The Pollution Solution

The planet is drowning in plastic, with dire impacts on wildlife, ecosystems, and human health. Could a landmark global treaty help turn the tide?

Colorful plastic bags molded into the shape of a wave

While performing a necropsy on a short-finned pilot whale in Hawaii in 2018, marine biologist Carissa Cabrera’s heart sank. When she opened the belly of the animal—the largest of five whales that had been stranded on a beach on the island of Kauai—she discovered that it contained a startling 45 pounds of derelict plastic netting and fishing gear.

A fish made from discarded plastic bottles© Javier Jaén

Nearly every species group in the ocean has encountered plastic pollution, with scientists observing negative effects in almost 90% of assessed species.

Plastic waste took up so much space in the whale’s stomach that she says it likely made the animal feel deceptively full, causing malnourishment that eventually led to death.

“It was an ‘aha’ moment for me,” recalls Cabrera, founder and CEO of FutureSwell, an ocean conservation advocacy organization, and a Panda Ambassador for WWF-US. “You can’t really work to protect whales and other marine life if you’re not addressing plastic because it’s a leading threat.”

Found in every corner of the planet, from Arctic ice sheets and remote islands to Mount Everest and the bottom of the Mariana Trench, plastic pollution is one of the world’s most worrying and urgent problems. Every year, 11 million metric tons of plastic waste enter our oceans—the equivalent of a dump truck of the stuff every minute—where it kills millions of fish, seabirds, sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals and wreaks havoc on marine and coastal habitats.

Many of those animals, including endangered species such as Steller sea lions and North Atlantic right whales, become entangled in abandoned fishing gear or other debris and suffer injuries or drown. Wildlife like seabirds and fish often inadvertently swallow plastic while feeding or mistake it for food, causing them to choke, damaging internal organs, or suppressing their urge to eat until they starve. More than half of the world’s sea turtles have eaten plastic waste.

And the problem is only getting worse. While the number of voluntary national policies to address the plastics crisis has increased significantly over the past five years, worldwide plastic pollution has increased by 50%.

“At the current rate, we’re on track to double the amount of plastic we produce and triple the amount that goes into our oceans by 2040, just 15 years from now,” warns Erin Simon, WWF-US’s vice president of plastic waste and business.

Sam Shores headshot

Sam H. Shores

Marine Researcher, University of North Carolina at Wilmington and WWF-US Panda Ambassador

North Carolina’s Cape Fear River has been one of the US’s most polluted due to discharges from plastics production, including nonstick coating and weatherproof materials, at industrial plants along its banks—a major concern for residents of cities like Wilmington and Fayetteville, who rely on the river for drinking water.

“We have one of the worst water quality levels in the country,” says activist Sam H. Shores. “Many communities have a hard time tying their health to plastics, but as the last stop before the state’s largest river meets the sea, we know for a fact that chemicals are associated with or are causing cancer.”

Shores, who delivered a talk at WWF’s second Plastic Policy Summit in March 2024 in Washington, DC, is part of an active advocacy community in Wilmington that includes the Plastic Ocean Project, Cape Fear River Watch, and the Southern Environmental Law Center. Together, these and other groups have filed lawsuits demanding greater accountability for petrochemical companies whose plants discharge waste, including increased responsibility for chemical testing and water treatment.

“There’s no shortage of public engagement on plastics policy here, and we’ve been at the forefront, petitioning, organizing, and leading change for solutions to plastics pollution,” Shores says. “It goes far beyond trash cleanups on the beaches; those are only Band-Aid solutions. We’re focused on not just eliminating waste from the environment but reducing plastics production itself, along with creating a circular economy through recycling.”

In a memorable scene from the 1967 movie The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin Braddock is told, “There’s a great future in plastics.” The line was prophetic. Plastics are strong, lightweight, cheap to produce, endlessly flexible, and resistant to corrosion—qualities that have made them an integral part of modern life.

Omnipresent in product packaging and food wrappers, clothing and footwear, water pipes, building materials, and electronics, plastics have enabled us to keep food fresher for longer and reduced food waste, facilitated advancements in healthcare and medical devices, helped us manufacture more fuel-efficient cars and airplanes and energy-saving homes, and delivered public health benefits.

But plastics are also durable—extraordinarily so. Once in nature, they can take between 20 and 500 years to degrade. Even then, plastics never really disappear; they break down over time into smaller and smaller pieces called microplastics—particles measuring less than 5 mm (about the size of a grain of rice), which mounting evidence suggests may pose significant threats to human health.

Shed into the environment and easily ingested or inhaled, these tiny specks have been detected in human blood, hearts, brains, livers, and even placentas. Recent studies have shown that exposure to microplastics may be associated with some cancers, heart and lung diseases, and neurological issues. And though research on their effects is still limited, scientists suspect microplastics could be a factor in Alzheimer’s and infertility, among other conditions.

Thousands of the more than 13,000 chemicals used in plastics are also considered hazardous, particularly in high concentrations. Leached from everyday products, water, and food into our bodies, “forever chemicals” such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs)—found in nonstick cookware, carpets, and waterproof clothes—are known carcinogens that can disrupt hormones. Then there’s the pollution tied to plastics production. In communities where large numbers of plastic-producing petrochemical factories are located, chemicals that contaminate air and drinking water have been linked to alarming environmental and health impacts, with historically disenfranchised people often hit the hardest.

Jo Banner

Co-Founder and Co-Director, The Descendants Project

Jo Banner doesn’t mince words about what she’d like to see in a global plastics treaty. “We need a cap on plastics production,” says the co-director of The Descendants Project, a nonprofit that advocates for the mostly Black communities along the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. That 85-mile stretch is home to about 200 industrial plants, including petrochemical companies that produce plastics. Runoff and air pollution from those plants have been linked to some of the highest disease rates in the country, earning the region the grim moniker of Cancer Alley.

“We consider ourselves to be in a sacrifice zone,” she says. “We are being sacrificed.”

Banner and her organization are fighting back in a variety of ways, including by representing the community in the treaty negotiations. The Descendants Project—the name refers to the descendants of enslaved people on antebellum plantations—also works at the local level, mostly by filing lawsuits. One emphasis is on opposing parish-level decisions that would allow more former plantation land in the region to be zoned for heavy industrial use by plastics producers offering top dollar.

It’s an uphill battle. “We don’t have much access to our local governments,” Banner says. “It’s harder for me to go to my parish council and voice my concerns than it is to do it at the United Nations. Locally, we’re hitting a brick wall. We hit walls at the UN, too, but at least sometimes there’s a window, and a hint of light can come through.”

On a global scale, plastics production is a key factor in climate change. “They’re manufactured with fossil fuels, so from the moment they’re made, they’re contributing to climate change, threatening habitats and communities,” says Simon. “If we keep on with business as usual, emissions associated with plastic production will reach 15% of the global carbon budget by 2050. This has to be stopped.”

How? That’s the complicated, momentous question facing the more than 150 United Nations member states participating in negotiations to develop a global plastics treaty.

During discussions at the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) meeting in November 2024—intended to be the fifth and final meeting held since 2022—negotiators came closer to hammering out an agreement, but a small group of nations and petrochemical companies blocked progress. Now, crucial decisions will occur at the next round of talks in August 2025, when countries will have another chance to finalize the treaty text and set ambitious measures to counter the rising plastic pollution that threatens the environment, economy, and human health.

WWF, in concert with companies, nonprofit groups, and citizen activists representing communities, is continuing to advocate for ambitious change, beginning with a global ban on harmful and unnecessary plastic products and their most dangerous related chemicals. In addition, the coalition is pushing for a reduction of plastics manufacturing and the redesign and phase-out of problematic plastics—especially single-use products such as plastic bags, bottles, beverage straws, and coffee stirrers designed to be tossed after one use or that can’t feasibly be recycled because they’re too small.

To be effective, WWF argues, the treaty must also include a dedicated financial mechanism that will provide equitable, accessible support for all countries—particularly developing ones—to implement the treaty, as well as requirements for strengthening and adapting it over time.

This overarching focus on the front end of plastics’ life cycle represents a shift from the back-end approach common in earlier decades, which typically concentrated on waste management, site cleanups, and recycling.

A dinosaur head molded from plastic© Javier Jaén© Javier Jaén

Plastic waste can take anywhere from 20 to 500 years to decompose. But it never fully disappears—it just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces.

“If you had a leak in your bathroom, would you first bring out a mop and start cleaning it up, or would you first stop the leak?” asks Simon. “Obviously, you’d stop the leak. But to do that, we have to make less. We can’t manage what we have today, let alone twice that. This is why WWF’s strategy is primarily about turning off the tap of plastics production and stopping that leakage at all points.”

Many businesses are on board with this approach, asking for common goals and stricter, standardized regulations. To unite them, in 2022, WWF and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation convened the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty, whose members now include more than 240 major corporations, financial institutions, NGOs, and other organizations that support a shared vision for a circular economy in which plastics never become waste or pollution.

Research shows just 56 companies are responsible for more than half of the world’s branded plastic waste. Together, names such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, and others are calling for a treaty that reduces plastics production, sets policies around design and reuse, and improves waste management streams, accelerating systemic change across the plastics life cycle.

Another major thrust of WWF’s strategy is fostering collective, coordinated action by all stakeholders, including plastics producers, governments, communities, and individuals. “It can’t be just one of those groups,” Simon says.

Perhaps most important, the treaty would be legally binding, with all signatories agreeing to its terms and subject to international scrutiny and accountability. “Compliance can’t be voluntary—that doesn’t work,” adds Simon. “It’s the difference between countries pledging to try or being required to act.”

Amelia Landers headshot

Amelia Landers

Vice President, Partner & Customer Solutions Innovation, Starbucks

By itself, one disposable plastic cover on a single-use paper coffee cup might not seem like much of a problem. But it adds up to tons of plastic waste entering the environment every day. That’s why the world’s largest coffeehouse—a member of the Business Coalition for a Global Plastics Treaty—has tested more than 25 programs designed to enable and encourage customers to drink their morning joe from reusable cups.

“Reuse is a crucial part of our goal to reduce waste in the landfills by 50% by 2030,” says Amelia Landers, Starbucks’s vice president of Partner and Customer Solutions Innovation. “It’s mission-critical for our business and part of our consumer brand to focus on the cup—our most visible obligation in terms of reducing our plastic waste footprint.”

One promising idea is to offer reusable cups customers can borrow, use, and then return to a bin. (Members of the Starbucks Rewards loyalty program would get credit for returning the cup by scanning it on their phones.) While in-store logistics are still being negotiated, in the short term, Starbucks has partnered with third-party companies to remove the cups, sanitize them to code, then bring them back into circulation through Starbucks’s existing distribution network, Landers says. “That way, we’re not putting another truck on the road and adding carbon emissions.”

The company is also incentivizing the use of For Here mugs and cups that can be used in stores along with customers’ own personal mugs. In January 2024, Starbucks was the first national coffee retailer to accept personal mugs in all order channels, including drive-throughs and mobile orders, and now offers a 10-cent discount for drinks served in them.

Beyond scaling back plastics production and waste, WWF and its negotiating partners support stronger policies that will enable a transition to a more circular plastics economy.

One tool that has broad support is called extended producer responsibility, or EPR. In effect for years in Australia, Canada, and parts of Europe, EPR is an environmental policy that holds companies responsible for funding and managing plastic products throughout their life cycle, shifting the burden of plastic waste and recycling away from city or state municipalities back onto the companies that make plastic products.

In some EPR programs, for example, producers pay “eco-modulated” fees for their plastic packaging materials—higher fees for materials with a heavier environmental toll and lower ones for more sustainable choices. This payment structure, which accounts for factors such as material type and recyclability, can nudge companies toward reducing their plastic footprint, adopting reuse and refill models, and using more recycled content.

“The best EPR models have built-in systems that incentivize producers to move the end of life of their plastic products to more circular end points over time and can encourage innovation,” explains Dr. Fisk Johnson, Chairman and CEO of SC Johnson, a member of the business coalition. He says that SC Johnson has been working to incorporate recycled plastic into its products for more than 30 years, but that companies like his still face challenges, including a limited supply of recycled plastic and varying standards for design and recyclability. “The solution,” he says, “is getting everyone in the plastic ecosystem to work collectively to level the competitive playing field and capture economies of scale. That takes a regulatory framework like EPR.”

A plastic fork molded to look like a hand© Javier Jaén

84% of Americans agree our economy needs to shift from one that throws things away to one that favors reuse and recycling.

“By improving the effectiveness of recycling systems,” he adds, “EPR programs could increase recycling rates and considerably broaden access to recycling services.” And they could help finance and build recycling capacity in lower-income and small island countries, which produce and consume less plastic than higher-income nations yet bear the brunt of the pollution problem and often lack systems to safely manage it.

Simon is especially optimistic about the potential impact of EPR in the US, where the overall recycling rate is just 8.5%, one of the worst among high-income countries. In the five states that have enacted EPR legislation since 2017—California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, and Oregon—recycling rates are likely to be dramatically higher or will be soon.

But while the country is making strides, she says, “we need clear, coordinated federal policies to replace the hodgepodge of largely ineffective recycling systems across states and to enable companies to deploy circular solutions more effectively.”

Dr. Johnson agrees. “Federal EPR legislation can significantly reduce the complexity and costs that are beginning to emerge from differing state-by-state regulation,” he says. “We need a common standard—design criteria, labeling criteria, product criteria—that states should adhere to as they choose to implement their own EPR systems.”

Now, says Dr. Johnson, one of the big questions going forward is, “How do we preserve the enormous benefits of plastic we enjoy today but solve the pollution problem and do it in a way that doesn’t hurt people who can least afford the necessary changes?”

Looking ahead to the INC 5.2 negotiations, he, Simon, and other business coalition members and partners are cautiously hopeful that such a goal is achievable—and that they can successfully bridge divides and reach an agreement despite pushbacks over language around sustainable production and consumption, chemicals of concern, and financial mechanisms to support waste management infrastructure in the least developed countries.

Diana Wold headshot

Diana Wold

WWF-US Donor

For Diana Wold, who splits her time between Boca Raton, Florida, and Santa Barbara, California, the fight against plastic pollution is deeply personal.

The immense threat it poses to the coastal communities where she lives and to the environment at large inspires her generous support of WWF’s work to address the plastic waste crisis and her involvement with several like-minded organizations, including Beyond Plastics, the Plastic Pollution Coalition, Rachel’s Network, and West Virginia Rivers Coalition. She also helped fund a movie on the topic, Single-Use Planet, which was released by PBS in February 2025.

“Plastic really has done so many good things for us and for society, but there is this dark underbelly that we all have to contend with,” she says. “It’s omnipresent in our lives, and it’s destroying our planet.”

Through her philanthropy and activism—and through the work of WWF and other organizations—Wold hopes to drive transformative change. “There is so much more awareness about the dangers of single-use plastics and the issue of plastic pollution than there was just a few years ago. The movement is spreading, voices are getting louder, and that’s promising,” she says, adding that we have to make serious progress now, before it’s too late.

“Thinking that this might go away, that our beautiful blue marble in space might be damaged irreparably, keeps me focused and motivated to do all I can.” 

Circular economies will help stem our demand for new virgin plastics by ensuring that the plastic products we rely on every day are reused and recycled, and that the valuable resources we’re taking from the planet to make the material aren’t quickly ending up as the trash polluting it.

But there’s still a lot of work to do to get to the finish line, says Simon. “Countries must come to the table ready to fight for our future,” she says. “The current draft has some of the key ingredients for success, but we can’t back down on delivering a legally binding text that finally puts us on a course to eliminate plastic pollution.”

In the end, Simon says, we must mend the broken and complex system that has gotten us to where we are today. “To address the plastic crisis at the scope and scale necessary, we need holistic, systemic change and smart plastic policy on the national and global levels,” she says. “We need an all-in approach so the plastics and materials that we manufacture and use can be recycled into valuable products that we use again and again and again. That,” she concludes, “is our best hope.”

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World Wildlife magazine provides an inspiring, in-depth look at the connections between animals, people and our planet. Published quarterly by WWF, the magazine helps make you a part of our efforts to solve some of the most pressing issues facing the natural world.

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