The American Chemistry Council’s Plastics Division supported the Trucost study Plastics and Sustainability: A Valuation of Environmental Benefits, Costs, and Opportunities for Continuous Improvement, which found that the environmental cost of using plastics in consumer goods and packaging is nearly four times less than it would be if plastics were replaced with alternative materials.
Plastics and Sustainability builds on to findings of previous reports such as Valuing Plastics (2014) by Trucost and The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the Future of Plastics (2016) by the World Economic Forum, which only examined the environmental costs of using plastics. This latest study is based on natural capital accounting methods, which measure and value environmental impacts—such as consumption of natural water and emissions to air, land and water—which are not typically factored into traditional financial accounting.
These significant results disrupt a common misperception around plastics. Trucost found that replacing plastics in consumer products and packaging with a mix of alternative materials that provide the same function would increase environmental costs from $139 billion to $533 billion annually. That’s because strong, lightweight plastics help us do more with less material, which provides environmental benefits throughout the lifecycle of plastic products and packaging.
The report’s authors recommend steps to help further reduce plastics’ overall environmental costs, such as by increasing the use of lower-carbon electricity in plastics production, adopting lower-emission transport modes, developing even more efficient plastic packaging, and increasing recycling and energy conversion of post-use plastics to help curb ocean litter and conserve resources.
- Full report
- Executive summary
- Infographic: Will Replacing Plastic with Alternative Materials Reduce the Environmental Cost of Consumer Goods?
- Infographic: How Can the Lifecycle Impacts of Plastic Use Be Further Reduced
- Infographic: Examples of How Plastics Are Helping Reduce the Environmental Footprint of Consumer Goods
- ACC Press Release
