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Papers
61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to A great many Rs
ClearSolid waste management in the context of the waste hierarchy and circular economy frameworks: An international critical review
This review evaluates global solid waste management practices through the lens of the waste hierarchy (reduce, reuse, recycle) and circular economy principles. The authors found that while high-income countries have advanced waste systems, low- and middle-income nations face major challenges including inadequate infrastructure and plastic pollution. The study highlights how poorly managed plastic waste contributes to environmental contamination, including the generation of microplastics.
Mapping of global plastic value chain and plastic losses to the environment: with a particular focus on marine environment
This report maps the global plastic value chain from production through use to waste management, estimating that millions of tonnes of plastic enter the ocean each year, with significant regional variation in management capacity. The analysis provides the economic and waste management context needed to understand why plastic pollution — and the resulting microplastic problem — continues to grow globally.
Turning waste into opportunity: Advancing circular and equitable waste management
This chapter examines global waste management challenges, reviewing circular economy frameworks, equity considerations, and the environmental and social consequences of inadequate waste handling, with emphasis on plastic waste and its downstream microplastic effects.
Managing Plastic Waste─Sorting, Recycling, Disposal, and Product Redesign
This review covers the full landscape of plastic waste management, from sorting and mechanical recycling to chemical recycling and disposal methods. The paper highlights that landfills remain the most common disposal method despite generating microplastics and toxic leachate, while advanced recycling technologies are still too expensive for widespread use. Better management of plastic waste is directly linked to reducing microplastic pollution and its associated human health risks.
A Critical Analysis of the Rising Global Demand of Plastics and its Adverse Impact on Environmental Sustainability
This critical review examined global trends in plastic demand and mismanaged plastic waste, identifying the top contributing countries and evaluating plastic replacement alternatives, arguing that reducing consumption and improving waste management infrastructure are more impactful than material substitution alone.
Plastic Waste Recycling is Insufficient to Mitigate Plastic Pollution: the Need for a Paradigm Shift
This review argues that plastic waste recycling is fundamentally insufficient to address global plastic pollution and calls for a paradigm shift away from end-of-pipe solutions toward upstream production reduction. The authors examine the structural limitations of current recycling strategies and the economic and policy barriers that prevent meaningful plastic pollution mitigation.
Towards Plastic Circularity: Current Practices in Plastic Waste Management in Japan and Sri Lanka
A comparison of plastic waste management in Japan and Sri Lanka found that Japan practices the full plastic value chain while Sri Lanka relies heavily on an informal recycling sector, and recommends Japan's Extended Producer Responsibility approach as a model for Sri Lanka to improve plastic circularity.
Global Plastic Waste Pollution Challenges and Management
This review examines the global plastic waste crisis, highlighting that over 6.3 billion tonnes of plastic waste have been generated and only 9% recycled, with microplastics now detected even in remote Arctic regions and in food consumed by humans. The authors discuss the environmental and health consequences of plastic pollution and argue for urgent action including alternative energy recovery and circular economy approaches to reduce plastic accumulation.
A comprehensive review on integrative approach for sustainable management of plastic waste and its associated externalities
This review examines the challenges of managing plastic waste in developing countries, where inadequate infrastructure leads to open dumping and the generation of microplastics and nanoplastics. Researchers assessed various management strategies including mechanical recycling, chemical recycling, and energy recovery approaches. The study emphasizes the need for integrated, sustainable waste management systems to reduce the environmental and health externalities of plastic pollution.
Research on Plastic Recycling from a Global Perspective and PET Recycling Schemes in Hong Kong
This review examines global plastic production, environmental impacts, and recycling systems, comparing approaches in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Germany, and finding that Hong Kong's low recycling rate and landfill-dependent system contrasts sharply with Taiwan's high recovery rates and Germany's strict classification and processing infrastructure. The study identifies structural and logistical barriers limiting PET and broader plastic recycling in emerging economies.
Plastic Waste: Challenges and Opportunities to Mitigate Pollution and Effective Management
Researchers reviewed plastic waste generation and management strategies globally, identifying lack of technical skills, inadequate recycling infrastructure, and poor regulatory awareness as the main barriers to addressing the ~400 million tons of plastic produced annually.
Confronting the material and structural leakiness of plastics: insights from multi-sited ethnography in India, Indonesia and the Philippines
Researchers used multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in India, Indonesia, and the Philippines to challenge OECD frameworks that attribute plastic pollution primarily to mismanaged waste in low- and middle-income countries, arguing that upstream petrochemical production in the Global North is a structurally obscured driver of plastic leakage.
Responsible Materials Stewardship: Rethinking Waste Management Globally in Consideration of Social and Ecological Externalities and Increasing Waste Generation
This perspective paper argues that current global waste management systems are fundamentally inadequate because they focus on disposal efficiency rather than reducing waste generation, with plastic's exponential production growth making the problem worse. The authors propose reframing waste management as 'responsible materials stewardship' — a system accounting for the full social and environmental costs of materials — to address the pollution, inequality, and ecosystem harm driven by mismanaged plastic and other wastes.
Rethinking plastic recycling: A comparison between North America and Europe
Researchers compared plastic recycling rates and infrastructure between North America and the European Union, arguing that higher EU landfill and incineration costs create economic incentives for recycling that have driven greater industrial innovation and cleaner polymer streams — while both regions continue to rely on opaque offshore export as a de facto disposal method.
Plastic Waste Management in Rwanda
This study examines plastic waste management challenges in Rwanda, analyzing how rising living standards are increasing plastic consumption and waste generation, and evaluating the gap between current recycling capacity (only 10% of global plastic waste recycled) and the need for effective policies to prevent microplastic and chemical exposure harms to public health and ecosystems.
Influence of Plastic Waste Management on the Environment: A review
This review examined how different plastic waste management practices influence environmental outcomes, discussing the limitations of landfilling, incineration, and recycling for fossil-based plastics that persist in the environment for hundreds of years. The paper argued that transitioning to a circular economy is essential to reduce the environmental burden of plastic waste.
Plastic Pollution: Understanding the Global Threat and Countermeasures
This review examines the global scale of plastic pollution, tracing the rapid growth of disposable plastics production and the distribution of plastic waste across all parts of the world — from deep oceans to high mountains — while evaluating proposed countermeasures.
Integrated Recycling and The Impact of Plastic Waste from Industry and Agriculture on The Environment
This review examined the environmental impacts of plastic waste from industrial and agricultural sources and assessed integrated recycling strategies for reducing those impacts. The paper discussed how plastic waste prevention, collection, and recycling can minimize pollution and climate contributions from the growing global plastic waste stream.
Solutions to Plastic Pollution: A Conceptual Framework to Tackle a Wicked Problem
This review proposed a conceptual framework for organizing the diverse technological, governance, and societal solutions to global plastic pollution, mapping the value-laden issues that drive different actors' preferences for particular approaches.
Sustainability Impact Assessment of Increased Plastic Recycling and Future Pathways of Plastic Waste Management in Sweden
A sustainability assessment of plastic waste management in Sweden evaluated the environmental trade-offs of different pathways including recycling, incineration, and landfilling. Increasing recycling rates reduces microplastic generation and greenhouse gas emissions compared to burning or landfilling plastic waste.
Recyclable, but not recycled—an indicator to quantify the environmental impacts of plastic waste disposal
This study developed an indicator to quantify the environmental impact of plastic products that are technically recyclable but are not actually recycled in practice, addressing the gap between theoretical recycling potential and real-world recovery rates. The indicator enables more accurate life cycle assessments of plastic product sustainability.
Why is there plastic packaging in the natural environment? Understanding the roots of our individual plastic waste management behaviours
This review explores why individuals mismanage plastic packaging waste, finding that the disconnect between discarding behavior and its visible consequences is a key factor, as is the deep historical rootedness of waste disposal habits in different cultures. The authors argue that policies to reduce plastic littering face fundamental behavioral constraints that require approaches beyond simple regulation.
Global plastic pollution, sustainable development, and plastic justice
This review examines how plastic pollution, including microplastics, undermines sustainable development goals and disproportionately affects lower-income nations that lack waste management infrastructure. The authors propose a "plastic justice" framework to address the human rights dimensions of plastic pollution, which poses health risks to communities through contaminated water, food, and air.
Environmental Impact of Plastic Waste: Strategies for Sustainable Management
This systematic review summarizes the environmental and health impacts of plastic waste and evaluates strategies for sustainable management. It highlights that plastic pollution threatens ecosystems and human health through microplastic contamination, and examines approaches like recycling, biodegradable alternatives, and policy interventions to reduce exposure.