes to do a Google search and find the science? That's very suspicious to me.

Andrew Kris: 10:13

Indeed, it is. You mentioned that Greenpeace in particular, I think there was somebody who worked for Greenpeace who has written a book about the topic, and particularly about Greenpeace's attitudes and behaviours, Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout., I was going to say a refugee, but that would be entirely the wrong word. But this is a very, very interesting analysis, what are the main points coming out of him?

Unknown: 10:45

Well, he was the president of Greenpeace, so this is not just anyone dropping out. He said he was the only scientist left, he's got a PhD. And he was disgusted that they abandoned the environment in favour of just making up fiction, in his words, to get donations. Because, of course, if you show a picture of a turtle or a whale or a bird, you can get people's money out of their pockets. And so, he was disgusted and left and exposed them. He's written books about what he says is their true business model, to tell lies to get your money. And they always do it in someplace you can never check. There's a floating island of plastic in the middle of the ocean, which you can't go out there and find it. And when you do look for it, it's not there. It's the same with the polar bears. The latest study on polar bears shows that there's been no change in the population. So, they always make up something that's very difficult to check. They made up a thing about Henderson Island, some remote island that you can't even visit that has the most plastic of anywhere in the world. And they show these horrific pictures. But when you go there on Google, you know, Google maps where you can walk around, you walk up and down that beach and you see nothing, you just see clean white beaches. And this is what they claim the most plastic pollution anywhere. And yet, there's none there when you actually walk up and down on Google Maps. So, do

Andrew Kris: 11:49

you think that if one of these people were to observe this video or to hear you talking, at some point, they will go fact check that? And what will they come back to, will they say, Oh, yeah, you're right. I obviously believe that?

Unknown: 12:04

Well, that's what's happened. My book has been out for two years, nobody's ever found anything wrong in it. And it's been checked by PhD scientists and teams of people. And I've had people from all kinds of companies internationally look at it, nobody's ever found a factual error in anything that I've posted. And so that's why people's opinion of what I was saying turned around because they went and checked it and found it was all true. Well, I

Andrew Kris: 12:23

guess a question is that, given the correctness of that statement, what what can people do about this? And what would you recommend people do? I want to come back to some specifics on plastics, by the way, because I know you've done a huge amount of work there. But what can people do as a consequence of all of this? I mean, there's a saying that bad stories make much better press.

Unknown: 12:50

Right, right. Because when you make up fiction, the world's your oyster, nothing's off the table. But when you come to facts, it's a lot of work to go and find the facts. You can't just find one source. That's why I found 30 LCAs on bags, I didn't go and find one that supported a certain opinion, I went and found every one ever published. So, I think on a practical level, what people can do, in general, is to pick the greenest solution. And most people don't have lifecycle analyses. So, the first thing they should do is look at- I've condensed this all into one web page, it will take you three or five minutes to read, there's a video if you want to see more.

Andrew Kris: 13:25

We'll let our viewers have a look at that also.

Unknown: 13:30

And on a practical level, if you go shopping, I would say buy either the cheapest or the lightest product, because that usually is the greenest. So, if you weigh a plastic straw and a paper straw, you'll find the plastic one is lighter and cheaper. And it's the greenest according to lifecycle analysis, which is peer-reviewed, and checked and standardised and all of that stuff. It's the same when it comes to mailers, you know, these mailer envelopes, plastic is again the lightest, cheapest and the greenest by a huge margin. I mean, you're increasing harm by about three to fourfold by moving to another material.

Andrew Kris: 14:04

Well, I worked with the paper industry and the glass industry, and I cannot imagine why I would ever want to replace, for example, a PT bottle with a glass bottle, right? I mean, that just makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Now, there's a human aspect to this, which is educating people to throw it in the damn bin. I just watched two minutes ago, somebody throwing one next to a bin and not picking it up. I mean, that at the end of the day is unforgivable. But that's human behaviour. So, I could see some emphasis being put on continuing education all over the world on human behaviour, that would be a good start. And that's true for everything, right, and not plastics.

Unknown: 14:45

That's the key to anything. The key to anything is to understand what the true cause is and there are studies on litter, they show that 81% of litter is dropped intentionally, they literally record tens of thousands of incidents. And scientists do this, and it's dropped intentionally. And even if you put dustbins eight steps apart, people still drop litter intentionally. It's down to people. So, I see these posts that Coca Cola is the most polluting company in the world or Danone, is a polluting company. They're not dropping litter, they're making products that their customers then drop. So, if we blame the plastic or the metal or the glass or the company, we're on the wrong track, we're blaming the wrong people and we'll never solve the problem. The solution is to realise that it's a people issue, and that's proven scientifically. And the proven solutions are education, deposit systems to make it too expensive to drop it on the floor, and fines. That's what actually works it's proven to work.

Andrew Kris: 15:37

Indeed, you mentioned a case a little while back that you were working on in relation to plastics use in medical applications, where you were very critical of that particular application for this product and ended up in quite some conversation. What was that all about?

Unknown: 15:56

Yes, I was an expert witness on a class-action case. So, they they put this mesh inside people for a vaginal repair or hernia. It's polypropylene, and it's not compatible with the body and it degrades far too quickly, it's not properly stabilised. So, if you, and it's not just my opinion, I mean, there's plenty of people who have looked at that, polypropylene is a very, very unstable material. And it should never be used for that application. So women, tens of thousands of women got compensation for that. And billions of dollars were paid out, because of this mistake. And that's why I'm against the use of plastic in that case, because it wasn't stable.

Andrew Kris: 16:30

It's an inappropriate use of plastics. Yes, exactly. So, I'm

Unknown: 16:34

not never for plastic, I'm always for the truth. If you do a personality test on me, you'll find that I'm somebody who's very high on fairness. I give my daughter's the same number of ice cubes every night because I wanted to be fair. I wasn't treated fairly as a child and want other people to be treated, treated fairly. So, that's something that's big for me, it's not about defending plastic, it's about starting with the truth and then making up your mind.

Andrew Kris: 16:58

Well, that is actually a wonderful note to rest on, at this particular moment. But thank you very much indeed for clarifying all of those things for us. We will do our very best to make sure that the information you're talking about, and particularly that wonderfully coherent one-pager on your website, we'll make sure that gets high visibility. I believe that's phantomplastics.com, is that correct? Yes. If you look for that, look for Chris Dearmitt online and phantomplastics.com. You will see many of the facts as researched by somebody competent to do so, if I may put it that way. And you will find a lot of this stuff will cause you to question what this is all about. So, Chris, thank you so much for taking the time on this with us and we look forward to having you back again, maybe a little while ahead to talk in more detail on this topic. That'd be lovely. Thank you very much indeed. It's a great pleasure. Thank you, Chris.