Reacción a "Mismanaged plastic waste will double by 2050 under current policies"

The paper focuses on the role of policies to reduce the mass of mismanaged waste, and demonstrates that some of the proposed policies will effectively reduce both the levels of mismanaged waste and levels of greenhouse gas emissions associated with it. This is certainly encouraging, however the other ‘end-of-life’ fates of plastics are immense, and only getting bigger. They also pose significant environmental and human health impacts and the most important and impactful thing we can do is to significantly reduce our use of plastics and improve the safety and sustainability of the plastics that are essential. 

The harm plastics can cause both humans and the environment occurs along its whole lifecycle, not just at end of life once an item has served its purpose, and certainly not only if it has been mismanaged. It is important to remember that every bit of plastic we refuse or don’t voluntarily bring into our lives reduces harm all the way back to the point where fossil fuels are drawn out of the ground to make the plastic polymer. Doing so also reduces the need for all the other chemicals used in plastic production (of which approximately 4000 are known to have negative human health effects), reducing emissions from transport, removing the risk of the plastic or plastic item becoming pollution on its long journey from factory to your door. This reduction in the production and use of plastics also brings with it a reduction in the formation and release of nano- and microplastics, which constitutes mismanaged plastic pollution that can occur during manufacture, use and at the end-of-life, both from managed and mismanaged disposal. This form of plastic pollution is now ubiquitous in all natural environments tested, in our food, water and the air, and increasingly being identified in human tissues. 

We are facing a triple planetary crisis – climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. Plastic is a major contributor and amplifier of all three. It is essential that an ambitious and effective treaty, based on scientifically robust evidence, is achieved to ensure a safe and sustainable future for generations to come.