The Management of Plastic: The 3Rs are Not Enough

Plastic is one of the most significant innovations of the modern age. The first fully synthetic plastic, Bakelite, was commercially produced in 1907 from coal tar. The next big plastic product, nylon, was first produced in 1938 from petroleum. The production of plastics grew more than twenty times between 1964 and 2015 and this is projected to double by 2035 (Barra et al. 2018). Unfortunately, the ubiquity and low cost of plastic have resulted in the generation of large amounts of waste and widespread plastic pollution.

The environmental movement in the United States in the 1970s popularized the 3Rs – reduce, reuse, recycle – and this has been adopted worldwide. However, despite its wide use, the 3Rs approach has failed to curb the problem of plastic waste, especially in less developed countries. An analysis of the 3Rs reveals its inadequacy in solving the problem of plastic waste. . . . . continue reading