This week on Possibly, we’re taking a closer look at how plastics have given the fossil fuel industry a new business platform — with hardly anyone noticing they’re even in the market.

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Today, we’ve got another episode in our running series on plastics. You probably already know that plastic causes issues when we’re done with it, littering beaches, roadsides, and even our own bodies. But its origin story is just as problematic — and the fossil fuel industry plays a big part in it.

We had Janek Schaller and Leo Nachamie from the Possibly team look into this.

Janek Schaller: Hi, Megan!

Leo Nachamie: Hello!

Megan Hall: So how are oil and gas connected to plastics?

Janek Schaller: We spoke with Professor Sherri Mason to find out. She teaches at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Sherri Mason: I moved here in summer of 2018, and as I was moving here, everybody was talking to me about, “What about the Shell plant?”

Janek Schaller: Sherri is talking about the Beaver County Shell Petrochemical Facility. It’s just north of Pittsburgh. She saw it for the first time when she was driving south from Erie.

Sherri Mason: I came over this horizon and this, like, whole city kind of rose out in front of me …

Leo Nachamie: The 14 billion-dollar Beaver County facility opened in 2022. And the state of Pennsylvania was thrilled. They’d offered Shell more than a billion dollars in tax breaks to bring the project to their state.

Megan Hall: Whoa! What does this factory do?

Janek Schaller: It makes tiny little plastic pellets, known as nurdles.

Sherri Mason: These little three millimeter balls of plastic…they like clear white lentils.

Janek Schaller: Those lentils are the building blocks that make up every single plastic product you can think of — everything from plastic bottles to packaging.

Megan Hall: So, why did Shell and the state put so much money into a factory that makes plastic pellets?

Leo Nachamie: Sherri says fossil fuel companies are still marketing oil and gas as fuel sources, but as the country shifts toward renewable energy, the industry is relying on plastics as a backup plan. And Pennsylvania is the perfect place for this project.

Megan Hall: Why?

Janek Schaller: This is where we get back to the connection between oil and gas and plastics. Pennsylvania produces a lot more energy than it needs, mostly because it harvests natural gas from fracking…

Megan Hall: That’s where companies shoot water deep into the ground to release methane from rock formations… right?

Janek Schaller: Exactly. Here’s the thing: about half of all of the fracking going on in Pennsylvania is targeting younger rock formations.

Leo Nachamie: When you frack younger rock, the fuel that you get has more ethane and propane in it than the fuel from older reserves.

Megan Hall: And why’s that a big deal?

Leo Nachamie: Sherri says ethane and propane aren’t the best ingredients for making fuels like gasoline — they actually serve a different purpose.

Sherri Mason: Because of the mixture of what’s coming out in this gas, this is considered better to be used as a starting material for making plastics.

Megan Hall: Oh! I’m beginning to see the connection here. And they’re using that starting material at the plant in Pennsylvania?

Janek Schaller: Yep, remember, that’s what the Beaver County plant does.

Sherri Mason: It’s called a cracker plant, and not crackers like you eat, but to crack a molecule.

Leo Nachamie: The plant starts with ethane and cracks it into polyethylene, which is what those nurdles we talked about earlier are made out of.

 Sherri Mason: Ethane to ethene to polyethylene, is the process that that whole facility is aimed to do. That’s all it does.

Janek Schaller: And the use of oil for plastics is only expected to grow. The International Energy Agency predicts that plastics will account for nearly half of the increase in demand for oil over the next two decades.

Leo Nachamie: That’s a larger share than the predicted demand from trucks, aviation, and shipping.

Janek Schaller: But still, Sherri says most people have no idea about the link between oil and plastics.

Sherri Mason: If you saw that plastic bottle is being connected to an oil rig, you’d be like, ‘Ew, I don’t want to put my mouth on that!’”

Leo Nachamie: Even if the jury is still out on just how harmful plastics are when they get into our bodies, researchers like Sherri say we still need to pay attention to where these products come from.

Megan Hall: Got it! Thanks, Janek and Leo.

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, Ocean State Media and WBRU.

The post How are the plastic and fossil fuel industries connected? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

The post How are the plastic and fossil fuel industries connected? appeared first on Possibly.

Plastic products cost us, even after we’re done with them — That’s because municipal recycling is paid with taxpayer money. But could the companies that made these products be responsible for paying for them?

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

Here in the US, after we buy something, it’s up to us to make sure the packaging ends up in the right recycling bin or trash can.

On top of that— we pay for that recycling and trash pick-up— through our taxes. Is there another way to share the responsibility for our waste?

Will Malloy and Isha Thakkar from our Possibly team are here to tell us about another option.

Will Malloy: Hi Megan!

Isha Thakkar: Hi!

Megan Hall: So, how are we going to share this responsibility for our trash and recycling?

Will Malloy: Well, there’s an idea out there that the companies that make a product should be responsible for that product for its entire life.

Isha Thakkar: Including after we’re done with it — like making sure products and their packages are properly disposed of and recycled when possible.

Will Malloy: The technical term for this is “extended producer responsibility.”

Megan Hall: Why should my trash be a company’s responsibility?

Will Malloy: We talked to plastic pollution researcher and policy expert Dr. Sherri Mason, to understand this idea. She told us to imagine you’ve bought a bottle of shampoo–

Sherri Mason: You wanted the shampoo, not the bottle that it came in, but you got that bottle, usually plastic, as a consequence of wanting the product.

Will Malloy: Buying the shampoo means you have to buy the bottle, too — so you’re also paying for the cost of producing that bottle and shipping it to the store where you bought it.

Isha Thakkar: And once you’re done with the shampoo…

Sherri Mason: Now you also have to pay to get rid of the bottle? The recycling infrastructure of the United States uses taxpayer money. It is taxpayer funded. So we are funding the waste that is associated with the plastics industry.

Will Malloy: She says, one of the problems with this system is that it doesn’t give companies any incentive to cut back on wasteful packaging or make sure products are recycled properly.

Isha Thakkar: They’re not paying for it, so it’s not really their problem.

Megan Hall: I get the idea, but how does that actually work in practice?

Isha Thakkar: Extended producer responsibility is really a policy strategy — and it’s gaining popularity across Europe and in Canada.

Will Malloy: When it comes to packaging, it’s not super widespread here in the United States as of now, But seven states have laws on the books and a number of others are considering legislation in 2026.

Isha Thakkar: These types of laws can work in two different ways.

Will Malloy: One approach is to charge companies fees or fines when they make plastic products.

 Isha Thakkar: That money can be used to pay for and expand municipal recycling programs.

Megan Hall: What’s the other way?

Will Malloy: Other laws influence the materials companies can use to make their products.

Isha Thakkar: Maybe they have to use recycled materials, or make sure their materials are recyclable.

Will Malloy: A bill being considered in New York would require producers to gradually reduce the amount of single-use plastic packaging they use by 30%.

Megan Hall: Do these laws affect all products?

Isha Thakkar: No. As of now, they focus on things like packaging, paper products, or beverage containers — the kinds of things that can be reasonably made out of 100% recyclable material.

Will Malloy: Sherri says, it makes sense to push companies to make the switch.

Sherri Mason: You shouldn’t have to pay for the disposal of this plastic item that you never really wanted to begin with, and you already paid. And so that should really be on the onus of the corporations that are manufacturing and putting this plastic into your life.

Isha Thakkar: Extended producer responsibility shifts the pressure onto those companies to either cut back on unnecessary waste or pay the price for dealing with that waste once you’re done with it.

Will Malloy: These kinds of laws are definitely complex, but they do work in other countries. And it’s a new way of thinking about how to slow down the flow of plastic in our lives.

Megan Hall: Got it. Thanks for looking into this!

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Bluesky at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Ocean State Media, and WBRU.

The post What is extended producer responsibility? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

The post What is extended producer responsibility? appeared first on Possibly.

On Possibly, we’ve talked about how we can cut out greenhouse gas emissions from our homes and cars. But we wondered, how are factories and manufacturers working on this problem?

Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.

We’ve talked on this show about how we can cut out greenhouse gas emissions from our homes and cars. But we wondered, how are factories and manufacturers working on this problem?

We had Will Malloy and Hamid Torabzadeh look into this question!

Will Malloy: Hi Megan!

Hamid Torabzadeh: Hey!

Megan Hall: So, why is it so hard to get rid of emissions in manufacturing? And how are we going to get there?

Will Malloy: First of all, when we talk about why manufacturing is a problem for the environment, we often think of physical waste.

Hamid Torabzadeh: Right, like big companies that make disposable water bottles that end up in the landfill or the ocean.

Megan Hall: But that’s not great, right?

Will Malloy: Definitely, but even if every product was completely biodegradable, recyclable, or reusable, manufacturing is a challenge because it uses a ton of energy.

Hamid Torabzadeh: And most of our energy comes from fossil fuels, like burning natural gas, which is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Megan Hall: Okay, but this seems like an easy problem to solve! We just need to get our electricity from renewable sources.

Will Malloy: We do – but for manufacturers, this electricity problem is trickier than it seems.

Hamid Torabzadeh: To find out more, we talked to John Eustis:

John Eustis: I’m the Senior Vice President of US Group Procurement for Toray Industries America.

Will Malloy: Toray is a company that produces plastic films, which end up in products we use every day.

John Eustis: We make the film that goes into the bags made for holding snack food products like Doritos.

Hamid Torabzadeh: And manufacturers like Toray burn a lot of natural gas to heat up the plastics to make their films. Way more than we use at home!

John Eustis: Imagine, you know, your household oven that you heat up to bake a cake to 300 or 400 degrees. Imagine thousands of those ovens to equal the size of an oven in our manufacturing facility.

Hamid Torabzadeh: They need so much energy, in fact, that they make their own electricity on site using natural gas. So even if the grid was 100% renewable, it would barely make a dent in their emissions.

Megan Hall: Wait, so they don’t just get it from the grid like the rest of us?

Will Malloy: That’s right – Toray feels that the energy supply from the grid is too expensive and not reliable enough, so they make their own.

Megan Hall: What do you mean by not reliable enough?

Will Malloy: Well, sometimes there are little blips in the energy supply, but most of us don’t notice them at all. Maybe your lights flicker a bit.

Hamid Torabzadeh: But for a company like Toray –

John Eustis: A small blip in the power supply can cause hours worth of downtime in the production facility.

Hamid Torabzadeh: And that can be really costly.

Will Malloy: At the end of the day, both the cost and reliability of energy from the grid are a big deal for companies that compete on a global market.

Megan Hall: So do we have any ideas for how to tackle these issues?

Hamid Torabzadeh: We do need to find ways to make enough renewable energy to meet our electricity needs.

Will Malloy: But that’s not enough. That energy also needs to be reliable and available when we need it.

Hamid Torabzadeh: So we need efficient batteries. Companies like Toray use energy even when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing.

John Eustis: The lines run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

Hamid Torabzadeh: Battery technology has come a long way in recent years, but we will need a lot more of them, and a much larger supply of renewable energy.

Will Malloy: Upgrades to the grid so that there are fewer interruptions will be really important, too.

Hamid Torabzadeh: But, some of these upgrades might be less urgent if manufacturers like Toray can put batteries on site.

Will Malloy: Consistently making enough affordable, reliable renewable energy to meet manufacturing needs is a big challenge, and while we’re making progress, nobody has the full answer yet.

Hamid Torabzadeh: But it’s not hopeless. Transitioning to renewable energy is possible, but we need to move quickly to avoid the worst of climate change.

Megan Hall: Got it! Thanks for looking into this!

That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at askpossibly.org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn or X at  “askpossibly”

Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and The Public’s Radio.

The post Why is it so hard for factories to reach net zero emissions? appeared first on TPR: The Public’s Radio.

The post Why is it so hard for factories to reach net zero emissions? appeared first on Possibly.