King's Business School, King's College London, Bush House, 30 Aldwych, London, WC2B 4BG, UK.
Environ Pollut. 2019 Jun;249:812-821. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2019.03.108. Epub 2019 Mar 29.
Our world is awash with plastic. The massive increase in plastics production, combined with a shift to single-use, disposable plastics and widespread mismanagement of plastic waste, has created a huge "tragedy of the commons" (Hardin, 1968) in our oceans, seas and waterways. Plastics pollution is now a global externality that damages ecosystems, curtails biodiversity and ultimately has the potential to affect everyone on the planet. Although waste output is often modelled separately from environmental pollution in research, in the case of plastics, the waste problem has become one of global pollution. In this paper, we model the relationship between mismanaged plastic waste and income per capita for 151 countries, and for the first time find empirical support for the environmental Kuznets curve using plastics pollution data. Further, we find support for the hypothesis that a key instrument for reducing plastics pollution is investment in scientific and technological research. The paper concludes with a discussion of the results, limitations, and implications for future research and practice.
我们的世界充斥着塑料。塑料产量的大幅增长，加上一次性、一次性塑料的使用转向以及塑料废物的广泛管理不善，在我们的海洋、海洋和水道中造成了巨大的“公地悲剧”（Hardin，1968）。塑料污染现在是一种全球性的外部性，它破坏生态系统，限制生物多样性，最终有可能影响地球上的每个人。尽管在研究中，废物产出通常与环境污染分开建模，但就塑料而言，废物问题已经成为全球污染的一个问题。在本文中，我们对 151 个国家的管理不善的塑料废物和人均收入之间的关系进行了建模，并且首次使用塑料污染数据为环境库兹涅茨曲线提供了经验支持。此外，我们还支持这样一种假设，即减少塑料污染的关键手段是投资于科学和技术研究。本文最后讨论了结果、局限性以及对未来研究和实践的意义。
