Plastic Pollution = Population x (Consumption - Recycling)
With so many people, getting plastics under control is no easy matter
There are enormous challenges ahead for society to reduce consumption and recycle plastics, given that the number of consumers is vast at nearly 8 billion and continues to grow annually by 80 million worldwide.
As we've learned from experience, recycling is an imperfect process, partly due to entropy and partly to human frailties.
Plastic pollution researchers “modelled future scenarios using existing mitigation strategies: reducing production of plastic waste (which includes bans), improving management of plastic waste that is produced, and continuous recovery (i.e., cleanup) from the environment.
They found that even with parallel efforts in all three solutions, the level of effort required within each is enormous:
(1) a 25 -- 40% reduction in the production of plastic across all economies;
(2) increasing the level of waste collection and management to at least 60% across all economies -- with a change from 6 -- 60% in low-income economies;
(3) recovery of 40% of annual plastic emissions through cleanup efforts.
“To put that last number into people power, the cleanup alone would require at least 1 billion people participating in Ocean Conservancy's annual International Coastal Cleanup," says Borrelle. "This would be a Herculean task given this is 660 times the effort of the 2019 cleanup.’
The researchers note, however, that even if the prescribed effort is realized, the world remains locked into an unacceptable plastic future.”
Well, one can see how our vast numbers confound efforts to rein in pollution.
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash