With plastic pollution littering the planet, certification organizations are popping up to sell “plastic credits” to companies, allowing them to offset the plastic they make and use with equivalent plastic waste collected and reused. Critics are skeptical.
Having a framework people are participating in to pay for the lifetime costs of plastic is an enormous step in the right direction.
The article is describing the many ways people are filling in the blanks in the early stages of this global endeavor. On the whole I would say there is a lot of positive energy for it.
I wish this very essential watchdog type of article could make clear that the results it reports are not unexpected and hopeless and damning of the whole concept, but rather normal learning curve for regulating an enormous industry in new ways. Skeptical, but constructive and understanding that you rely on other people to get this work done and don’t actually know how to do it all yourself so to some extent you have to wait and see what others come up with.