Since its invention and widespread introduction into the economy some 70 years ago, plastic has become a valuable part of business and daily life. So much so, in fact, that we have created more than 8.3 billion metric tons of it around the world. If we were able to take all of that plastic and turn it into a single grocery bag, it could hold the entire planet. If business continues as usual, 30 years from now projections say we will have produced enough plastic waste to double-bag the Earth.
The problem is that more than 76% of all plastic has ended up as waste, and nearly 50% of the plastic waste we now produce each year is used just once, often only for a few minutes. In the time it takes you to read this article, about 5 million single-use plastic bottles will be discarded. The single-use packaging that we throw away each year represents $100 billion of economic value. That’s a figure worth paying attention to: Recouping those losses and developing solutions to preventing...
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