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Plastic Pollution

Pollution is the most visible problem of the plastic crisis. Whether in rivers, on land, or in the ocean, enormous amounts of plastic waste are already polluting the entire planet.

Plastic waste polluting the environment

Homepage of the Big Plastic Count website, featuring information on plastic waste and sustainability initiatives.

The Big Plastic Count

In 2022, The Big Plastic Count was the biggest investigation into UK household plastic waste. It showed that almost 100 billion pieces of plastic are thrown away in the UK each year, with hardly any of it recycled. With your help, we’ll gather more, game-changing evidence that will push the government to take bold action on plastic.

Title: Scrutinising Scientific Standards; Packages with crushed plastic bottles

Scientific study

Scrutinising Scientific Standards (2025)

This report critically examines the European Commission’s JRC study on plastic recycling technologies, exposing major methodological flaws that favour chemical recycling. It challenges the credibility of industry-backed data and highlights the true environmental costs of solvent- and pyrolysis-based methods. It also provides clear recommendations for policymakers.

Title: Sachet Economy: Big Problems in Small Packets; Colorful toy-shop with plastic boxes

Sachet Economy: Big Problems in Small Packets (2020)

The report looks into the sachet economy in the Philippines that continues to add to and worsen the growing plastics pollution problem, showing how the big businesses corrupted Filipino’s tingi culture. It explores the public attitude towards plastic pollution and presents new findings and recommendations for companies and policymakers.

Title: Chemical Recycling of Sachet Waste: A Failed Experiment. Shark mouth statue on a playground filled with waste

Chemical Recycling of Sachet Waste: A Failed Experiment (2022)

In response to the plastic crisis, consumer goods companies and the petrochemical industry have supported and promoted countless miraculous-sounding technologies, pushing back on their bad reputations as major plastic polluters. CreaSolv3, Unilever Indonesia's hailed flagship project on this front, spectacularly failed and was secretly shuttered two years later.

Title: The WECF Plastic Tool: A hands-on tool for environmental education in schools, youth work, and more; Girl with sunglasses lying amidst plastic waste

The WECF Plastic Tool: A hands-on tool for environmental education in schools, youth work, and more (2018)

The Plastic Tool draws attention to plastic and shows the various aspects of plastic madness from production to landfill. It can be used to pass on knowledge about harmful substancesin plastic products and how to avoid plastic to protect our emvironment and health.

Title: Plastic Banks Assessing European retail banks’ attitude to Plastic Risk; Magnifying glass pointing on an orange-blue plastic structure

Plastic Banks: Assessing European retail banks’ attitude to Plastic Risk (2025)

This report examines how major European retail banks talk about plastics and whether they consider plastic pollution risk as part of their lending criteria. The research suggests that most of the 30 largest European retail banks have minimal or nonexistent policies specifically addressing (mitigating) plastic use, management, and reduction in their investment decisions.

Empty Coca Cola bottle lying on pebbles. Title: Coca Cola's World With Waste. OCEANA

Coca-Cola’s World With Waste (2025)

A new investigation exposes the toxic supply chain fueling global plastic production, shedding new light on the critical players driving the plastics and climate crises. The findings were used to build the Fracked Plastics Map, an interactive tool that traces the connections between more than 25 major consumer brands and petrochemicals sourced from fracking.

Book cover: Living in the Plastic Age

Living in the Plastic Age: Perspectives from Humanities, Social Sciences and Environmental Sciences (2023)

The notion of Plastic Age implies that a material and its materiality with all its relations it engages enables a new way of living. Plastics materialize through practices and technological configurations, are symbolically loaded, and enable new economic, technological, natural, and societal relations all atonce.

Cover of EU-wide end-of-waste criteria for plastic waste

EU-wide end-of-waste criteria for plastic waste (2024)

The absence of a consistent legal framework on end-of-waste for certain waste streams creates uncertainty for waste operators and for entities trading and using secondary raw materials. The implementation of EU-wide end-of-waste criteria can address these disparities in the value chain, ultimately increasing the uptake of high-quality secondary raw materials in manufacturing processes.

Video "The Plastic Problem": Woman in front of plastic litter

The Plastic Problem

The documentary looks at plastic and how it’s impacting the world and what potential alternatives or solutions are out there.

All contributions & media on Plastic Pollution

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