Reuters: Recycling will not save humanity from the plastic waste crisis Experts interviewed by Reuters questioned the benefits of sorting for the planet.
Circulate Capital is investing in initiatives to reduce waste in developing countries. Its head, Rob Kaplan, believes that radical changes in the production system will help rid the planet of mountains of garbage. To do this, businesses need to reduce the volume of disposable goods and focus on reusable use – to create packaging that implies refilling the product.
According to the UN, about 300 million tons of plastic waste ends up in landfills around the world every year, and only ten percent of this is reused – the rest is burned or left to rot in landfills. According to experts, such a small share of properly disposed of waste is associated with too expensive equipment for sorting and recycling waste.
The lack of advanced waste management is forcing major manufacturers such as Unilever, Coca-Cola and Nestle to invest in waste-to-energy projects, but these facilities degrade air quality and undermine efforts to prevent global warming.
Analysts at Break Free from Plastic predict that the world will produce twice as much plastic by 2040, and the current processing capacity will be even more difficult to handle this volume. The head of the company, Vaughn Hernandez, sees the solution to the problem in limiting the release of goods from primary plastic. Ordinary consumers can also influence the future of the planet – they must demand from manufacturers to disclose data on the carbon footprint and plastic pollution of the planet, as well as call for responsible waste management.
The colossal harm of plastic from petroleum products to the environment is forcing scientists look for organic alternatives. At the end of November, it became known that scientists from Spain had created a biomaterial for packaging from tomato peels, Swedish researchers had produced an analogue of plastic from wood, and Chinese biologists from salmon semen.