Plastic, a durable material, is probably the definitive 20th century "mod-con". It has proved attractive to consumers and manufacturers. But the tide, now packed with an additional 8 million tons of plastic entering the oceans annually, is slowly turning.
The scale of the environmental problem with plastic waste is astonishing More than 6. 3 billion tons of plastic waste has been produced since the 1950s, more than half of which was produced in the past 16 years, and plastic production is expected to double again in the next 20 years. Despite higher recycling rates, large amounts of plastic leak into the environment. Estimates suggest there will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050 and there is evidence that it is present throughout the human food chain. An ecologically and technologically superior replacement for many uses of plastic is long overdue.
Consumers have become keen recyclers. Yet this is not as good an outcome as it seems. Even when plastics are recyclable and put in a recycling bin, the majority still ends up in landfill, causing huge emission problems, or ends up in the sea.
Recycling is a complex, expensive, low-profit business. It is made harder because, although 95 per cent of people in the US and EU markets recycle, only about 30 per cent recycle carefully enough for it to be usable.
Nevertheless, growing demand for alternatives to plastic is running ahead of the scientific breakthroughs. These are needed to ensure the environmental impact of replacing it is a net positive. One popular proposal—using paper instead of plastic if possible—however couldexacerbatesglobal warming, a more pressing problem.
Having turned consumers into keen recyclers, governments must ensure recycling work. This will require an internationally joined-up regulatory, environment that ensures manufacturers bear the cost of using non-recyclable or uneconomical materials.
Equally, consumers should continue to demand a circular plastic economy. This would be a world in which unnecessary and eco-unfriendly plastic is completely removed, all plastic packaging is 100 per cent reusable or recyclable. The waste must end.
