Three ways to solve the plastic pollution crisis

With a final draft of an agreement of a legally binding global treaty to end plastic pollution due by the end of 2024, the world is now focused on finding solutions.  Research and analysis from the University of Portsmouth’s Global Plastic Policy Centre should help inform the outcome of these historic negotiations and the shape of the final treaty. 

The Global Plastics Policy Centre (GPPC) is based at the University of Portsmouth, and researchers have been asked by the influential journal Nature to share their views on how effective policy could help solve the plastic pollution crisis. 

Antaya March and Professor Steve Fletcher from the University were interviewed for an article that has just been published in Nature. The article examined how three possible solutions could help stop  plastic waste – more sophisticated policy, smarter recycling and the development of new materials. 

The GPPC was launched in 2022 and has so far reviewed more than 130 policies of various types worldwide, on the basis of evidence such as scientific papers, industry reports, news articles and expert opinions.

Professor Steve Fletcher, Director of the GPPC says: “Currently plastics policy tends to be rather fragmented – for policies to work there needs to be a systemic change. What’s needed is a broad range of policies that interact and support each other, and which consider climate, health, biodiversity loss and economy because they’re intrinsically connected.”

“In most cases, key findings have revealed virtually zero monitoring of policies, which is quite worrying because how are we expected to put together a global treaty to combat plastic pollution if there isn’t much evidence around about what works and what doesn’t?”

One of the policies analysed by the team was a scheme set up in Germany two decades ago.  The deposit return system charges people a small fee that is given back when they return their disposable plastic bottles after use.  However, research shows that this intervention has not actually cut Germany’s use of single-use plastics.  

Antaya March, Lead Researcher at the GPPC says: “the scheme did entice people to return their plastic bottles, thus reducing littering, but it was also followed by an unintended increase in single-use bottles. This policy may have lulled people into a false sense of security that it was actually better to buy drinks in plastic bottles that would be recycled.  This ultimately didn’t lead to a reduction in single-use plastic – it just pushed the problem somewhere else.”