Plastics represent an established mode of packaging a significant portion of food, personal care items and other consumer products used on a daily basis, generating a massive volume of discarded containers per household. Each year, millions of tons of plastic are produced, destined to be recycled, incinerated, or discarded into landfills. The plastic waste cycle is not a closed system, and a significant amount escapes by runoff and/or wind to pollute life on land and water, with wildlife often mistaking plastic for food, with disastrous results. The amount of plastic in our lakes, rivers, and oceans is dangerously high, with the Pacific Ocean containing a patch of accumulated plastic waste that is three times the size of France. Thus far, recycling has done little to stem this issue, with certain areas of the world decreasing the number of recyclable plastics.

Many countries outsource their recycling processes by selling bulk export lots to recycling companies. These processors are often in countries that involve lengthy shipping journeys of the recyclable material in fossil fuel-powered cargo ships at a massive environmental cost. Emissions from long-range transport of recyclables to bulk processors in lower-income countries increases global carbon output. Lower-income countries that receive these shipments may not have sufficient infrastructure to process these bulk exports in a comprehensive way, shifting the burden of contaminated recyclables to countries less financially able to cope. In recent years, the plastics accepted by these third-party recycling firms have decreased, resulting in reduction in the types of plastics accepted for recycling in several municipalities. We are moving backwards, not forwards, on recycling.

Transforming the current plastic- centric model of packaging to use more responsible materials will require time that will result in further environmental damage. Objectives that would improve the plastic crisis include decreasing the production and consumption of plastics for which recycling is economically unviable, increasing the capacity for, and data management surrounding, domestic reprocessing to reduce emissions associated with transport of recyclables; regulating purchase of non-recyclable plastics or plastics for which recycling is economically unviable; and limiting usage of plastics which are not widely reprocessed to applications in which no reasonable alternative exists.

Restriction of production and purchase of plastic types whose limited access to, and cost of, recycling renders them effectively un-recyclable will also be a vital step. The resin identification code on plastic products leads many purchasers to feel the product is recyclable and/or has been made with recycled materials. In fact, resin codes are a system created by the plastic industry to indicate the type of plastic present. Of the seven resin codes, some are more difficult to effectively recycle and are not universally collected by recycling programs. Only resin codes 1 and 2 are considered economically viable for recycling purposes. In order to reduce plastic waste, the patterns of plastic production and consumption must change.

Reduced plastic pollution of the local environment by reduction of plastic travelling to, and being deposited in, open landfill/dump sites could additionally reduce longer term environmental contamination with microplastics.

The massive environmental costs associated with irresponsible consumption and production demands immediate and concrete action. 

There is a clear justification for banning or more strictly regulating production of plastics that would linger as local pollutants. Plastics that are known to be effectively unrecyclable need to be phased out from the current production- consumption cycle. Enacting policy on this issue will serve as a definitive use case for future regulation of environmentally harmful products that have poorly defined outcomes in terms of biodegradability and/or ability to be recycled. Total reduction in unrecyclable plastic waste would decrease plastic pollution, and would yield significant positive impact on environmental conservation.