Researchers have established that plastic wastes flowing into the oceans is expected to nearly triple in volume in the next 20 years, while efforts to stem the tide have so far made barely a dent in the tsunami of waste.
But environmentalists have stated that governments could make drastic cuts to the flow of plastic reaching the oceans through measures such as restricting the sale and use of plastic materials, and mandating alternatives, but even if all the most likely measures are taken it would only cut the waste to little less than half of today’s levels, the analysis found.
Further reduction measures would require an investment of about $150bn globally in the next five years, but would yield $70bn in savings compared with the $670bn cost to governments of inefficient waste management between now and 2040, while cutting the greenhouse gas emissions associated with plastic by about a quarter, and creating as many as 700,000 jobs.
Previous estimates put the amount of plastic reaching the oceans each year at about 8m tones, but the true figure is much higher at about 11m tones, according to the paper published in the journal Science.
If current trends continue, the amount of plastic waste polluting the oceans will grow to 29m tones a year by 2040, the equivalent of 50kg for every metre of coastline in the world.
All the efforts announced so far to cut plastic waste, by governments and companies, will reduce that projected volume by only about 7 per cent by 2040.
The findings, in one of the most in-depth assessments to date of the plastic waste problem, reveal the devastating the impact of our reliance on plastic, especially single-use and film plastics used for packaging.
Stemming the flow is crucial because once plastic is in the ocean, most of it stays there forever, breaking down into micro-plastics that cause other problems, and efforts to clean waste from the oceans have so far had little impact.
More stringent measures would produce a drastic reduction in waste, according to the researchers. These include improving waste collection, particularly in the developing world, and recycling more waste, as well as investing in alternative materials and better product design to reduce the amount of plastic used.
International environment director, Pew Charitable Trusts, which led the study, Simon Reddy, said despite public awareness of the plastic problem in the past five years, attempts to cut waste through plastic bag charges and bans on certain forms of micro-plastics have so far had little impact,
“All the initiatives to date make very little difference. There is no silver bullet, there is no solution that can simply be applied – lots of policies are wanted. You need innovation and systems change.”
Reddy called on governments and investors to curb the planned expansion of plastic production. “Without this, the supply of large quantities of cheap virgin plastic to the market may undermine reduction and substitution efforts and threaten the economic viability of recycling, while making it even harder to close the collection gap between waste produced and waste collected for disposal.”
Governments must also create incentives for businesses to adopt new models such as reuse and refill systems, he urged. “That would level the playing field, where currently virgin plastic feedstock has a cost advantage over recycled materials.”
New design standards would also be needed, and better collection systems in low- and middle-income countries.
Waste management is an often-neglected area for governments in developing countries, where it is often left to an informal economy of waste pickers, who may suffer from exposure to pollutants and other dangers. Waste pickers are usually paid by the weight of material they collect, which makes it harder to collect some of the most harmful plastic products that find their way to the ocean, such as thin film material.
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