Only stringent global measures addressing production and waste management combined can come close to eliminating plastic leakage into the environment by 2040, a new OECD report says.
The report — Policy Scenarios for Eliminating Plastic Pollution by 2040 — projects the impact of different policy measures, ranging from business as usual, through measures only aimed at boosting collection and recycling or only enacted in developed countries, up to global measures targeting both upstream production and downstream waste management.
It concludes that global plastic production will grow by 69pc by 2040 — versus a 2020 baseline — if the current policy environment is maintained, whereas the recycling rate would only increase by around 5pc, resulting in a 50pc increase in the leakage of plastic into the environment. Combining measures aimed at curbing plastic demand — including production caps, development of re-use systems and increased design-for-recycling — with policies aimed at boosting collection and recycling of plastic waste could reduce virgin plastic production, boost recycling rates above 40pc and reduce leakage to near zero.
In a scenario where OECD members enact measures across the supply chain while non-OECD nations focus on downstream measures, virgin plastic production would rise only slightly by 2040, from 2020, the report says. But it projects that there would still be more than 10mn t/yr of plastic waste leaking into the environment, compared with 20mn t in 2020.
Furthermore, the report concludes that enacting measures across the supply chain will be the most cost-effective way of limiting the environmental impact of plastic waste. This is because upstream measures such as design-for-recycling will reduce the cost of improving collection and recycling, which will be higher in many non-OECD countries where existing waste management infrastructure is more limited.
Global measures across the supply chain would cost 0.37pc of gross domestic product (GDP) in OECD countries and 0.62pc of GDP in non-OECD economies by 2040, the report projects, compared with over 0.5pc and nearly 1pc, respectively, if only downstream measures were implemented. "These costs exclude the avoided costs of inaction and should be considered in the context of vastly improved environmental outcomes", the report notes.
Shaping the debate
The release of the report comes ahead of the fifth and final scheduled round of UN negotiations to develop a binding global treaty to tackle plastic waste, which will begin in South Korea in November.
In past sessions, there has been ongoing debate about the scope that the treaty should take. Some delegates, especially from countries with a reliance on plastic-producing industries, have so far favoured a focus on downstream measures and opposed caps on virgin plastic production. A recent change of tack from the US in support of production caps surprised many observers, but its impact on discussions will depend on how much leverage it is willing to use to convince others to follow suit.
Discussions during the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution on 25 September in New York showed member countries are still far apart in terms of policy agreements, with frustration sometimes visible from a few diplomats about the lack of progress in certain areas. Negotiations up to this point indicate that achieving the OECD's ideal scenario for tackling plastic waste will be extremely challenging.
