Plastic pollution costs
Most of the plastic live longer than the Greenland shark which can get 500 years old. It doesn’t help that it slowly brakes down to small pieces and microplastic. It is still harmfull.
The lifetime cost to society, the environment and the economy of plastic produced in 2019 alone was US$3.7 trillion – more than the GDP of India – and unless action is taken, the cost of plastic pollution is set to double in 2040, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
Global plastic production will almost triple by 2060. Globally, plastic leakage to the environment is seen doubling to 44 Mt a year, while the build-up of plastics in lakes, rivers and oceans will more than triple, as plastic waste balloons from 353 Mt in 2019 to 1,014 Mt in 2060.
Beyond plastic
The solutions for the post-plastic society is still years in the future, according to the authors of «The future of plastics recycling» published in Science in november last year. They state that the effects of recycling will be limited even with economic and environmental incentives. Sorting plastics before it is recycled is costly and time consuming. It is energy intensive and the end product has low quality. Today’s technology does not effectively manage all the different types of plastics. New research points to better use of chemical recycling methods using less energy and that plastics of different types can be mixed to avoid sorting.»
