Back to Blue shows plastic pollution increasing without bold action

If a single-use plastic ban, mandatory EPR scheme, and plastic tax on virgin resin were all enacted (blue), plastic production would decrease from a baseline of no policy interventions (white), but would still be higher than it is today.
Image credit: Back to Blue

An innovative collaboration between Economist Impact and The Nippon Foundation is aiming to solve some of the most challenging ocean problems. Back to Blue calls for a zero-pollution ocean, leveraging The Economist's analytical expertise with the Nippon Foundation's focus on ocean conservation initiatives.

The two organizations share a common understanding of “the need to improve evidence-based approaches and solutions to the pressing issues faced by the ocean, restoring ocean health, and promoting sustainability. The initiative will focus initially on aspects of the vexing challenge of pollution.”

Two reports and a Plastic Management Index are available

Back to Blue has produced two reports: Peak Plastics - Bending the Consumption Curve, evaluating the effectiveness of policy mechanisms to reduce plastic use, and A Global Ocean Free from the Harmful Impacts of Pollution: Roadmap for Action.

In addition, Back to Blue has created a Plastic Management Index that measures, compares, and contrasts the efforts made by a selection of 25 countries at different stages of development. The Plastic Index looks at three categories for each country:

• Governance, which assesses a country’s mix of laws, regulations, and incentives for plastics management (36.36% weighting).
• Systemic capacity, which measures a country’s scope to oversee, collect, sort, and recycle plastic waste, and its investment in capacity-building efforts (36.36% weighting).
• Stakeholder engagement, which looks at international and national efforts by governments to combat plastic waste, along with the endeavors made by the private sector and consumers (27.26% weighting).

The Peak Plastics report says that “only bold and sweeping reforms will bend the plastic consumption curve. Achieving a reduction in plastic pollution will require all stakeholders - from the petrochemical companies to the consumers - to control the crisis. A piecemeal approach won’t work.”

Image credit: Back to Blue

The Executive Summary of the Peak Plastic report describes modeling the impact of three regulatory measures:

• A phased ban on problematic, unnecessary single-use plastic products yields the heaviest impact.
• A mandatory extended producer responsibility (EPR) program imposed on brands and retailers that introduce packaging to the market will have a minimal impact on consumption but is a vital part of the solution, and
• A tax on the production of virgin resin designed to redistribute the cost of negative environmental externalities must be aggressive to be impactful.

The model “tests whether any of these, alone or together, can achieve peak plastic consumption before 2050. The analysis is focused on the 19 countries of the G20.”

If all three policies are implemented, they will slow plastic consumption growth “but will not be enough to bring about a peak in plastic consumption by 2050, illustrating the scale of the challenge that lies ahead.” The report says bold reforms are needed and that “an integrated approach combining all three makes a dent—growth of 1.25 times the 2019 figure, compared with the baseline forecast of 1.73 times.

Plastic consumption in G20 countries could nearly double by mid-century

The report also references the global plastic treaty in a section that was written before the end of the last round of negotiations on December 1, 2024. It says “If the negotiators fail to agree on any policy interventions, we project that plastic consumption in the studied G20 countries will nearly double by mid-century.”