“Expected corporate liabilities from plastics litigation triggered in the period 2022-30 is preliminary but exceeds US$20 billion in the United States alone.”
This is the latest estimate by the Australia-based Minderoo Foundation in its recent report on future economic risks to corporations from lawsuits due to the use of plastics. The estimated $20 billion is a combination of costs from five liability avenues listed in descending order of severity as: (i) health effects from plastic-related chemicals, (ii) health effects from micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs), (iii) property damage or remediation costs from MNPs, (iv) environmental damage, and (iv) “misleading behavior,” i.e., greenwashing.
Beyond 2030, Minderoo estimates that “future exposures to corporate liabilities may increase by an order of magnitude and demand immediate attention.” The drastic increase in potential liabilities moving forward comes from the more recent scientific advances identifying the effects of chemicals and plastics on health, specifically in being able to pinpoint direct effects from specific chemicals and microplastic particles. And additionally, as time passes it becomes easier to see the long term effects of chemical exposures in communities that live and work around chemical or plastic production facilities (FPF reported).
The Minderoo researchers reviewed over 5,000 academic papers to determine the body of evidence for “plastic-related pollution harms [to] humans, nature, and the economy.” This information was combined with rates of disease burden across the globe (measured in disability-adjusted life years, DALYs) to measure the cost to public health. The collected information was modeled by Praedicat, a company that specializes in modeling “current, emerging, and emergent liability risks.”
Using a few groups of chemicals as case studies, models referenced in the Minderoo report found “bodily injury” from phthalates and other plasticizers, as well as finding that bisphenols have a “high probability of litigation.” Research published in October 2021 estimated the societal cost of phthalate exposure to adults in the US at $39-47 billion per year (FPF reported).
A recent article published by the American Bar Association specifically highlighted the emerging liability risks from microplastics. The authors, Megan Baroni and Catie Boston, reference California’s first-in-the-world approach to monitoring, and likely in the future regulating, microplastics (FPF reported). They write, “as we have seen with other emerging contaminants, once microplastics can be reliably detected with publicly available results, liability will likely follow.”
Due to the fact that microplastics are found across the entire planet (FPF reported) and increasingly throughout the human body (FPF reported), “regulatory agencies and plaintiffs alike may cast a wide net when identifying potentially responsible parties” for micro- and nanoplastic exposure. “But even before we have robust microplastics regulations, plaintiffs are already using existing laws to find ways to target plastics in the environment, from citizen suits to challenging claims regarding sustainability and recycling as they relate to plastics” (FPF reported, also here).
Both publications encourage businesses to begin assessing their liabilities. Baroni and Boston suggest that manufacturers “survey their operations and supply chains to determine how plastics are being used—and potentially released into the environment.” While Minderoo goes a step further advocating that “immediate action is required from corporates, their insurers, their shareholders and investors, insurance supervisors, and policymakers to address near-term and future liability risks from plastic-related pollution.”
References
Megan Baroni and Catie Boston (September 15, 2022). “Microplastics: Liability and scientific uncertainty.” American Bar Association
Andreas Merkl and Dom Charles (October 2022). “The price of plastic pollution: Social costs and corporate liabilities.” Minderoo Foundation
Read more
Cate Lamb (October 18, 2022). “Comment: Why investors now want companies to disclose plastic pollution risk.” Reuters
Kristina Marusic (November 7, 2022). “Lawsuits against the plastics industry for health and environmental harm could exceed $20 billion by 2030.” Environmental Health News
Abby Meyer, et al. (November 13, 2022). “GUEST ARTICLE: PFAS and food packaging: Regulatory changes create ripple effects for PFAs-related litigation.” Food Navigator
