While plastics are extremely useful materials for modern society, plastics production and waste generation continue to increase with worsening environmental impacts despite international, national and local policy responses, as well as industry commitments. The first of two reports, this Outlook intends to inform and support policy efforts to combat plastic leakage.

While plastics are extremely useful materials for modern society, plastics production and waste generation continue to increase with worsening environmental impacts despite international, national and local policy responses, as well as industry commitments. The urgent need to make the lifecycle of plastics more circular calls for an expansion of national policies and improved international co-operation to mitigate environmental impacts all along the value chain. The first of two reports, this Outlook intends to inform and support policy efforts to combat plastic leakage. The report quantifies the current production, use, disposal and key environmental impacts throughout the entire plastics lifecycle and identifies opportunities for reducing the negative externalities. It also investigates how plastics use and waste have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic across sectors and regions. The Outlook identifies four key levers for bending the plastics curve: stronger support for recycled (secondary) plastics markets; policies to boost technological innovation in plastics; more ambitious domestic policy measures; and greater international co-operation.

The global community is far from achieving its objective of ending plastic pollution, unless more stringent and co-ordinated policies are implemented. A key question is: What are the plausible scenarios for the evolution of plastics in the absence of additional measures and, as well, with scaled-up policy action? The Global Plastics Outlook: Policy Scenarios to 2060 provides such a forward-looking perspective. The report presents a set of coherent projections on plastics to 2060, including plastics use, waste as well as the environmental impacts linked to plastics, especially leakage to the environment. Such an outlook on plastics can help policy makers understand the scale of the challenge to transition to a more sustainable and circular use of plastics and the need for additional policy action. By identifying two policy packages to bend the plastic curve, the Outlook allows for a better understanding of the environmental benefits and economic consequences of adopting stringent policies. This second report is a follow-up to the first report - Global Plastics Outlook: Economic Drivers, Environmental Impacts and Policy Options - which quantified current trends in plastics use, waste generation and leakage, as well as identified four policy levers to curb the environmental impacts of plastics.

The global community is far from achieving its objective of ending plastic pollution, unless more stringent and co-ordinated policies are implemented. A key question is: What are the plausible scenarios for the evolution of plastics in the absence of additional measures and, as well, with scaled-up policy action?

Available online: https://pub.norden.org/temanord2023-539/ The ‘Towards Ending Plastic Pollution by 2040’ report was commissioned by the Nordic Council of Ministers and developed by Systemiq and presents a set of 15 global policy interventions towards ending plastic pollution. If universally adopted and supported by a set of common global rules in the international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution these could cut annual volumes of mismanaged plastic waste by 90% and virgin plastic use by 30% by 2040 relative to 2019 levels. Yet, the report highlights that more ambitious efforts are needed to align with the Paris Climate Agreement and holistically address plastic pollution.

The global community is far from achieving its objective of ending plastic pollution, unless more stringent and co-ordinated policies are implemented. A key question is: What are the plausible scenarios for the evolution of plastics in the absence of additional measures and, as well, with scaled-up policy action? The Global Plastics Outlook: Policy Scenarios to 2060 provides such a forward-looking perspective. The report presents a set of coherent projections on plastics to 2060, including plastics use, waste as well as the environmental impacts linked to plastics, especially leakage to the environment. Such an outlook on plastics can help policy makers understand the scale of the challenge to transition to a more sustainable and circular use of plastics and the need for additional policy action. By identifying two policy packages to bend the plastic curve, the Outlook allows for a better understanding of the environmental benefits and economic consequences of adopting stringent policies. This second report is a follow-up to the first report - Global Plastics Outlook: Economic Drivers, Environmental Impacts and Policy Options - which quantified current trends in plastics use, waste generation and leakage, as well as identified four policy levers to curb the environmental impacts of plastics.

This contributed volume offers several cases in life cycle assessment (LCA) and implementation of circular economy principles across different industries. LCA is a tool which is utilized to measure the environmental footprints of various products from inception through disposal. Circular economy, a related concept, presents a meaningful alternative to a traditional linear economy as it seeks possible ways to reduce waste, recover resources at the end of a product’s life, and channel them back into production, thus significantly reducing environmental impacts. LCA and CE complement each other, as the former can be used to meaningfully assess possibilities for the latter. The combination of the principles of CE and LCA enable product developers to quantify the environmental performance of various products, processes and supply chain configurations in order to make progress toward sustainability.

Plastics provide multiple benefits to society, but their lifecycle − from feedstock extraction and polymer production to use and disposal − contributes to pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss. Current policies are inadequate to meaningfully alter trends in plastic flows and related pollution. This report provides insights into the potential environmental benefits and economic consequences of different levels of international policy ambition towards ending plastic pollution by 2040. Based on the quantification of the main drivers of plastics production and use, waste and pollution, the report provides projections of the plastics lifecycle, waste generation and treatment, as well as related leakage to the environment. The report presents and contrasts a range of policy scenarios with varying levels of ambition in terms of the stringency, lifecycle scope and geographical coverage of policies implemented. Its findings can inform a critical stage of international negotiations to develop a legally binding agreement to end plastic pollution.