Researchers suggest that a circular bioeconomy using bio-based feedstocks can significantly reduce the environmental impact of the global plastics sector. While high greenhouse gas emission prices and circular strategies are not enough, their combination with bio-based feedstocks, zero-emission electricity and high-quality recycling could potentially transform the sector into a carbon sink. This requires improved waste management, circular product design and greater use of chemical recycling. A circular bioeconomy can dramatically reduce the climate, pollution and resource consumption impacts of the rapidly growing plastics sector. Under current policies, global plastics production is likely to triple by 2100. Today, the plastics sector is responsible for almost 5 % of all greenhouse gas emissions. By providing emission-free electricity for the circular bioplastics industry and avoiding waste incineration, the sector could even grow to become a form of carbon sink. This is the conclusion of the article in the journal Nature , recently published by researchers from Utrecht University, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), the Netherlands Association for Sustainable Energy (NVDE) and the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO). None of the models used for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports elaborated on the details of the plastics industry. So researchers developed a new model to examine four scenarios for the global plastics sector. They showed that a high price on greenhouse gas emissions, which meets the two-degree target of the Paris Climate Agreement, is not enough on its own to incentivize the plastics industry to switch from fossil fuels to bio-based feedstocks and a circular economy. Climate policy may even lead to more plastic landfills by preventing CO emissions₂ and is cheaper than other forms of waste treatment. Limitations of circular strategies: A scenario with more policies focused on the circular plastics sector (including stricter product design requirements and standardization of plastic types) would significantly increase plastic waste recycling, lower resource consumption and further reduce CO2 emissions in the plastics sector by 2050., while avoiding large-scale landfilling. However, focusing on circularity alone would limit further emission reductions in the second half of the century, as the role of plastics in storing biogenic (and therefore non-fossil) carbon is underexploited. In addition, there is not enough plastic waste available to meet the growing demand for plastics through recycling. A fully circular plastics sector is therefore only possible if the demand for plastics is reduced. (Utrecht University, SciTechDaily)