Plastic waste: For greater responsibility in dealing with plastics

Plastics are an indispensable part of our daily lives. Plastic packaging, textiles and car tyres all belong to a group of materials with specific properties – substances known as polymers. Some are particularly flexible, others rigid; some are useful because they are so lightweight. Common to them all is the fact they almost never decay completely in the environment. Instead they form small plastic particles known as microplastics which cause major problems for organisms and ecosystems.

More than three million tonnes of packaging waste arose in Germany in 2017, the majority of it plastic. The problem of the over-carefree handling of plastics is a global one: the industrialised countries frequently export plastic packaging waste to the countries of the Global South. In 2018 China halted the import of coarsely pre-sorted packaging for recycling, sending a shock wave through the German waste industry.

Finding new ways of dealing with plastics is a task for society as a whole. The top priority is to reduce the unnecessary mass consumption of plastic products that are used briefly and then thrown away. Many single-use plastic products and much plastic packaging could be dispensed with because alternatives such as reusable packaging are available. Plastics that enter circulation should be recycled in the best possible way, with material recycling taking precedence over energy recovery. Only at the end of the cycle should the plastics be disposed of – in as eco-friendly a manner as possible.