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Plastics are just the tip of the iceberg

The rapid increase in plastics waste is worrying, but approaching sufficiency in a broader sense can tackle much more than plastic waste streams only, argues Sylvia Lorek.

And still, plastics accumulating in the environment are mainly a littering problem. Total figures about plastics need to be assessed in relation to the flows of other materials. Global plastic production increased substantially by the late 2010s, but the volume recorded represented only less than 0.5% of the more than 90 billion tons of annual global materials extracted. Considering further that about half of the plastics produced are meant to last in buildings, cars and other durable items, the share of extraction ending in the natural environment as waste is even smaller. Accordingly, the 2016 assessment report of the International Resource Panel about global material flows hardly mentions plastics. The word actually only appears twice in the report, both times in brackets to illustrate the category of ‘others’.

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  1. Sustainable Europe Research Institute, Cologne, Germany

    Sylvia Lorek

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Lorek, S. Plastics are just the tip of the iceberg.
Nat Sustain 6, 1144 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01220-7

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  • Published: 19 October 2023

  • Issue Date: October 2023

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01220-7

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