The push for a large-scale fracking operation in England will fuel the global plastic crisis and undermines the government’s claims that it is tackling the issue, according to a leading charity.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) says fracking will not only destroy large areas of the countryside, it will exacerbate the global plastic binge which is already causing widespread damage to oceans, habitats and the human food chain.

Daniel Carey-Dawes, campaigner at the CPRE, said the government “risks shooting itself in the foot in its fight against plastic” with its continued support for fracking.

“Not only will fracking industrialise our countryside, cause enormous amounts of landscape damage, air and water pollution, and pose grave risks to human health, it will also contribute to the production of new plastics,” he said.

“By opening the floodgates to fracking, the government will be fuelling the plastic plague that is already putting our countryside, cities and oceans at risk of irreversible harm.”

Companies including Ineos, Cuadrilla and Third Energy are all attempting to pursue fracking projects in the UK but have been bogged down in planning battles with local authorities and faced fierce local opposition. No fracking wells are currently in operation.

But campaigners warn that plans outlined by the business secretary, Greg Clark, earlier this year will mean that many of the democratic planning controls that are preventing the drilling of shale wells in England would be removed.

Carey-Dawes said that such removals would have dire consequences for the fight against plastic pollution: “The government must drop its proposals to simplify fracking exploration immediately if it intends its environmental ‘promises’ to be taken seriously.”



A spokesperson for the government reiterated its determination to reduce plastic pollution and added there was “no correlation between shale gas exploration and increased plastics production”.

However, last year the Guardian revealed that a huge boom in the US shale gas industry has resulted in a £180bn investment in plastic production facilities by fossil fuel giants such as ExxonMobil Chemical and Shell Chemical – contributing to a 40% rise in global plastic production over the next decade.

The American Chemistry Council (ACC) told the Guardian the reason was straight forward.

“I can summarise [the boom in plastics facilities] in two words,” said Kevin Swift, chief economist at the ACC. “Shale gas.”

The petrochemical giant Ineos is a major plastics producer with plants in Grangemouth in Scotland and Norway, and is at the forefront of the push for fracking in the UK.



It currently imports feedstock (the raw materials for making plastic) from the US, but on its website the company – owned by Jim Ratcliffe, the UK’s richest person – says fracking in the UK would allow it “to secure a supply of competitive energy and feedstock for its UK petrochemicals businesses.”

The firm has taken a robust and sometimes controversial approach to exploration, clashing with councils and appealing to authorities to force the National Trust to allow it access to their land.

An Ineos spokesperson said the argument put forward by the CPRE was “naive” and took no account of the “potential energy crisis” facing the UK.

He added the company supported a “circular economy model” where resources – including plastics – are reused and the “negative environmental impacts are minimised”.

He said shale gas in the UK would “displace imported gas for energy, not lead to an increase in gas use” and said the claim that a large shale industry in the UK would “lead to more plastic pollution is entirely false”.



“Shale gas is primarily methane which is used for energy, we don’t use methane to make chemicals or plastics … The CPRE seems to also want to forget that plastic plays a crucial role in the modern world; from lightweight car and plane parts, to blood bags and insulation.”

However, the CPRE pointed out that although methane was not used in plastic production other hydrocarbons, notably ethane, propane and butane, known as natural gas liquids (NGLs) were released during the shale gas process and are key feedstocks for plastic production.



In one of its own briefing documents, under the heading Why does the UK need shale gas? Ineos itself states: “Raw materials: UK manufacturing needs gas to produce everything from plastics to the chemicals used to clean our drinking water.”

Carey-Dawes, said: “For fracked gas to displace what we import, the number of wells required would cause harm to the English countryside on an industrial scale. Regardless, Ineos explicitly and publicly states, on their own website, that they want to frack for their plastic production.”