Polluting single-use plastic production is set to increase by 6 million tonnes per year from 2019 to 2021, despite tighter regulations worldwide saying producers have made “little progress” in tackling the problem and promoting recycling. New research showed Monday.
Single-use plastic has emerged as one of the world’s biggest environmental threats, with vast amounts of waste dumped in landfills or left untreated in rivers and oceans. The manufacturing process is also a major source of climate-warming greenhouse gas.
But while growth has slowed recently, the production of single-use plastics from “virgin” fossil fuel sources has yet to peak, and the use of recycled feedstocks remains “at best a marginal activity”, according to Australia’s Said the Minderu Foundation in its Plastics Waste Producers Index.