Plastics are at the core of today’s most pressing environmental crises of our time, threatening ecosystems, wildlife, and human health with the vast amounts of waste that have accumulated throughout the decades. Largely persistent and disruptive, they bring harm to biodiversity, marine and terrestrial species, and the food chain.
While much attention has been given to waste management strategies like recycling and clean-up efforts, these approaches fail to address the main problem: we are producing too much plastic.
The sheer scale of plastic production, particularly of single-use items, has outpaced waste management capacities, making recycling inadequate as a solution. Most plastic waste is either incinerated, landfilled, or leaked into the environment. If we were to tackle plastic pollution effectively, we must resolve it at the source.
To combat this crisis, what we need is systemic change — one that prioritizes reuse and refill systems and shifts away from the current throwaway culture.
The Full Extent of How Plastic Production is Harming Us
What enabled the plastic crisis to worsen is an industry that has expanded unchecked. Plastic production has surged over the past few decades, with over 460 million metric tons produced annually. This synthetic polymer, derived from fossil fuels, has solidified its place as an integral part of various industries, including construction, electronics, and packaging. However, its widespread use comes at a significant environmental and health cost.
Single-use plastics, in particular, are a primary contributor to global pollution. Designed for brief use — often just minutes — these plastics include items such as bottles, bags, wrappers, and straws. The world has produced more than nine billion metric tons of plastic since the 1950s, over half of which was made in the past two decades. While convenient to use, these products have fueled a culture of disposability, which has inevitably led to the accumulation of excessive waste.
Plastic pollution holds a staggering impact on oceans and lands, with waste contaminating soils and bodies of water, and poisoning animals that mistake them for food — to the point of death. But beyond this ecological damage, plastic pollution carries severe health risks — and not only due to toxic chemicals leaching into food and water sources.
In frontline communities living near plastic production facilities — such as the “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana, United States, or the Buriganga river in Dhaka, Bangladesh — predominantly low-income neighborhoods and communities of color are exposed to toxic emissions on a daily basis. These emissions from petrochemical plants — the building blocks of plastic — include carcinogenic gases like ethylene oxide, which significantly raise cancer and respiratory disease risks.
While plastic waste pollutes ecosystems for centuries, the human toll begins much earlier — at the point of production — where communities are burdened with illness, contaminated air, and weakened environmental protections. Despite these far-reaching consequences, plastic production continues to accelerate, placing both people and the planet in greater danger.
Why Is Recycling Not Enough?
Given the staggering scale of plastic waste, recycling is often seen as a go-to solution. But the numbers tell a different story. Of the over eight billion metric tons of plastic produced worldwide, only 9% had been recycled as of 2018.
The vast majority — at a whopping 79% — has ended up in landfills or scattered throughout natural environments. Another 12% has been incinerated, another strategy increasingly frowned upon for its contribution to climate change. Let’s call a spade a spade: Recycling is simply not keeping pace with plastic production.
One major roadblock may be the complexity of plastics themselves. Made from a wide array of polymers, different types of plastics require different recycling processes. This diversity makes sorting and processing costly and largely inefficient, leading to very minute progress with recycling rates.
On top of this, recycling remains economically unviable. The costs associated with collection, sorting, and processing often outweigh the market value of recycled materials, making it an unprofitable pursuit for industries.
To make matters worse, virgin plastic is kept artificially cheap thanks to generous government subsidies to fossil fuel and petrochemical companies. These subsidies distort the market, undercutting recycled materials and further discouraging investment in recycling infrastructure.
As a result, manufacturers have little financial incentive to choose recycled products over cheaper, subsidized virgin plastic, prompting them to continue perpetuating overproduction and waste.
Complicating things further is the global plastic waste trade. High-income nations often export their plastic waste to countries with weaker environmental regulations, where it tends to be mismanaged — improperly processed, dumped, or incinerated. Such practices expose local communities to toxic pollution, and while clean-up initiatives may be well-intentioned, they fail to address the overwhelming influx of plastic waste that comes from this trade.
How We Can Benefit From Reduced Plastic Production
The best way to curb plastic pollution’s environmental and health impacts is to stop it at its source. The current linear model — where plastics are produced, consumed, and discarded — fuels a relentless cycle of waste accumulation.
Shifting away from this model by limiting new plastic product manufacturing can be the key to drastically lowering pollution.
This upstream strategy tackles the problem before it begins and can significantly reduce the carbon emissions associated with plastic. From extraction to refining to production, plastics are deeply tied to fossil fuel use. If current production trends continue, plastic-related emissions could account for up to 19% of the world’s carbon budget by 2040. Cutting back on the production of single-use plastics and other harmful variants can therefore act as a critical lever in the fight against climate change — especially in frontline communities that bear the brunt of environmental harm.
Public health also stands to benefit. Many plastics contain toxic additives that leach into food, water, and the environment, posing risks such as endocrine disruption, respiratory issues, and even cancer. Low-income countries, especially in the Global South, are disproportionately impacted, forced to manage plastic waste exported from wealthier nations. Reducing production would mitigate these injustices and the health hazards attached to them, all while fostering safer, more sustainable practices worldwide.
It’s important to frame these efforts within the waste hierarchy, which prioritizes prevention and reuse over downstream solutions like recycling or disposal. Reducing plastic production addresses the top of this hierarchy: prevention. Complementing this with a shift toward robust reuse systems — where the default practice is to repurpose existing plastic materials instead of disposing of them right after use — offers the most sustainable and equitable path forward.
Current Movements and Proposed Solutions for Controlling Plastic Production
Grassroots movements have long played a vital role in pushing for policy changes. In Indonesia, Break Free From Plastic member Dietplastik successfully pushed for plastic bag bans in over 100 regions, demonstrating just how effective local action can be in steering policies toward public good. Restrictions on single-use plastics were implemented by local government units, which is a crucial step in a broader campaign against plastic waste in the country.
The recent focus on capping plastic production is no different. Hundreds of Break Free From Plastic member organizations leverage brand audits to hold corporations accountable for the plastic waste they’ve produced, with the intention of forging commitments to reduce plastic use.
But local movements are not alone in this pursuit of change. Now recognizing the severity of the plastic pollution crisis, governments and international bodies are also taking action to curb plastic production.
In a major step toward tackling plastic waste, the Quezon City Council in the Philippines recently passed City Ordinance No. 2876, which bans the use of single-use plastic products and other disposable items in hotels and restaurants for dine-in customers. Hailed by environmental advocates as a strong example of pollution prevention at the city level, the ordinance establishes clear penalties for violators and assigns specific city departments to mandate enforcement. Mayor Joy Belmonte emphasized the ordinance's importance in cutting down on waste that is difficult to recover or recycle, reinforcing the idea that local governance can push for tangible change.
An even bolder move is the United Nations-led proposal of the Global Plastics Treaty. Currently under negotiation, this international agreement is geared toward establishing legally binding targets to ambitiously address plastic pollution across its lifecycle — a gargantuan attempt that echoes one truth most advocates have long known: The path forward lies in systemic change.
Governments and industries must go beyond traditional and sadly ineffective waste management solutions, and look into ways that the production stage can be corrected and optimized. Instead of pushing for recycling, it’s worth prioritizing the promotion of reuse systems, the long-overdue phasing out of harmful plastics, Extended Producer Responsibility schemes that hold manufacturers accountable, and product redesign that puts sustainability at the center.
Join Break Free From Plastic in Putting a Cap on Plastic Production
It’s safe to say that the global plastic crisis is a direct consequence of unchecked production and consumption, with single-use plastics serving as the key driver of pollution that harms ecosystems and endangers human health.
Despite efforts to manage waste through recycling and clean-up initiatives, these solutions have proven woefully inadequate. Current systems at a constant state of overwhelm because they fail to recognize excessive plastic production as the root cause, effectively leaving it unaddressed.
As plastics pile up not only in landfills and oceans but also in the very neighborhoods where they are made, frontline communities continue to suffer the consequences. These are the sacrifice zones where pollution is most concentrated — smokestack cities where people, young and old, have no other choice but to breathe in toxic air.
The harms of plastic don’t begin when it becomes litter; they begin at the source. To truly address plastic pollution, we must go upstream — and that means capping and phasing down production. We need policies that put people over petrochemicals, public health over profit.
The urgency to act has never been greater. Explore more content from Break Free From Plastic to stay informed on how global and local movements are actively pushing for bold, systemic change to end plastic pollution. Together, we can build a future rooted in justice, sustainability, and collective well-being.
