Plastic Pollution And Economic Growth: Influence Of Corruption And Lack Of Education

Green economic growth driven by technological solutions is often touted as a remedy for mitigating plastic pollution. However, this economic growth appears to clash with planetary boundaries. By constructing two global socio-economic models, we forecast the inadequately managed plastic waste until 2050 across 217 countries and territories, highlighting the adverse ecological impacts stemming from the absence of regulatory processes and educational environmental programs. We utilized country-specific data from the World Bank for our model estimations. The global cumulative stock of inadequateley managed plastic waste is projected to surge from 61–72 million metric tons (MT) in 1990 to 5109–5678 MT by 2050. Four scenario analyses yield varying narratives: the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario, mitigation scenario 1 (capping GDP), mitigation scenario 2 (extending education), and mitigation scenario 3 (fighting corruption). In the "capping GDP" scenario, the annual amount of inadequately managed plastic waste marginally rises, reaching 64–119 million MT/year in 2050, as opposed to 61–110 million MT/year in the BAU scenario. In the "extending education" scenario, the quantity diminishes by 34% compared to the BAU scenario in 2050. In the "fighting corruption" scenario, the amount decreases by 60%. Further details are provided in our country-by-country predictions.