Plastics: The New and Final Colonizer

The Diplomat

20 hours ago

From its origins to its everyday impacts, the lifecycle of plastic mirrors the logic and values of colonization, including the priority of profit.
One of my favorite things to do is go shell hunting on my beach. These intricate homes made by tiny sea creatures always remind me of all the beauty that can be created in this world. The black sand on my beach glistens in the sun, making it very easy to spot these little treasures.
As I walk along the shore, my sight is interrupted by a bright yellow object peeking its way through the surface. I pick it up — a remnant piece of plastic from a bucket? A toy? A bottle? Who knows the history of where this specific piece came from. I look out, spotting pink, blue, green, and orange fragments scattered along the shoreline.
And I wonder: how, why, and what can we do about all this plastic?
Plastic, in a remarkably short time, has transformed our societies and reshaped the way we live. Ironically, its origins trace back to efforts to save elephants and tortoises from extinction. In 1862, Alexander Parkes patented the first man-made plastic, derived from cellulose, designed to replace ivory and tortoiseshell. Then, in 1907, Leo Baekeland created Bakelite — the first fully synthetic plastic — a material never before seen in nature that ushered in a new era of industrial innovation.
These discoveries sparked an industrial revolution of materials. Petrochemical giants like Dow, ExxonMobil, and BASF formed powerful alliances to develop plastic by-products from fossil fuel waste. This partnership rapidly scaled production, turning plastic from a novel invention into a mass-produced commodity embedded within global industries.
After World War II, the plastics industry, alongside advertisers and corporations, shifted their focus. Plastic was no longer just durable; it was engineered to be disposable. Industry leaders openly strategized to embed this disposability into everyday consumer habits. A famous 1956 Life Magazine article titled 'Throwaway Living' celebrated this new lifestyle of convenience, praising plastic as the tool of modern freedom and the way to eliminate household chores. Products were designed for brief use and quick discard, fueling constant replacement and an explosion of waste.
Today, plastic has colonized every part of our lives — our food, soil, oceans, air, bloodstreams, and ceremonies. Wherever we look, we now find plastic. It continues to colonize long after its intended life cycle ends — and always without our knowledge, participation, or consent.
Plastic Colonization
The global plastic crisis is not just an environmental issue — it is a colonial one. From its origins to its everyday impacts, the lifecycle of plastic mirrors the logic and values of colonization. At its core is the priority of profit: plastic emerged as a way to convert fossil fuel waste into endless consumer goods, a project driven not by necessity but by industry greed. This same profit-first mindset justified the mass extraction of oil and gas from Indigenous lands without consent, replicating the colonial right to extract — the idea that colonizers, then and now, have the moral and legal authority to take from the land regardless of who lives there.
Every stage of the plastic economy demonstrates a disregard for native lives. From Malaysian Indigenous communities living next to toxic petrochemical plants, to Pacific Island Nations drowning in plastic waste they did not create, frontline communities pay the highest price. Their health, waters, and livelihoods are sacrificed for global convenience. Underpinning this is the belief in European supremacy — the belief that Western materials, economies, and lifestyles are superior. Just as colonizers devalued Indigenous knowledge and culture, plastic industries erased traditional zero-waste lifeways and pushed 'throwaway culture' as modern and aspirational.
The plastic industry also represents the removal of tapu, the desecration of Indigenous sacredness. Land, water, and species that hold deep cultural and spiritual significance are contaminated or commodified. Plastics choke rivers, smother coral reefs, and pollute food systems, severing the spiritual relationships Indigenous Peoples maintain with their environments. All of this happens under the guise of development, backed by governments and trade laws that serve to protect colonial privilege. Even global treaties and climate policy processes often exclude Indigenous leadership or dismiss their solutions, reinforcing the same old power structures.
Lastly, the narrative that Indigenous communities need to be 'educated' on proper waste management or 'helped' through technological solutions echoes Crown paternalism. It frames Indigenous Peoples as incapable of managing their environments, ignoring the fact that many lived in sustainable balance with their ecosystems for millennia — long before plastic ever existed.
Global Plastic Treaty Negotiations
As world leaders prepare to gather in Geneva this August for the resumed session of the United Nations Global Plastics Treaty negotiations (INC 5.2), Indigenous Peoples are gearing up to fight for a strong, legally binding treaty that is inclusive of our voices.
In previous negotiations in Busan (INC 5.1), Indigenous representatives were excluded from informal negotiations. Language invoking the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) was stripped from the draft treaty. Meanwhile, petrochemical interests and corporate lobbyists crowded the halls, and Indigenous voices were muted once more.
This isn't merely procedural oversight — it is environmental racism. Indigenous Peoples for millennia, have maintained sustainable ways of life. We carry ancestral knowledge that understands that waste that can be not broken down to its original parts can never be part of a sustainable cycle.
A truly just Global Plastics Treaty must go beyond symbolic acknowledgments. It must deliver enforceable commitments that uphold Indigenous rights, affirming self-determination, full participation, and sovereignty over our lands, waters, and futures. This includes embedding UNDRIP into the treaty's legal text and recognizing Indigenous Peoples as rights-holders, not mere stakeholders. The treaty must also legally cap virgin plastic production, ban the most hazardous chemical additives, reject false solutions like chemical recycling and incineration that only shift harm, and provide equitable funding for Indigenous-led solutions across all socio-cultural regions.
Geneva Must Be a Turning Point
Plastic pollution did not arise by accident. It sprang from a system designed to serve a privileged few at the expense of communities like ours. Unless the treaty confronts this legacy head-on, including the full life-cycle of plastics from extraction to waste disposal and beyond, it risks cementing a new chapter in colonial violence under the guise of climate action.
What is truly needed is not more colonial oversight, but a decolonial shift: one that returns authority, respect, and resources to Indigenous communities, and recognizes that the plastic problem is not one of behavior, but of a colonial system that treats land, people, and even the sacred as disposable.
Geneva must break this cycle. We cannot accept another agreement that protects polluters while excluding the people most affected. We are demanding justice — and a seat at the table where decisions affecting our futures are made.
We will continue to resist and fight because one thing is certain: if nothing changes, plastic will be our final colonizer.