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 Nov 14:eadr3837. doi: 10.1126/science.adr3837. Online ahead of print.

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 negatively affect our environment, environmental justice, and climate change. Using detailed global and regional plastics datasets coupled with socio-economic data, we employ machine learning to predict that, without intervention, annual mismanaged plastic waste will nearly double to 121 Mt (100 - 139 Mt 95% CI) by 2050. Annual greenhouse gas emissions from the plastic system are projected to grow by 37% to 3.35 Gt CO₂ equivalent (3.09 - 3.54 CO₂e) over the same period. The United Nations plastic pollution treaty presents a unique 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% - 98%) and gross plastic-related greenhouse gas emissions by one third.