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Managing Plastics: Uses, Losses and Disposal
Summary
This review examines the full life cycle of plastics — from production through use, loss to the environment, and disposal — to identify where the greatest opportunities lie for reducing plastic pollution. The analysis shows that losses occur at every stage and that addressing plastic waste requires simultaneous action across production, use, and end-of-life management.
It has long been recognised that plastic objects released into the environment have harmful impacts on wildlife. Public realisation that plastic pollution is a major global environmental problem is more recent and has been sudden, sparked by publication of an analysis of the flows of polluting plastics into the environment and the accumulated stocks of polluting waste, particularly in the oceans.1 This contribution aims first to provide an introduction to the history and uses of plastics in the economy and, secondly, to set out the routes by which plastics leak from the economy into the environment in order to inform development of possible strategies to alleviate the problem of plastic pollution.