Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
College of Engineering, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.
Science. 2020 Sep 18;369(6510):1515-1518. doi: 10.1126/science.aba3656. Epub 2020 Sep 17.
Plastic pollution is a planetary threat, affecting nearly every marine and freshwater ecosystem globally. In response, multilevel mitigation strategies are being adopted but with a lack of quantitative assessment of how such strategies reduce plastic emissions. We assessed the impact of three broad management strategies, plastic waste reduction, waste management, and environmental recovery, at different levels of effort to estimate plastic emissions to 2030 for 173 countries. We estimate that 19 to 23 million metric tons, or 11%, of plastic waste generated globally in 2016 entered aquatic ecosystems. Considering the ambitious commitments currently set by governments, annual emissions may reach up to 53 million metric tons per year by 2030. To reduce emissions to a level well below this prediction, extraordinary efforts to transform the global plastics economy are needed.
塑料污染是全球性的威胁，影响着全球几乎每一个海洋和淡水生态系统。为此，人们正在采取多层次的缓解策略，但缺乏对这些策略如何减少塑料排放的定量评估。我们评估了三种广泛的管理策略（减少塑料废物、废物管理和环境恢复）在不同努力水平下对 2030 年 173 个国家塑料排放的影响。我们估计，2016 年全球产生的 1900 万至 2300 万吨塑料废物中有 11%进入了水生生态系统。考虑到各国政府目前设定的雄心勃勃的承诺，如果要将排放量减少到远低于这一预测水平，就需要做出非凡努力来改变全球塑料经济。
