The United States (U.S.) is the second-largest national consumer of plastics in the world, which
directly leads to a large amount of plastic waste. Due to low recycling and incineration rates in the
U.S., 53% of plastic waste was discarded (landfilled or mismanaged) in 2018. Scientific studies
have proved that pollution from discarded plastics has a significant negative impact on the
environment. This study aims to explore feasible pathways for the U.S. to achieve zero plastic
pollution by 2050. This study first developed a dynamic material flow analysis (MFA) model to
assess flows and stocks of nine commonly used plastic polymers in seven commodity sectors with
five end-of-life pathways in the U.S. for almost seven decades (1950 – 2018). The results show
that national plastic pollution increased from 176 thousand metric tons in 1950 to 34,393 thousand
metric tons in 2018. Plastic packaging contributed the most to plastic pollution because it has a
shorter lifespan and a higher discard rate compared with plastics in other sectors. This study also
developed six scenarios to explore pathways of plastic pollution reduction from 2019 to 2050
through seven strategies including 1) adapting a national plastic grocery bag ban, 2) reducing
plastic consumption, 3) improving the lifespan of plastic products, 4) increasing waste recycling
rate, 5) abandoning waste export, 6) avoiding mismanaged waste leakage, and 7) increasing waste
incineration rate to utilize waste resources. Even though each strategy can reduce plastic pollution
to different extents, the U.S. cannot achieve the zero plastic pollution target by 2050 through
implementing one strategy solely. Thus, a combined scenario that implementing multiple strategies
would help the U.S. to achieve zero plastic pollution.Master of ScienceSchool for Environment and SustainabilityUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/167299/1/Kan_Mengqing_Master's thesis.pd
