Global plastics production has grown significantly in recent decades. Highly versatile, light and affordable, plastic materials are employed in countless industrial applications and have become extremely useful for modern society. They help us preserve food, insulate buildings, make electronics work and increase the fuel efficiency of our vehicles, among other things. Yet, the sheer magnitude of our societies’ consumption of plastics bears important drawbacks. Plastics use results in a high production-related carbon footprint, high volumes of waste, persistent pollution and harm to wildlife and ecosystems when leakage to the environment occurs, and considerable socio-economic costs due to the negative impacts of plastic litter on tourism and fisheries.

The Global Plastics Outlook: Economic Drivers, Environmental Impacts and Policy Options provides policymakers with a comprehensive overview of the challenges ahead and potential solutions. The report is structured as shown below. Using state-of-the-art environment-economy modelling, the Outlook uncovers the economic drivers that give rise to unprecedented volumes of plastics use and waste. The Outlook also maps and quantifies key environmental impacts such as plastic leakage to the environment and greenhouse gas emissions. The Outlook then presents four levers critical to reduce the environmental impacts of plastics: markets for recycled (secondary) plastics, technological innovation in plastics, domestic policy measures and international co-operation.

The Global Plastics Outlook: Economic Drivers, Environmental Impacts and Policy Options offers a unique quantified picture of the full lifecycle of plastics globally, including production, consumption, waste, recycling, disposal, leakage and greenhouse gas emissions. Five key findings summarize the current challenges while four critical levers are put forward to make the plastics lifecycle more circular.

This overview chapter presents the motivation for and approach taken by the Global Plastics Outlook, as well as the key findings and policy implications

From production through to consumption and disposal, plastics interact with the economy and the environment in a multitude of complex ways. Understanding these complexities is critical for identifying challenges and formulating effective policies. This chapter aims to quantify plastic flows in the economy and their impacts on the environment. It begins by discussing the methodology used, before presenting estimates and analysis of the key steps and impacts throughout the plastics lifecycle.

This chapter investigates the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown measures on the production, use and waste of plastics, focusing on the short-term effects in the year 2020, in order to shed light on the complex interactions between the effects of COVD-19 on economic activity and plastics use. It first looks at emerging evidence for the pandemic’s impact on specific uses and sectors, followed by an overview of the effects on waste and recycling. It then reports on the results of a detailed OECD modelling framework used to assess the consequences of COVID-induced changes in sectoral and regional economic activity on plastics use more broadly. It ends with a brief discussion of the possible longer-term implications of the pandemic on plastics use.

This chapter discusses recycling and explores the structure of the secondary plastics market, tracking its expansion in recent decades. It also analyses recent developments in policy, investment, and trade in waste and their impacts on secondary markets.

Innovation can occur in the production, processing and recycling of plastics. This chapter first reviews the overall trends in innovation for environmentally relevant plastics technologies, before investigating the empirical link between circular economy policies and innovation. Finally, the chapter focuses on recent trends in specific technologies and the related policy implications.

Policy makers around the world are looking for effective instruments to tackle the environmental pressures from the production, consumption and end-of-life management of plastics. This chapter describes the policy approaches and key instruments available to address these issues. It takes stock of the current global policy landscape and lays out a policy roadmap to reduce the leakage of land-based macroplastics and to make the lifecycle of plastics more circular

This chapter reviews the current landscape of international agreements and initiatives, as well as the status of efforts to improve it. It then zooms in on the financial resources that would be needed to stop plastic leakage linked to poor waste management practices in developing countries, which has been recognised as an important priority for international co-operation. Finally, the chapter assesses the current contribution of ODA towards this goal