The development of packaging policies stems from intersecting challenges being faced by economies across the world. On one hand, growth in population has led to an increase in consumption and consequently an increase in the amount of per capita waste generation.

Europe relies heavily on material resources for almost all of society’s activities. Its extraction and production of material resources have significant impacts on the environment and human health, as well as on the economy.

The positive scale of global efforts to prevent plastic pollution has been revealed in a new report published by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, in collaboration with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

A new report from Greenpeace contends that multinational consumer goods companies are addressing the global plastics crisis with “false solutions.” Some of those solutions, the group says, harm the environment, such as the replacement of plastic straws with paper ones.

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.

Microplastics are increasingly found in drinking water, but there is no evidence so far that this poses a risk to humans, according to a new assessment by the World Health Organization.