Expert For Hire: Bloomberg Enforcer Attacks Vaping, Plastic Recycling
A scientist for hire spreads nonsense on demand
Many scientists use their expertise to make the world a better place. Some enter the private sector and develop innovative technologies, while others conduct original research and train up the next generation of young scientists in universities. But an increasing number of academics are pursuing a third career track: serving as the intellectual muscle for anti-industry activist groups.
EPA administrator turned NGO boss Judith Enck is a textbook example. After a career in mid-tier Washington bureaucracy, Enck founded Beyond Plastics, and with a sizable donation from billionaire busybody Mike Bloomberg, led his campaign to cut US plastic production. Even a cursory survey of her work confirms that she’s bought and paid for.
Consider her recent op-ed published in The Hill that targeted innovative plastic recycling technologies. Enck alleged that these innovations are actually unworkable; they’ve been rolled out by “Big Plastic” merely to delay additional regulation. It’s the same strategy the tobacco industry followed when it introduced nicotine vaping products, she says. The point was to evade federal oversight and “hook” the next generation on nicotine.
The only reason to compare these two industries is that Bloomberg hates both. The diabolical billionaire is not only a benefactor of anti-plastic crusaders, he is the world’s biggest funder of anti-vaping advocacy, contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to NGOs, universities and even reporters for the express purpose of attacking nicotine vapor products.
Attacking vaping and plastic allowed Enck to show her boss that she holds all the “right” opinions. And because she’s serving as Bloomberg’s hired gun, Enck deliberately misled readers about two important technologies.
The phony vaping conspiracy
In line with other Bloomberg-funded activists, Enck claimed that the tobacco industry commercialized vaping products with ulterior motives. This is false, however. The vaping industry developed independently of the legacy tobacco companies, which only later entered the growing market. In fact, the first commercially successful vapor product was developed by a pharmacist whose father died of lung cancer.
This goes to an important point: vapor manufacturers do not market to children because it’s illegal and their products appeal to adults who already smoke. As the most recent CDC data shows, teen vaping and smoking have hit historic lows while millions of adults have switched from cigarettes to vapes.
The most important aspect of the debate that Enck ignored, though, is that vaping saves lives. A growing scientific consensus clearly shows that vaping is substantially less harmful than smoking and far more effective than FDA-approved nicotine replacement therapies in helping smokers quit.
Groundbreaking recycling technology
Enck’s primary target was chemical recycling, and she was as wrong about this as she was about vaping. Also known as advanced or molecular recycling, the technology is a promising complement to plastic waste disposal for several reasons Enck completely ignored or dismissed without justification.
First, chemical recycling can break down polymers into their original building blocks, allowing them to be reprocessed into new, high-quality plastics. This innovation creates a truly closed-loop system where waste is minimized and valuable resources are conserved.
Eco-crusaders like Enck routinely complain that traditional recycling methods don’t efficiently process mixed plastics, since different types of polymers require separate recycling processes. But chemical recycling solves this problem by efficiently breaking down a wide range of plastics, including multi-layered packaging, films, and contaminated plastics.
This versatility greatly expands the scope of recyclable materials and reduces the amount of plastic waste that ends up in landfills. Since Enck has recently complained that “plastic has infiltrated every place on Earth,” she has no excuse for opposing any technology that reduces discarded plastic.
As with all economic dynamism, there are unexpected benefits too. By diverting plastic from landfills and reducing the need for virgin plastic, chemical recycling could significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to a report by the American Chemistry Council, advanced recycling could potentially reduce global emissions by up to 70 percent over new crude oil extraction techniques.
In addition to producing valuable feedstocks for new plastics, chemical recycling can generate energy through the conversion of waste plastics into fuels—enough to power nine million cars annually. Although modern chemical recycling techniques have evolved significantly in recent years, energy recovery itself has been used successfully for decades.
Indeed, by the early 1990s, notes the EPA, America was combusting more than 15 percent of its municipal solid waste and recovering it as energy at facilities outfitted with pollution-control equipment. “This generates an energy source and reduces carbon emissions by offsetting the need for energy from fossil sources and reduces methane generation from landfills,” The EPA adds, calling this approach “a key part of the non-hazardous waste management hierarchy.”
Activist roadblocks
As chemical recycling continues to develop–and make no mistake, significant progress has already been made–one of its most formidable challenges will be opposition from ideological NGOs, like Enck’s billionaire-backed Beyond Plastics. The cynicism of this activist crusade should not be lost on anyone. While publicly denying the viability of chemical recycling, Enck’s group explicitly opposes funding research into the technology and enacting sensible regulation that would speed its development.
In other words, Enck is the real-world equivalent of the killer who murdered his parents and begged for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan. It’s the same sort of disingenuous advocacy that delays the deployment of life-saving GMO crops and carbon-free energy sources like nuclear power. The activists say these technologies aren’t viable, but they’re often not yet viable because the activists do everything in their power to block their development.
Anti-capitalism vs problem solving
The fundamental problem is that Enck and other crusaders like her are motivated by an anti-capitalist animus; they only want to achieve their stated public health and sustainability goals if they can punish industry in the process.
Because it is industrial innovation that usually enables us to make people healthier and protect our natural resources, the NGO industrial-complex settles for punishing the private sector, even if it means allowing smokers to die and pollution to increase. Every right-thinking person should be appalled by such depravity.