Peer-reviewed studies, the media, and other environmental reporting commonly confuse the two competing pressures of plastic pollution and climate change.
It makes sense in this case. The primary source of human-caused climate change is the burning of fossil fuels, which is also the source of most plastics.
The time window for reducing emissions to maintain warming at levels set by international agreement is quickly approaching, and it would seem reasonable to draw the conclusion that any “extra” fossil carbon from plastic pollution will have an adverse effect on the climate. We investigate this subject with a model of the Earth system. We discovered that the impact of carbon leaching from current plastic pollution is minimal. The creation of new plastics, which already contributes 4.5% of all emissions worldwide and is predicted to rise, is the greater cause for concern. Read more-