Plastics pollution and what companies can do about it

One Earth published Plastics pollution exacerbates the impacts of all planetary boundaries (December 2024). The report outlines how plastics have exceeded the planetary safe operating space and the causal links between plastics pollution and other environmental problems. It calls for urgent action, recognising that plastics pollution is not only a waste management issue but an integrative part of climate change, biodiversity and natural resource policy.

Human Level’s Take:

• Businesses are directly connected to plastics pollution. How? Take the agricultural sector, for instance. It introduces large amounts of plastics into the environment through various practices and materials used in farming such as plastic-coated fertilisers and seeds. These materials fragment into microplastics, stay in the soil, and threaten food security, food safety and human health.
• Plastics pollution have many harmful impacts on people, particularly on their health. For instance, microplastics can enter the human body via ingestion, inhalation and dermal contact. The potential health effects include endocrine disruption, reproductive and developmental toxicity, nerve damage, and metabolic disorders. Disposed plastics contribute to the spread of vector-borne diseases like dengue, malaria and Zika, particularly as climate change exacerbates these risks.
• Beyond individual health impacts, plastics pollution worsens the pressures on Earth's fragile systems. It amplifies the impacts of other breached planetary boundaries, including climate change, biodiversity loss, freshwater scarcity, and land system changes. For example, plastics production accounted for 5.3% of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2019. By 2050, emissions from primary plastics production are expected to more than double, consuming between 21% and 26% of the remaining global carbon budget needed to limit warming to 1.5°C. Plastics pollution doesn’t just threaten ecosystems—it makes tackling other global crises even harder.
• So what can companies do? Tackling plastics pollution demands systems-wide transformation involving policymakers, scientists, financial institutions, and other key stakeholders. Within this, businesses play a pivotal role and can take meaningful action.
• Companies can: 1) adopt a full lifecycle and rights-based approach to plastics pollution, moving beyond framing plastics pollution solely as a waste management issues and assessing the diverse impacts of plastics on health, wellbeing and human rights across their entire lifecycle; 2) integrate plastics pollution considerations into climate, nature and human rights policies and action plans; 3) improve the transparency, traceability, monitoring and reporting across the plastics lifecycle; and 4) contribute to shaping discussions at the policy level on plastics pollution, for example, the current negotiation process for a plastics treaty under the aegis of the UN Environment Programme. Investors and financial institutions can also consider reallocating funding from primarily recycling and recovery activities to upstream measures, such as controlling the extraction and production of polymers and plastics chemicals.
  

Some key takeaways:

• Plastics pollution impacts people: While there are a number of benefits of plastics - such as, democratising access to goods and technologies, safer drinking water and food, and improved health care - plastics pollution is adversely impacting the environment, food security and human health. For instance, microplastics (which are persistent plastics materials that accumulate in the environment and are <5 mm in size) can enter humans through ingestion, inhalation and dermal contact and have a range of health impacts. The chemicals involved in plastics production and manufacturing (at least 16,325 chemicals) are chemicals of concern based on their hazardous properties to the environment and human health. The hazardous properties are varied and include carcinogenicity, mutagenicity, endocrine disruption, reproductive toxicity, developmental toxicity, ecotoxicity to aquatic organisms, nerve damage, metabolic effects, and biocide effects. In addition, plastics are now reaching all food webs, drinking water, breast milk, human placenta, lung tissue and the bloodstream. Disposed plastics are also enhancing the spread of and severity of vector-borne diseases (for example, dengue, malaria, and Zika) which are expected to worsen with rising temperatures and climate change.
  

• Plastics pollution exacerbates the impacts of all planetary boundaries: As discussed in a previous weekly update (here), the planetary boundaries framework demonstrates the diverse pressures humanity is putting on Earth. It consists of nine planetary boundaries (biodiversity loss; freshwater; land use; greenhouse gases; ozone-depleting chemicals; novel entities, including plastics; aerosols; and nutrient overload) with many of them interacting so that impacts on one amplify impacts on another. Plastics, which is an example of a novel entity, is already disrupting all Earth system processes in the planetary boundaries framework (see Figure 2 below). For example, plastics contribute to climate change and ocean acidification during their whole life cycle. In 2019 alone, plastics production accounted for 5.3% of global greenhouse gas emissions (excluding agriculture and land use, land-use changes and forestry). In addition, the emission of greenhouse gases from the production of primary plastics is projected to more than double by 2050, accounting for between 21% and 26% of the remaining global carbon budget for limiting global warming to 1.5°C. Moreover, climate change exacerbates the impact of plastics pollution. For instance, permafrost freeze-thaw processes under climate change conditions could induce additional microplastics mixtures with soil and other terrestrial ecosystems, which impacts cycles of carbon and other essential elements. In short, plastics pollution amplifies the impacts of other already breached planetary boundaries. At the same time, changes in other planetary boundaries intensify the pressures caused by plastics pollution on the earth’s ecosystem.
  

• What can we do? The report recommends that, in general, we should reduce plastics production, use, and release. More specifically, it recommends that we adopt a full lifecycle approach to plastics pollution, moving beyond framing plastics pollution solely as a waste management issue and recognising the diverse impacts of plastics on health, wellbeing and human rights. It also highlights action at the multilateral level, such as ongoing debates about a legally binding plastics treaty; a cap on production; and policy discourses on the diversity and toxicity of plastic chemicals and other impacts related to feedstock extraction, including the interplay with climate change and energy security. In addition, it emphasises the vital role that all actors in the plastics industry (i.e., fossil fuel companies, the petrochemical sector, converters, end-product manufacturers, and retailers) have to play in order to improve the transparency, traceability, monitoring and reporting of the impacts of plastics pollution across its full lifecycle. Moreover, 88% (i.e., US$3.6 billion) of total investment capital directed to plastics circularity solutions to end plastics pollution during 2018-2022 was allocated to recycling and recovery activities. Only 2% of all global economic efforts are allocated to upstream measures. This is a concern given that the control of the extraction and production of polymers and plastics chemicals will be the most impactful in reducing plastics pollution. Furthermore, the report echoes the calls made by many scientists, who recommend “safety, sustainability, essentiality, and transparency criteria for bio- and fossil-based feedstocks, chemicals, polymers, alternatives, substitutes, products, technologies, and systems/services…in addition to chemicals and polymers that are particularly concerning.” Plastics pollution needs to be tackled as an integrative part of climate change, biodiversity and natural resource use policy. New financial and institutional mechanisms need to be implemented to finance the controlled management of plastics