Webinar May 14: What the frack has gas got to do with plastic!?

What has that plastic bottle polluting your local river got to do with gas?!

Well, a lot as it turns out.

Natural gas is primarily composed of methane, a greenhouse gas which, when released, has over 100 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. Gas is used as an energy source the world over.

What is less well known is that gas is also used as a material to make plastics. Ethane is a hydrocarbon also present in gas and a primary raw material for petrochemical (or plastics) manufacturing. Global fossil fuel extraction companies are heavily involved in the production of plastics. They use the ethane accessed via fracking to produce plastics that exist for hundreds of years in the environment.

Join our Story of Plastic webinar at 7pm on May 14th to find out!

And before you join this webinar, you can also watch the newly released documentary 'The Story Of Plastic' online for free on May 12th & 13th - register here to receive the link.

On May 14^th, I’ll be taking part in a webinar, the aim of which is to tease out the connections between fracking, global plastics supply chains, liquefied natural gas terminals, Irish politics, European decision-making processes, solidarity and international movements for change. Whoa.

Register Here for Webinar & Film

I’ll be emphasising the role of the Irish movement in this global struggle and showcasing some of the actions you can take in order to find leverage points for changing this complex web of injustice.

Unless we find the points for change-making, we can’t win. And if we are not working together to connect struggles, we risk offshoring the injustice from Irish shores and missing the opportunity to get to the root cause of the issue.

From the activists in Ireland campaigning for no new gas, to the people in Texas and Pennsylvania trying to protect their communities from the toxic impacts of fracking, to the fisher-people in the Philippines whose health & livelihoods are being damaged by plastic clogging their waterways; all are connecting issues to get to the root cause of this global problem.

I’ll be joined by Andy Gheorghiu, a prominent campaigner on the European scene who will speak to the transatlantic plastics pipeline as well as the opaque decision-making process in the EU which gives climate-damaging fossil fuel projects the ‘highest political priority’ and access to EU taxpayer funding, projects such as the Shannon LNG gas import terminal planned for our west coast. More on that here.

I heard a quote yesterday from activists on a webinar we held on food sovereignty, another global issue which requires us to act locally.

“Globalise struggle. Globalise hope.”

I hope you’ll join me on May 14^th.

Meaghan Carmody - Head of Movement-Building