Advancing Plastics Circularity

Plastics are incredibly versatile materials that have become ubiquitous throughout the modern world and are made today overwhelmingly from fossil fuel derived intermediates. Today, the persistence of plastics in landfills and the natural environment is broadly recognized as an immediate and growing global pollution crisis that the current recycling infrastructure is unable to address. Solutions that advance production, design, use, recovery and reprocessing are needed, including better fundamental understanding of the underpinning science and engineering. Improvements that increase the circular recovery rates will decrease reliance on primary production and reduce negative impacts on future generations.

Accordingly, the goal of this GRC is to assemble an interdisciplinary and international community of researchers to foster new collaborations and to accelerate the science and engineering of plastics recycling, upcycling, and redesign. This meeting will cover topics including understanding the scope of the plastics problem, discovering new approaches to recycle and upcycle today’s plastics, and developing plastics that are recyclable-by-design. Interaction, discussion, and teamwork between biologists, chemists, engineers, environmental scientists, material scientists, sustainability analysts, and others will be critical to generate new solutions, realize evidence-based policy, and ultimately stem the flow of plastics into the natural environment and the world’s landfills, toward the common goal of advancing plastics circularity for a more sustainable future of our planet.