The Brief: could global action eliminate plastic pollution by 2040?

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Introduction:

The OECD recently published a report stating that global action across the plastics lifecycle could ‘nearly eliminate’ plastic pollution by 2040. In this edition of The Brief, we outline the proposed policy scenarios and the potential costs, challenges and priorities involved in implementing the recommended global policy.

Key takeaways:

• The OECD states that ‘business as usual’ is unsustainable, with packaging plastics use projected to grow by almost 70% between 2020-2040.
• The OECD proposes 5 policy scenarios to combat this:

- Global Downstream High stringency policy: improving waste collection, sorting, recycling, litter collection and municipal litter clean-up, implementing policy action to curb production and demand.

- Advanced economies Lifecycle High stringency policy: a group of advanced economies implements policies with a high policy stringency across all four policy pillars.

- 3 Global Lifecycle policies:

- Low stringency – additional policy action in all countries across all four pillars, with limited policy stringency;

- Mixed stringency - combines the three scenarios outlined above;

- High stringency - co-ordinated global ramp-up of policy action across the plastics lifecycle with the shared objective of ending plastic pollution, mitigating plastic waste mismanagement and ending macroplastic leakage by 2040.

• However, the OECD states that “even the most ambitious policy scenarios fail to stabilize global plastics use and waste in the long run”, suggesting a packagecombining policy action to reduce plastics use and improve waste management and accelerate action to slow plastic flows and foster eco-design.

Conclusion:

The report concludes the burden of policies and investments required falls more heavily on developing countries, so ensuring the adequate financing of waste collection and treatment available to all countries is a priority, as well as supporting solutions that may contribute to waste prevention.

The OECD recently published a report stating that global action across the plastics lifecycle could ‘nearly eliminate’ plastic pollution by 2040. In this edition of The Brief, we outline the organisation’s proposed policy scenarios; the implications of scenarios with ‘partial’ and ‘high’ ambition; and the potential costs, challenges and priorities involved in implementing the recommended comprehensive global policy.

The OECD states that ‘comprehensive global policies’ addressing the entire plastics lifecycle can reduce plastic leakage into the environment by 96% by 2040. Under a ‘business-as-usual’ scenario, it says global investment needs for plastic waste management are expected to reach USD 2.1 trillion between 2020 and 2040.

Policies that address the entire plastics lifecycle would limit additional investments in waste management infrastructure – on top of business as usual – to USD 50 billion between 2020 and 2040.

Without stronger policies, the OECD predicts plastics production and use will increase by 70% from 435 million tonnes (Mt) in 2020 to 736 Mt in 2040, with only 6% of plastics coming from recycled sources, and mismanaged plastic waste will increase by 50%.

How can these predicted increases be tackled? The report calls for policies such as plastic and packaging taxes; eco-design criteria and product standards; bans on selected single-use plastics and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes for packaging and durables that could encourage a more sustainable plastics economy.

It also recommends implementing a mix of policies such as enhancing plastic waste management, recycling, and curbing plastic use and waste.

The organisation aims to present ‘a viable path’ towards ending plastic leakage to the environment by 2040. It adds that additional interventions are needed for plastic pollution, including mitigating risks related to microplastic pollution and plastics-related greenhouse gas emissions.

The framework of the report is built around projections and policy pillars. The projections are projecting the regional and sectoral drivers of plastics production and use; projecting plastics use; projecting plastic waste; and projecting environmental impacts from plastics production, use and waste. The four policy pillars are outlined as curbing production and demand, designing for circularity, enhancing recycling and closing leakage pathways.

‘Business-as-usual’ is unsustainable

The report describes ‘business-as-usual’ trends as projected in the Baseline scenario. The Baseline scenario models current plastic flows in the economy and generates projections to 2040, including for plastics production and use, waste and end-of-life fates, mismanaged plastics, leakage to the environment and greenhouse gas emissions.

In this scenario, applications in Electrical/Electronic and Transport are expected to see the fastest growth in plastics use between 2020 and 2040, and packaging plastics use is projected to grow by almost 70% between 2020-2040. The report cautions that:

“Policies currently in place are not sufficient to offset the increase in plastics use by key sectors that rely on packaging, including business services, food products and trade.”

It also states that as a consequence of the projected trends in plastics production and use, plastic leakage to both terrestrial and aquatic environments is set to accelerate, leading to further adverse consequences for the environment. Apparently, “the annual leakage of macroplastics alone would increase by 50% between 2020 and 2040”, and “all regions would contribute to increased plastic leakage.”

What policies does the OECD propose to eliminate plastic pollution?

Having asserted that the ‘business-as-usual’ scenario is unsustainable, the report proposes 5 different policy scenarios, to chart “alternative paths to eliminating plastic pollution.” The first is the Global Downstream High stringency policy. This consists of improving waste collection, sorting, recycling, litter collection and municipal litter clean-up, and implementing policy action to curb production and demand.

Designing for circularity is limited to current policies. The OECD says that for the Advanced economies Lifecycle High stringency policy, in the absence of common global targets, a group of advanced economies (approximated as OECD and European Union countries) implement policies with a high level of policy stringency across all four policy pillars; while other countries do not go beyond the improvements in the Baseline scenario.

There are also three Global Lifecycle policies, each with a different level of stringency. The Global Lifecycle Low stringency would mean additional, more incremental policy action in all countries across all four pillars, but with limited policy stringency. The Global Lifecycle Mixed stringency scenario combines the three individual scenarios outlined above.

Countries in this scenario agree to pursue all three aspects of the partial ambition scenarios above, but do not move beyond these. Finally, the Global Lifecycle High stringency policy involves a co-ordinated approach and a global ramp-up of policy action across the lifecycle of plastics, aligned with the shared objective of ending plastic pollution by 2040 – aiming to mitigate plastic waste mismanagement and end macroplastic leakage by 2040.

The implications of policy scenarios with ‘partial ambition’

The OECD defines these policy scenarios as having either ‘partial’ or ‘high’ ambition. The Global Downstream High stringency, Advanced economies Lifecycle High strategy and Global Lifecycle Low stringency policies all fall into the ‘partial ambition’ category.

According to the report, the partial ambition scenarios all result in total waste volumes that are “below Baseline levels in 2040, but well in excess of 2020 levels.” With current policies (i.e. the Baseline scenario), this would mean increases in the volumes of waste being recycled, incinerated and landfilled, but also increased volumes of mismanaged waste. The OECD states that if the policy agreement is combined with limited international co-ordination and support for actions downstream in the plastics lifecycle, there may be risks of insufficient technical and financing support to manage waste effectively.

When it comes to the partial ambition scenarios, the report argues that in the absence of “more significant reductions” of total plastics use at the global level, improvements in recycling and secondary plastics production would remain insufficient to prevent growth in primary plastics production, and the environmental and human health effects associated with primary plastics production - such as dependence on fossil-based feedstock, production-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and exposure to chemicals of concern - would remain significant.

The implications of policy scenarios with ‘high ambition’

On the other hand, the policy scenarios with ‘high ambition’, the Global Lifecycle Mixed and Global Lifecycle High stringency policies, still fail to stabilize plastic pollution in the long run. In the Global Lifecycle High stringency scenario, all countries implement strict policies for all four policy pillars to ensure a balance between efforts upstream and downstream in the value chain.

The OECD maintains that high policy stringency for all four policy pillars is essential to eliminate plastic leakage by 2040 and reduce primary plastics use below 2020 levels – however, it alleges that even if global ambition “nearly eliminates” aquatic plastic leakage, plastics in rivers and oceans will continue to accumulate until 2040. The report declares:

“Even the most ambitious policy scenarios fail to stabilize global plastics use and waste in the long run.”

If this is the case, what is the best policy scenario and approach to eliminate plastic pollution? The report aims to answer this through comparing the costs of the policy packages and pointing out the various challenges and priorities required for ‘global ambition’ to be successful.

It claims that policy packages focusing on downstream measures, especially the Global Downstream High stringency scenario, would reduce plastic leakage while total plastic waste increases, leading to a significant increase in total waste management costs. In this case, a balanced package that “combines policy action to reduce plastics use and waste flows with improved waste management” is more cost-effective than policy scenarios that focus purely on downstream policy actions.

It also suggests accelerating action to slow plastic flows and foster eco-design, adding that harmonized standards would support the “removal or phase down of problematic plastics” and the eco-design of plastic products. The report states global ambition requires “significant technological advancements in recycling and strong improvements in the municipal collection of littered waste”, identifying a need for supporting environmentally sound waste management in all regions.

The report concludes that the burden of the policies and investments required falls more heavily on developing countries, especially those that currently have less advanced waste management systems – and therefore ensuring the adequate financing of waste collection and treatment available to all countries is a priority, in parallel to support for solutions that may contribute to waste prevention.

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