Plastic Soup

A green point

The first interview I had for Plastic Soup was with Rinus van den Berg, Architectural & Industrial Designer at DSM.

I knew that DSM was a large chemical group. But I only realized its size when I noticed all the smoke-stacks and factories while en route by taxi to Chemelot in Geleen. The man who drove me over the factory grounds was visibly shocked when he realized that I had not received any safety instructions. I then realized that the materials handled there might be a bit questionable. “Generally speaking, you can’t even enter these grounds without first having seen the instruction video — now you have no idea on what to do in the event a gas cloud is released …”

It was my understanding that Rinus van den Berg was rather concerned about the project he had started. He was, along with DSM employees and associated concerns, afraid that ACT would pass the buck onto them. They produce plastic, and so they’re the evil-doers. At least that is the reasoning of people who don’t think any further.

I don’t believe that any one person, company or concern is to blame. In our society, plastic has become an essential. Not necessarily all plastics — don’t take me the wrong way — if it were up to me, all plastic bags, disposable plates, cups, cutlery, food packaging and that sort of nonsense would be banned today. However, plastic literally saves lives. Remove the plastic from a pace-maker, from a prosthesis, from infusions or out of innumerable other medical applications and you are left with nothing. Degradable plastic is also not an option for those applications: you don’t want the plastic in your hip replacement to degrade in thirty years. No, as Rinus van den Berg says: “… plastic is a fantastic material.” However, what matters is what you make from it. Do we need all the plastic items that we produce today? It is up to us — producers and consumers — to responsibly deal with this remarkable material.

“Naturally, we produce plastic and the consumer buys it. But we have never told them to throw it in the ocean!” says Rinus during the interview.

We have to stop doing this then.

However, is it enough to self-whitewash in order to clear oneself of any accusation? Is DSM doing enough when they only produce plastic (without polluting the environment)?

No. Because even after all plastic producers and consumers collect up their waste properly, the problem is still not solved — it may not end up in the oceans, but it piles up elsewhere on land. Recycling concerns us all. Since the Seventies, DSM has made the right moves by recycling PET bottles. But that still isn’t enough. The authorities, industries, and consumers need to join forces. They need to dig deep into their pockets and establish an agency that is responsible for the recycling of all collected plastic.

And to my amazement … our next-door neighbors seem to have already had such an agency all along: Germany’s Der Grüne Punkt (The Green Point).

What’s keeping us?

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