Pathways to reduce global plastic waste mismanagement and greenhouse gas emissions by 2050

A Samuel Pottinger; Roland Geyer; Nivedita Biyani; Ciera C Martinez; Neil Nathan; Molly R Morse; Chao Liu; Shanying Hu; Magali de Bruyn; Carl Boettiger; Elijah Baker; Douglas J McCauley

doi:10.1126/science.adr3837

Pathways to reduce global plastic waste mismanagement and greenhouse gas emissions by 2050

Science. 2024 Dec 6;386(6726):1168-1173. doi: 10.1126/science.adr3837. Epub 2024 Nov 14.

Authors

A Samuel Pottinger^#^{1

2}, Roland Geyer^#³, Nivedita Biyani^#^{3

4}, Ciera C Martinez^{1

2}, Neil Nathan⁴, Molly R Morse⁴, Chao Liu⁵, Shanying Hu⁵, Magali de Bruyn^{1

2}, Carl Boettiger^{1

2}, Elijah Baker⁴, Douglas J McCauley^#^{1

2

4

6}

Affiliations

¹ Eric and Wendy Schmidt Center for Data Science and Environment, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
² Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
³ Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
⁴ Marine Science Institute, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
⁵ Department of Chemical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
⁶ Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology Department, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 39541435
DOI: 10.1126/science.adr3837

Abstract

Plastic production and plastic pollution have a negative effect on our environment, environmental justice, and climate change. Using detailed global and regional plastics datasets coupled with socioeconomic data, we employ machine learning to predict that, without intervention, annual mismanaged plastic waste will nearly double to 121 million metric tonnes (Mt) [100 to 139 Mt 95% confidence interval] by 2050. Annual greenhouse gas emissions from the plastic system are projected to grow by 37% to 3.35 billion tonnes CO₂ equivalent (3.09 to 3.54) over the same period. The United Nations plastic pollution treaty presents an opportunity to reshape these outcomes. We simulate eight candidate treaty policies and find that just four could together reduce mismanaged plastic waste by 91% (86 to 98%) and gross plastic-related greenhouse gas emissions by one-third.