Some 5-12 million metric tons of plastics waste enter our ocean every year. A wide range of policy responses has been applied by different countries as they try to address plastics pollution.  This innovation helped to create and expand the world’s first global plastics policy tracking tool which will help stakeholders at all levels to identify and replicate best practices in plastics policy development and implementation.  The project also identified trends in plastics policy tools as a means to predict trends in plastics material flows.

• Global plastics policy and regulatory database
  The project involves a database of policy documents as the primary unit of information and builds upon the research conducted at Duke University in 2019 and early 2020, creating a prototype and non-exhaustive Plastics Policy Inventory spanning the years 2000 through 2019.
• Trends in plastic policy tools and their impacts
  It looks into developing standardized analytical products on trends based from government responses to plastic pollution and translating the data into information and visualizations for easy use by targeted stakeholders.
• Dissemination and transfer of best practice
  The group will conduct outreach, capacity-building activities, and the facilitation of knowledge management and information sharing of best practices, lessons learned, among others.

Visit the Global Plastics Policy Database: https://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/plastics-policy-inventory

Read: 

• Inequitable distribution of plastic benefits and burdens on economies and public health I Frontiers
• The evolving global plastics policy landscape: An inventory and effectiveness review I Elsevier
• How are governments responding to global plastic pollution? A glimpse of the Plastics Policy Inventory, and a COVID-19 update
• A coordinated digital response to plastic wastes: The Global Plastics Policy Inventory       
• Efforts to stop plastic pollution slowed during pandemic, report finds
• Analysis finds plastic pollution prevention efforts slowed during pandemic

Implementation status: Completed

• Progress summary as of November 2022 (PDF)
• Watch the recording (En/Fr/Es) and access the first Annual Trends in Plastics Policy: A Brief launched on 23 February 2022, 0900-1000 New York.