Produce less plastic – David Marinelli
If plastic production and waste generation continue to grow at current rates, the annual mass of plastic waste ending up in the land environment, the lakes, river seas, oceans and landfills has been projected to more than double by 2050.
Moreover, the cumulative mass of ocean plastic could by 2025 increase tenfold on 2010 levels.
“Up to 78 per cent of the plastic pollution problem can be solved by 2040 using current knowledge and technologies and at a lower net cost for governments when compared to the current ‘do nothing’ scenario.
“However, because of plastic’s long degradation time, even a 78 per cent reduction from current business-as-usual pollution rates would still result in a massive accumulation of plastic waste in the environment as well as large quantities of toxic greenhouse gas emissions from plastic burning in landfills.”
This is the conclusion reached by the international scientists who participated in a study to evaluate different scenarios towards zero plastic pollution that was published in the Science journal last July. The study recommends the most aggressive intervention possible across the entire plastic cycle in order to avoid catastrophic...