Working toward a world without plastic pollution

November 14, 2024
Adobe stock image of man on boat, surrounded by a pool of plastic and waste.
People collect trash that can be recycled and traded from the sea of garbage in Indonesia. (Photo/ Sony Herdiana)

Nearly ending plastic pollution by 2050 is achievable but requires an ambitious and coordinated global effort, according to a new collaborative study by University of California researchers.

Published today in Science, the study finds that global policy makers could reduce plastic pollution by 91% by implementing four policies governing the production, use, and disposal of plastic material. The findings come as world leaders are scheduled to meet in South Korea later this month to finalize the first-ever treaty on plastic pollution.

“There are multiple pathways available to negotiators,” said the study’s lead author A. Samuel Pottinger, senior data scientist at UC Berkeley’s Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center for Data Science and Environment (DSE), a research center shared by the Rausser College of Natural Resources and the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society. “But it does require ambition.”

The study builds off more than a year of research from Pottinger, DSE researchers Ciera Martinez and Magali de Bruyn, Rausser College professor Carl Boettiger and associate adjunct professor Douglas McCauley, and their colleagues at UC Santa Barbara. They previously released an interactive data visualization tool that policymakers can use to form laws on global plastic, and have developed a model that predicts the global production, use, and fate of plastics through 2050. 

“The science powering this study is really exciting,” McCauley said. “I wouldn’t have dreamed it possible that artificial intelligence and data science would have advanced to the point where we can now forecast the outcomes of dozens of different potential treaty options live for negotiators.” 

According to the study, implementing the four-policy package would reduce plastic pollution to an estimated 11 metric million tons in 2050. It would also cut plastic-related emissions by one-third to 2.09 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent in the same year, the paper said. Without action, plastic waste is projected to reach 120.9 metric million tons.

“There is a sense of inevitability that plastic is so ingrained in our way of life, so how could a treaty like this ever be effective,” said Pottinger. “If nothing else, the four-policy package shows that it is possible. The permutation of policies used to get there might be different than what we anticipated. But we don't want anyone to hide behind the idea that it isn't possible."

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