Is the plastic industry trying to influence green policies?

The Hindu

24-07-2025

The story so far: At first glance, tobacco and plastic might seem unrelated. Both industries have historically acknowledged certain health risks, while continuing to scale production and revenue models. Environmental activists and health experts are drawing attention to how the plastic industry, backed by fossil fuel giants, mirrors the tobacco industry's playbook: delaying regulation, deploying PR spin, and shifting blame by muddying public perception.
How does plastic mirror tobacco's playbook?
Both industries have used profit-driven tactics despite evidence of harm.
Shifting responsibility: in many jurisdictions, advertisements for tobacco run with a disclaimer 'smoking is injurious to health' (or similar) while promoting the product, abetted by weak public policy. This places the onus on individual choice. Similarly, plastic-makers have blamed consumers for not recycling while diverting attention from corporate accountability. In both cases, the effect is for systematic harm to be recast as personal failure.
Funding misleading PR and science: Tobacco companies have historically funded studies denying their effects on the body. Similarly, as NPR and PBS have reported, the plastic industry promoted recycling as a resolution from the 1980s despite privately acknowledging its economic and technical impracticality at scale. Yet even as trade groups launched public campaigns around the 'recyclability' of plastic to avert bans, most plastic waste continued to be incinerated, landfilled or dumped in the open.
Greenwashing: In a subsequently discredited strategy, tobacco companies once marketed 'light' and 'mild' cigarettes as safer. Today, the absence of clear, enforceable standards and shortcomings in the country's waste-processing infrastructure render plastic that is, or has been labelled, 'biodegradable' or 'compostable' to not be that way at all. This in turn can give consumers a false impression of these plastics' real-world environmental impact. In the same vein, greenwashing can also take more obvious forms. For example, Coca-Cola was recently accused of greenwashing after quietly dropping its goal of 25% reusable packaging by 2030 and scaling back key recycling targets while continuing to promote its sustainability credentials.
Shifting focus towards the Global South
As regulations to reduce the use of single-use plastics and rationalise the material's use in packaging tighten across the Global North, plastic producers have been focusing on low- and middle-income countries to sustain growth. According to the OECD's 'Global Plastic Outlook' report in 2022, plastic consumption is projected to more than double in Sub-Saharan Africa and triple in Asia by 2060 but grow by only 15% in Europe and 34% in North America in the same period.
Further, while countries in the Global South, including India, have begun moving towards reduction, their efforts face substantial challenges in implementation and enforcement. A 2023 Centre for Science and Environment report noted that India's ban of 19 single-use plastics covers only around 11% of its single-use plastic waste and that enforcement has been inconsistent.
This shift in focus toward the Global South has coincided with weaker environmental regulations, limited public awareness, and inadequate waste management systems, making these regions especially vulnerable to rising plastic pollution.
Regulation and lobbying
The tobacco industry has been known to exaggerate its economic contributions and funding front groups to delay public health measures, tactics documented in WHO's A Global Brief (2012) and a 2022 submission to the U.N. Human Rights Office by the Campaign for Tobacco‑Free Kids and the Global Health Advocacy Incubator.
The plastics industry has used comparable strategies to shape public policy and delay meaningful regulation. Internal documents from major plastic and chemical firms, dating back to the 1970s and 1980s, show companies were already aware of the technical and economic limits of plastic recycling but continued to promote it as a viable solution. This tactic, documented by a 2024 report of the Center for Climate Integrity, helped deflect public and political pressure away from regulating plastic production.
More recently, the plastics and fossil fuel industries have sought to influence negotiations for a global plastics treaty under the U.N. According to the Centre for International Environmental Law, industry influence was evident at the third round of treaty talks (INC-3), where there were 36% more lobbyists from the fossil fuel and chemicals sectors than in the previous round.
Where does India stand on plastics?
In India, the waste management system banks on the lakhs of people, from ragpickers and sorters to grassroot recyclers, in the informal sector responsible for collecting and processing 70% of the plastic that is recycled. But this work often comes at the cost of their health and dignity, exposing them to hazardous materials and toxic fumes, without protective gear, legal recognition or social security.
They face long-term health risks, including respiratory illnesses and infections, and often live below the poverty line, lacking stable incomes and access to basic social protections.
Recognising their role, the Indian government has taken some steps to formalise and protect them. The National Action for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem scheme launched in 2024 aims to integrate waste pickers into formal waste systems by providing safety measures, health insurance under Ayushman Bharat, and access to social security benefits. Per the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, as of May 2025, over 80,000 sanitation and waste-picking workers have been profiled under the scheme, with more than 45,700 handed personal protective equipment and around 26,400 issued Ayushman Bharat health cards.
Extended producer responsibility guidelines under the Plastic Waste Management Rules 2016 (amended in 2022) require manufacturers to take responsibility for plastic they generate, financially, and operationally. However — as with India's ban on 19 single-use plastics — experts have criticised gaps in enforcement, with fewer than half of all producers complying with their obligations.