Plastic waste could be greatly reduced by taking four steps
Published: Tuesday, Nov 19th 2024, 06:50
Back to Live Feed
Plastic waste often ends up in the environment or on mountains of garbage. A research group from the University of Berkeley in the USA has some unusual news: with four major measures, this incorrectly disposed plastic waste could be reduced by 91 percent.
The researchers are publishing their ideas shortly before the planned final round of negotiations on a global UN plastics agreement, which aims to stop the growing plastic pollution in the oceans and on land.
Eight instruments will be discussed at the negotiations in Busan, South Korea, at the end of November. Just four of them would be enough to drastically reduce the amount of unrecycled plastic waste, writes Samuel Pottinger's research team in the journal "Science". Greenhouse gas emissions from the production of plastic could also be reduced by a third.
Doing nothing will double the problem by 2050
The researchers' simulations, which were carried out with the help of artificial intelligence, also show that if no measures are taken against plastic waste, the amount of such poorly managed waste could almost double by 2050.
Littering the environment - whether in the form of large plastic bottles and bags or microplastics - is already a huge problem today. Every year, around eight million tons of macroplastics and an additional 1.5 million tons of primary microplastics are discharged into the oceans alone. The plastics can now be found in the most remote polar regions and high mountains, in all regions and depths of the oceans, in the stomachs and muscle tissues of animals.
Different regions of the world consume different amounts of plastic
For their analysis, the researchers divided the world into four regions: North America (Canada, USA, Mexico), EU 30 (European Union plus the UK, Switzerland and Norway), China and the majority of the world. In terms of annual per capita consumption, North America (195 kilograms) and the EU 30 (187 kilograms) were ahead of China (138 kilograms) and the majority of the world (just 29 kilograms).
The forecasts for the regions were very different. The researchers expect a trend reversal towards lower plastic consumption in the near future for the EU 30 and around 2030 for China. In North America and the majority of the world, however, consumption could continue to grow until 2050.
According to the study, global plastic consumption in 2020 totalled 547 million tons - only 14% of which was recycled. And the figures continue to rise. By 2050, total plastic consumption could reach 749 million tons.
Of this, 121 million tons could be poorly managed. For the researchers, this is the plastic waste that ends up in the environment, is openly deposited or openly incinerated. Over 90 percent of this mismanagement is expected to occur in the majority region of the world.
High recycling rate would be most beneficial
The researchers then tested the extent to which the measures discussed would change this scenario. They came to the conclusion that the introduction of a 40% recycling quota would have the greatest effect. Limiting the production of new plastic to the 2020 level would also be important, as would a high packaging tax and an investment of 50 billion US dollars in waste management worldwide.
The authors of the study are pinning their hopes on the planned plastic treaty. "One of the most exciting discoveries of this research is that it is actually possible to virtually end plastic pollution with this treaty," explains Douglas McCauley. "I am cautiously optimistic, but we cannot squander this unique opportunity," he adds.
Support and criticism
Laura Griestop from the WWF Germany Foundation is similarly hopeful: "The negotiations in Busan are a historic opportunity to take responsibility for the environment," emphasizes the expert on sustainable markets. Like the authors of the study, she assumes that there will have to be a combination of different measures in order to achieve a breakthrough.
Catharina Bening, Head of the Sustainability and Technology Working Group at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, on the other hand, doubts that the measures discussed in the study can be implemented so easily. Even the EU, "which is the absolute pioneer with its PPWD packaging directive", does not achieve the 40% recycling rates proposed there. The 40 percent is therefore set too high.
Doris Knoblauch from the Ecologic Institute in Berlin also believes that very little plastic is recycled worldwide. "This is also due to a lack of waste collection and separation infrastructure, but also to the fact that we do not (yet) have the technical means to recycle various plastics and keep them in the cycle."
©Keystone/SDA
English 
German 
French 
Spanish 
Arabic