

Plastic production will increase by 20,000% in 40 years if we keep things how they are. Plastic is everywhere. Over the years it became one of the most used material, and it got to a point where the cars and planes we travel on are made at 50% by plastic, or where it is more common for clothes to be made of polyester and nylon rather than of wool or cotton. In 1955 the whole world’s plastic production was around 2 tons and only 60 years later, in 2015, it had already reached 400 tons. Plastic is, not even so slowly, submerging the planet. If we do not take action now, by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans and seas.


The problem is not new. Already in the 1990s around 80% of the waste in the ocean was non-biodegradable plastic. The amount kept rising, until the garbage in the ocean assembled in giants island entirely made up of mostly plastic. The biggest one is around three times the size of France. The Mediterranean Sea, because of its geographical conformation, is like a trap for plastic waste which has become a serious threat to ecosystems, marine life and human health. Plastic makes up over 95% of the waste in the Mediterranean and the concentration of microplastic, minuscule parts of plastic that disperse into the sea, has become so high that it is now superior to the areas of the plastic islands found in the Pacific Ocean. Damages to wildlife because of marine litter is 90% of the times caused by plastic, and around 134 species are at risk of dying because of ingesting plastic.

The situation is alarming, but some steps in the right direction are being taken. Last month the EU signed a provisional agreement that limited the sale and production of single-use plastic products. According to this arrangement, by 2021 EU member states will not allow plastic cutlery, plates and straws anymore, among other similar items. However, it will take time for each member state to put the necessary laws into force and in just a few months, with the European elections that will reshape the composition of the EU institutions, the agreement might be re-discussed. Moreover, even if the EU is the second producer of plastic in the world, such a global issue needs a wider global response.


This is why the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) launched a petition to all the countries where the Non-governmental organization is present, addressing the heads of state to sign up a Global Deal that will stop the scattering of plastic into the wilderness. It is the first step of a global campaign that is also directed to every single citizen. There is so much we can do as individuals to play a significant role in a shared journey to a plastic-free planet. Everyday actions can ultimately make a difference. By changing our routines in which plastic is a major component we can make an impact: substituting plastic shoppers, our toothbrush, our clothes, food containers and so on with more sustainable materials and choosing reusable items over single-use ones actually improves our plastic footprint on the planet. Probably the most impacting behavior we can take up is to get used to recycle and do collecting waste separately.

Unfortunately, there are situations where the good efforts of individuals are thrown away. It is the case of Italy, a country in which citizens are really good at recycling but there are not the facilities and structures needed to correctly dispose of the waste. In Italy, just around 43.5% of the plastic that has been separately collected ultimately gest recycled, while around 40% ends up in energy-producing incinerators and over 16.5% is left at dumpsters. Italy competes with Germany for the first place in the EU for collecting waste separately, but without the required recycling plants the podium is not making quite the difference.

Still, Italians are determined to fight plastic pollutions and a few initiatives have attracted the attention that might bring in investors. For example, Gr3n is a startup which is working on a recycling plant in Piacenza, in the center of the country, that will be able to transform materials that were impossible to deal with before. With the current recycling technology, it is only possible to process really good materials, like a transparent bottle, but the machinery that Gr3n is working on might be able to recover materials that are now considered to be at the end of the cycle. Right now, by processing plastic products, it is possible to go from a bottle to a clothing item, but it is not possible to do the contrary. By isolating polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the most common thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family and a one of the most used plastic, Gr3n will be able to recycle clothing items as well, among many more products. The project won the Innovation Radar Prize in 2018, and hopefully it will pave the way for larger investments in green technology.


A better recycling system will reduce our dependence on oil benefitting the environment but also the economy. Because of the work of Conip, the national consortium of plastic packaging, every year Italy avoids buying over 770,000 barrels of oil and emitting around 148,000 tons of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Conip supports the idea of a circular economy and produces boxes for fruits and vegetables that are 100% made of recycled plastic and can be totally recycled once again when thrown away. A couple of days ago, the European Commissioner for the Environment, Karmenu Vella, complimented the project and the efforts the consortium is making to reach a closed circle system, a structure where producing is always anticipated by recycling.

A scheme that allows to recycle plastic and use the recycled material at the top of the chain of production needs to be implemented to effectively undermine plastic pollution. Only by investing in green technology and recycling plants, the issue could efficiently be addressed. The facilities that are right now in Italy not only lack the technology to process all kinds of plastic but are simply not enough to take in all the plastic waste Italians produce.

I am a philosophy graduate turned journalist specialized in international politics and global affairs.