Recycling’s best hope? People want to do the “right thing,” expert says

It’s no secret that humans produce large amounts of plastic waste globally. But the exact scale of that quantity is often difficult to conceptualize.

At “The Future of Plastics: Reducing Waste and Rethinking Materials,” an event sponsored by Kia, environmental experts and stakeholders gathered at Newsweek‘s office at One World Trade Center in New York City on Wednesday, December 4, to discuss the current state of the plastic pollution problem and possible solutions.

In his opening remarks, Newsweek Chief Strategy Officer Dayan Candappa presented a graphic from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the University of California, Berkeley, depicting the potential future of plastic waste as a blue mountain of plastic water bottles towering over New York City.

Without action, researchers estimate that the world will generate enough plastic trash between now and 2050 to “cover Manhattan in a heap of plastic ten times the height of the Empire State Building.”

“Now you are gathered here because you hope for a different future. But hope is not a strategy,” Candappa said. “We know that if you step back and convene a group of people committed to a strategy, the view on the horizon can look quite different.”

Newsweek Environment and Sustainability Editor Jeff Young moderated the discussion, which featured panelists who are working to change the way industries produce and reuse plastic materials along the supply chain.

Panelists included Jessica Long, chief strategy officer and head of Closed Loop Partners’ operating group Closed Loop Builders; Erin Simon, the vice president and head of plastic waste and business at the World Wildlife Fund; U.S. Plastics Pact CEO Jonathan Quinn; Mars Global Vice President of Packaging Sustainability Allison Lin; and Dr. Leonardo Trasande from the NYU Center for the Investigation of Environmental Hazards.

This event came days after the United Nations ended its fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee, referred to as INC-5, without a treaty to limit plastic waste pollution globally. The talks will continue next year, and the panelists were optimistic that more time will lead to a better overall treaty.

Since the commitment was made in 2022 to solve the plastic waste problem, Erin Simon of the World Wildlife Fund said there has been a wave of momentum around how stakeholders can take action to solve it.

“What gives me the most hope is that throughout this process, you usually see a whittling of ambition because of compromise and the need for consensus. And what I saw, and what we’ve seen over the last five [sessions], is an increase in ambition,” she said during the panel. “It was almost like countries realized that they wouldn’t have to do it alone, but they could do it in partnership with other businesses and there was a lot of attraction on how to fund this and create sustainable economic business models.”

Kristyn Oldendorf, the senior director of public policy and communication for the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA), was one of the guests who attended the event.

“I appreciated that it was a good range of perspectives [and] the different areas of expertise as well,” she told Newsweek following the panel discussion. “It was helpful to hear about the role of policy as well as what’s going on now voluntarily that brands are doing and thinking about recycling [and] what actions the treaty can take to really help stem plastic pollution.”

She added that it was inspiring to hear panelists talk about the importance of collaboration to find solutions.

Oldendorf attended the previous session of U.N. plastic treaty negotiations and shared that she wasn’t surprised that no agreement on a treaty was made at INC-5. But she agrees with the panelists that a better version of an agreement is yet to come.

“Seeing how many stakeholders were there and committed to the issue…and bringing together such a global audience on this one issue, that’s a lot of potential in itself,” she said. “I share that hopefulness that the next round of conversation will lead to something more.”

In the meantime, solutions are happening every day around the world.

While the current state of plastic waste production is daunting, Jessica Long of Closed Loop Partners said that recycling in the U.S. is “promising,” taking a more optimistic view than her fellow panelists.

“Where it works, and there are many great examples of our recycling across the country, it works really well,” she said.

With the right infrastructure and technology, facilities can sort “good materials” from waste that can go back into the supply chain and out of landfills. This can reduce the production of new plastics as well as the amount of materials being shipped globally.

“Fortunately, we have a ton of demand for recycled content,” she said. “We have enough demand that we should be building the right collection infrastructure, the right certification infrastructure, the right processing infrastructure to turn that material back into packaging.”

Long mentioned an example of a pilot reuse project in Petaluma, California. The Petaluma Reusable Cup initiative creates a system for patrons to reuse cups from local restaurants, cafes and coffee shops in an effort to cut down on waste.

“We’ll have full results out early in 2025, but the early results are very promising because it’s showing that in the day, people want to do the right thing,” she said. “People don’t want to create more waste. They are looking for solutions, they’re looking for things that are easy at the end of the day that will allow them to participate, and solutions and economies that don’t produce waste.”

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