A review of Single-use Plastic Waste Policy in 2018: What will 2019 hold in store?

As Stephen Buranyi recently observed ‘Plastic is everywhere, and suddenly we have decided that is a very bad thing’. While the science on the impacts of plastics on marine life has been clear since the 1980s society has, until recently been happy to look the other way on our throwaway culture. This culture of convenience generates significant plastic waste, most of it arising from food packaging and most of it going directly to landfill. Once in landfill, our products of plastic convince will continue to live on past our own life with plastic bags taking between 10- 1000 years to breakdown and plastic bottles taking 450 year or more to break down. The regulatory framework for addressing waste is referred to as the Circular Economy. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation identifies three principles of the circular economy: 1) design out waste and pollution; 2) Keep products and materials in use, 3) Regenerate Natural Systems. Historically, political support and leadership for laws encouraging reduced consumption and production have been generally low, due to our economic structure which depends upon the over-production and consumption of products. More recently, however, governments have started to embrace circular economy type initiatives due to the escalating costs of managing the waste from our throwaway culture