The growing amount of plastics consumed globally is a huge challenge. To counteract the increasing plastic pollution, the United Nations initiated negotiations for a binding global agreement against plastic pollution. Civil society, including Greenpeace, called for a 75 per cent reduction in plastic pollution by 2040. However, no results have been achieved in the negotiations to date, so another round of negotiations is being conducted. The short study "Kunststoffe in Deutschland" (English: Plastics in Germany) is intended to support these preparations.
The study provides an overview of the current status quo regarding production, trade, deployment, and use of plastics in Germany. The authors also examine future developments. To this end, they compare recent scenarios on the development of plastics use in Germany and conduct their own scenario calculations on plastics use, which were prepared specifically for this study: They present a trend scenario, the possible effects of technical approaches in the recycling scenario, as well as the possible effects of behavioral changes and substitutions in the system change scenario.
The results show that without countermeasures, the amount of plastics consumed will continue to rise, from the current level of around 13 million tons to almost 18 million tons in 2050. If technological potential is gradually exploited, it will contribute to increasing the amount of recycled material used, so less imported recycled material is needed. However, a clear trend reversal with declining plastics consumption will only occur if further potentials are exploited, such as substitution, sufficiency, and reusable solutions.