1.3 billion tons of plastic will be in the environment by 2040

According to researchers from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the University of Oxford, the University of Leeds and

Common Seas, in order to stop the pollution process, willIt's not enough to fight plastic bags and disposable straws for cocktails.

To reduce waste, toughermeasures such as improving waste collection and disposal systems, especially in developing countries, reducing plastic consumption and investment in alternative materials, and reducing imports of plastic waste.

The report says that more than 1.3 billion tons of plastic waste will end upinto nature and pollute the earth, rivers and oceans over the next 20 yearswithout taking decisive action. In 2016, nearly 11 million tons of plastic were dumped into the ocean, according to reportsThis volume canincrease to 29 million tonnes per year in the next 20 years.

The measures that are being taken today in all sectors are not effective enough, they canreduce the amount of plastic entering the ocean by only 7% by 2040. More efficient methods are paper or compostable alternatives to single-use plastics, and packaging would need to be more than doubled to increase the proportion of material recycled, the study said. 

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