From campaigns against microplastics to news of the great Pacific garbage patch, public awareness is growing about the outsized effect plastic has on the world’s oceans. However, its effect on the air is far less obvious. Plastic production, use, and disposal all emit prodigious amounts of greenhouse gasses, but scientists haven’t had a firm grasp on the scope.

Now researchers at UC Santa Barbara have determined the extent to which plastic contributes to climate change, and what it would take to curb these emissions. The results appear in the journal Nature Climate Change.

“This is, to our best knowledge, the first global assessment of the life cycle of greenhouse gas emissions from all plastics,” said author Sangwon Suh, a professor at UC Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. “It’s also the first evaluation of various strategies to reduce the emissions of plastics.”

Read more at University of California - Santa Barbara

• Environmental Policy
• Pollution
• Ecosystems