Growth Without Waste Control

Failure to address a worldwide plastic pollution crisis could trigger a surge in greenhouse gas emissions and human health problems tied to the industry, according to a new report.

Global plastic pollution is set to double over the next 15 years unless policies change, according to the report by Pew Charitable Trust and ICF, with support from Imperial College London, the University of Oxford and partner organizations.

In contrast, an “unprecedented global collaboration and commitment” to quickly slashing plastic production and use and improving waste management could reduce global annual plastic pollution by 83% by 2040, the Dec. 3 report concluded.

The findings are “stark,” Tom Dillon, Pew’s senior vice president of environment and cross-cutting initiatives, wrote in a preface to the report, but “hope remains.”

“The global community can remake the plastic system and solve the plastic pollution problem in a generation, but decision makers will need to prioritize people and the planet,” wrote Dillon.

Pew and the company SYSTEMIQ previously collaborated on a 2020 plastic pollution impact report published in Science, which found that, without action, the amount of plastic entering the ocean each year would nearly triple by 2040. In the five years since the report was published, 570 million metric tons of plastic waste have entered the environment globally, the authors wrote.

If countries fail to transform their relationship with the plastics industry, the rapidly growing production of plastic for packaging and textiles, in particular, will result in a garbage truck worth of plastic waste polluting the land, air and water every second, according to the report. Annual greenhouse gas emissions would increase by 58%, with global plastic production and waste management emitting as much as one billion gas-powered cars, the report warns.

The authors project that plastic production would grow twice as fast as waste management, with the share of uncollected plastic waste nearly doubling by 2040. Health impacts from plastic production, waste and pollution, including cancers and lung and heart conditions, would increase by 75% during this time period, according to the report.

“Because of data gaps, we did not include the health impacts of plastic use or microplastics in our analysis, but those effects are likely to be significant,” the authors state in the report.

Microplastics are bits of plastic less than 5 millimeters long that form when bigger plastic chunks break apart. They have been found in the human brain, testicles, lungs and other organs, with research linking them to various health conditions.

To effectively tackle the plastic pollution crisis, the report concludes that actions must be taken “before, during and after plastic product use,” including banning “avoidable” plastics, eliminating plastics subsidies, a global chemical reporting framework to help make the plastics supply chain more transparent and shifting toward reusable products and away from single-use ones.

By focusing on reusable products, as well as other measures, societies could nearly eliminate pollution from plastic packaging in the next 15 years, the report concluded.

In addition to dramatically curbing harmful pollution, such policies “can create jobs, help alleviate poverty and safeguard the well-being of the world’s most vulnerable people,” the authors write.

A Greenpeace USA report also published this week suggests recycling has failed to offer a viable solution to the plastic pollution crisis, finding that only one fifth of the most commonly produced plastics are recyclable.

“After decades of meager investments accompanied by misleading claims and a very well-funded industry public relations campaign aimed at persuading people that recycling can make plastic use sustainable, plastic recycling remains a failed enterprise that is economically and technically unviable and environmentally unjustifiable,” the authors write.

The Pew findings also come on the heels of a Nov. 6 Duke University report, which concluded that plastic production, use and disposal burden the US with up to $1.1 trillion each year in social costs – a “conservative” estimate. The authors found that the bulk of these costs came from human health impacts, including exposure to toxic chemicals in plastics and fossil fuels used to make plastics.

Research published in The Lancet in August estimated plastics lead to $1.5 trillion in health-related costs annually worldwide.

https://www.thenewlede.org/2025/12/plastic-pollution-could-more-than-double-by-2040-report-finds/