Boucher, Julien

This guidance is co-developed by UNEP, IUCN, and the Life Cycle Initiative. It aims to provide a methodological framework for identifying ‘hotspots’ of plastic pollution, finding the leakages and their impacts along the entire plastic value chain, and then providing recommendations for action once these hotspots are identified.

Le plastique a pénétré chaque aspect de notre vie : des vêtements aux peintures en passant par les véhicules et les produits d’hygiène. Le plastique est bon marché, durable, léger et malléable, ses usages sont donc quasi illimités. Les inconvénients du plastique deviennent cependant de plus en plus évidents : il fuit massivement dans les rivières et les océans, avec des effets dévastateurs sur les écosystèmes marins et les activités économiques qui en dépendent.

Plastic pollution originates from various sources. While many industries are taking steps to reduce their dependence on plastic, there is currently no reliable methodology to forecast specifically the extent of the marine plastic leakage from an industry or a country and map potential leakage hotspots throughout the value chain. This report offers, for the first time, a comprehensive framework to measure the inventory of marine plastic leakage, step-by-step and using a life-cycle perspective. It also offers generic data that can be used

Of the 8,300 million tonnes of plastic produced from 1950 to 2015, only 7% has been recycled while more than half has been discarded in landfill or leaked into the environment. Companies, organisations, and governments are taking measures to tackle plastic pollution. However, there is currently no standard methodology to measure the extent of the plastic problem. This report provides a review of existing and emerging methodologies to identify the abundance, distribution, types, sources, pathways and sinks of plastic pollution at different scales.

Plastic has penetrated everyday life, and the disadvantages of plastics are becoming more and more visible: large quantities of plastics leak into rivers and oceans, with adverse effects to marine ecosystems and related economic activities. This report is one of the first of its kind to quantify primary microplastics leakage and to demonstrate that these primary microplastics are globally responsible for a major source of plastics in the oceans.