Author: Miquéla Thornton
“Big Oil Is in Trouble. Its Plan: Flood Africa With Plastic,” a headline in The New York Times read in 2020. The “trouble” the Times referred to was the decline of fossil fuels amid the climate crisis. “Big Oil” referenced the lobby group the American Chemistry Council (ACC), which includes the likes of Exxon, Dow, Shell, Dupont and Total. As the industry ramps up plastic production to make up for lost profits, the plan was to find somewhere to dump all the waste.