We must change how we think to solve the plastic waste crisis

Payne Institute Faculty Fellow Michael McGuirk writes this opinion piece on how the world has a plastic waste problem. Most single-use plastics, which represent about 50 percent of all plastic production and include everyday items like straws and shampoo bottles, wind up in landfills, incinerated, or leaked into the environment. In the U.S. alone, we discard 40 million tons of single-use plastics every single year — the visual equivalent of throwing away 100 Empire State buildings. By 2050, we are estimated to have more plastic in our oceans than fish.  Yet despite this grim situation, we now have more reason to fundamentally change the way we think about plastic waste — not just as a burden, but as an opportunity to harvest valuable resources and energy.  December 28, 2022.