Can We Make Plastic Sustainable?

The many benefits of plastic have come at a great environmental cost. In November, EPA released its first-ever National Recycling Strategy to address key hurdles in the domestic system for plastics, and the National Academies have called for a national strategy to reduce ocean plastic waste. Reducing plastic pollution will require lowering resource consumption and creating a closed loop system for recycling. It will also require plastics that aren’t harmful to human and ecological health.