As the world sharpens its focus on eliminating plastic waste, it’s important to fully consider our relationship with this versatile material. On the surface, bans may sound like the easiest answer to immediately reducing the environmental impact of plastics. However, a bigger-picture approach is needed if we truly want to tackle this complicated issue.
Plastics are found in seemingly every aspect of our lives. Think about how much plastic you encounter even before leaving the house in the morning: brushing your teeth, picking up after the dog, browsing your phone, packing a lunch. Plastic has been woven inextricably into the pace of modern life, making it difficult for bans on items like foam cups and polystyrene packaging to be feasible to implement and do not actually solve the plastic waste issue. That might not be a bad thing when you consider that alternatives to plastic have their own toll on the environment, which plastics bans may exacerbate. Rather than banning essential items without proffering safe, economical alternatives, we should be putting energy into a solution that acknowledges the needs met by plastics alongside the need to arrest its waste: establishing a circular plastics economy.
A circular economy is a system that solves the issue of waste by recycling valuable materials for reuse. The technology exists to keep today’s plastics in use over and over again. To enable this circular value chain, we need to invest in pushing recycling innovations forward instead of sticking with old technologies. Public and private organizations must collaborate, pooling knowledge and resources to implement recycling efforts on a grand scale.
I want to challenge and reframe two popular myths about plastics. The first is that plastics are harder on the environment than alternatives like glass or aluminum. In fact, Life Cycle Assessments (accounting for all energy, raw materials, and emissions involved at each stage of a product’s life) show a significant advantage for plastics over many other materials. For example, the material strength and barrier properties of polystyrene mean less material is needed for applications like food packaging. The ability to use a single layer of polystyrene means the elimination of multiple material layers that cannot be adequately separated during the recycling process. Carbon emissions are impacted as well, in the shipping of light plastics versus heavier materials like metal or glass.
The second myth is that plastics can’t be sustainable. Far from being the low-value, disposable materials they’re traditionally positioned as, plastics are durable and uniquely suited for lasting applications like building materials. Returning to polystyrene: not only is polystyrene a leaner, less wasteful option than non-plastics for many applications; polystyrene’s simple molecular properties allow for extremely precise sorting from other materials during the recycling process. As such, polystyrene has flung open the door to the future of the circular plastics economy. Key suppliers in the plastics industry are already working with recycling innovators to effect this change.
Just as our demands of materials are complex, so are the answers to managing their environmental impacts. If we evaluate materials based on their life cycles and lean into innovations that turbo charge recycling, we can close the circular loop and keep plastic products in perpetual use instead of in the landfill.
Cassie Bradley
Resin
