A radical plan to end plastic waste

How big is the plastic waste problem? Why should industry make a voluntary contribution to solving it? How does it work? And how do we know it will make a difference? The foundational analysis behind the "Sea the Future" solution is outlined in detail in this September 2019 academic paper.

Want something you can digest quickly? Dive into this Conversation piece, which explains why we need to change the value of plastic to address this problem and why industry holds the keys.

Global management consultants McKinsey & Company explain why the chemical industry should be viewing the plastic waste crisis as an opportunity. End of life plastic, they argue, is a largely untapped resource waiting to be exploited by industry, and the large chemical companies and plastics manufacturers are ideally placed to capitalize on this, with benefits to their bottom line as well as to society at large.

With contributions from dozens of industry, academic, policy and NGO experts, this report lays out the challenges and opportunities of moving away from our current, wasteful, linear plastics economy, and charts a pathway to a new circular model that captures and retains the value of this wonder material. Key to their strategy is decoupling new plastic production from fossil fuel — exactly what the "Sea The Future" initiative aims to achieve. 

This seminal paper lays out the bare facts of our broken relationship with plastics: how much we have made, how much our use of plastic has grown, and what we have done with it all. (Spoiler: we’ve dumped it in the environment). If you want to understand the magnitude of the plastic waste crisis, this is for you.