Paths to circularity for plastics in the United States
Our study establishes a material flow of US plastics from production to disposal, finding that less than 7% is recycled despite growing production and consumption. From this baseline, we develop a series of scenarios to increase plastic recycling using existing technologies, finding that almost 70% of waste could be diverted from landfills using commercially available technologies. We develop multiple scenarios for achieving near-zero waste in which waste flows to landfills are eliminated and recovered material increases by over a factor of 20.