Circular Plastics Economy: Redesigning Technology and Reimagining Society

ABSTRACT

The UN Environment Programme has identified plastic waste as one of the urgent challenges of the 21st century and has set 2024 as the target date for the drafting of an international legally binding agreement on plastic pollution. While the concern for plastic pollution is justified, a workable solution that considers both the role that plastics play in society and the economy, and the scientific and technological challenges involved, will take a major global effort. The six thermoplastics that are most widely used today were not designed to be recycled. Likewise, over 10,000 chemical additives in plastics were not tested for their health and environmental safety. The complexity of plastic waste makes their effective management very difficult and uneconomic. A new system with two types of plastics is proposed: circular plastics that can be chemically reprocessed, and bio-based plastics that are designed for single-use and are biodegradable. This will require R&D into new plastics, as well as new standards and regulations. At the same time, R&D into the co version of our current plastic waste into environmentally safe products must be undertaken. These will require a multi-sectoral approachnwhich assigns responsibility to all sectors. Industry should institute extended producer responsibility and develop circular plastics. Society should adopt extended consumer responsibility. Government should replace its single- minded focus on GDP as the sole measure of development with the more holistic UN Sustainable Development Goals. This transition will not happen if it is seen only as a technological challenge. This transition will require a multi- sectoral approach which assigns responsibility to all sectors of society. We will not be able to reimagine plastics if we do not reimagine society.