but as the study shows, it offers the strongest economic, social, and climate benefits. In contrast, business-as-usual is driven by four main cumulative trends: population growth, rising per capita plastic use, shifts to low-value and hard-to-recycle materials, and disproportionate growth in markets with low plastic collection rates.13 In this context, an opportunity beckons for the plastics value chain to deliver better systemwide economic and environmental outcomes: First, in a circular economy we must eliminate the plastics that we do not need. Secondly, we must circulate the plastics that we do need. Deploying all known solutions at maximum speed and scale would still result in more than 150 million tonnes of plastic waste being incinerated, landfilled, or mismanaged every year by 2040. So we must also innovate at unprecedented speed a...

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