A global plastic treaty must cap production

Bergmann, Melanie; Almroth, Bethanie Carney; Brander, Susanne M.; Dey, Tridibesh; Green, Dannielle S.; Gündoğdu, Sedat; Krieger, Anja; Wagner, Martin; Walker, Tony R.

doi:10.1126/science.abq0082

Cited by 124 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…We must incorporate diverse viewpoints, including industry representatives and experts who are geographically distributed and be unafraid to test innovative approaches. This article shares novel strategies to add to the growing discourse (e.g., Bergmann et al, 2022;Zhu and Rochman, 2022) on tools to consider as we draft an international treaty to reduce plastic pollution (Simon et al, 2021). Through extensive cross-sector and transdisciplinary collaboration and transboundary coordination, society can begin to pave the way toward global plastics sustainability.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A transdisciplinary approach to reducing global plastic pollution

Diana

Karasik²,

Merrill³

et al. 2022

Front. Mar. Sci.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A transdisciplinary approach to reducing global plastic pollution

Diana

Karasik²,

Merrill³

et al. 2022

Front. Mar. Sci.

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“…It should be noted that this notion of addressing chemicals in plastics does not preclude any action on restraining plastic consumption and production, , particularly single-use ones, given the worldwide limited technical capacity to handle plastic waste , and their already ubiquitous presence in the environment . Rather, restraining the consumption and production allows us to focus the finite human and financial resources on better addressing chemicals in those plastics that are currently in uses essential for the health, safety, and functioning of our society but without technically and economically feasible alternatives that are acceptable from the standpoint of the environment and health …”

Section: Recommended Key Elements For Addressing Chemicals In Plastic...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating a Chemicals Perspective into the Global Plastic Treaty

Wang

Praetorius

2022

Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett.

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Driven by the growing concern about plastic pollution, countries have agreed to establish a global plastic treaty addressing the full life cycle of plastics. However, while plastics are complex materials consisting of mixtures of chemicals such as additives, processing aids, and nonintentionally added substances, it is at risk that the chemical aspects of plastics may be overlooked in the forthcoming treaty. This is highly concerning because a large variety of over 10,000 chemical substances may have been used in plastic production, and many of them are known to be hazardous to human health and the environment. In this Global Perspective, we further highlight an additional, generally overlooked, but critical aspect that many chemicals in plastics hamper the technological solutions envisioned to solve some of the major plastic issues: mechanical recycling, waste-to-energy, chemical recycling, biobased plastics, biodegradable plastics, and durable plastics. Building on existing success stories, we outline three concrete recommendations on how the chemical aspects can be integrated into the global plastic treaty to ensure its effectiveness: (1) reducing the complexity of chemicals in plastics, (2) ensuring the transparency of chemicals in plastics, and (3) aligning the right incentives for a systematic transition.

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“…Figure 17A,B shows the extrapolated predictions of T g and T m , respectively, in three ternary PHA spaces over their entire compositional range. The showcased copolymers are the following: [1] poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate-co-3-hydroxy-4-methylvalerate), [2] poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3hydroxyhexanoate-co-3-hydroxy-5-phenylvalerate), and [3] poly(3-hydroxy-5-phenylvalerate-co-3-hydroxy-6-phenylhexanoate-co-3-hydroxy-6-(p-methylphenoxy)hexanoate). These 3 copolymers were selected because of their diverse chemistries: [1] exhibits aliphatic side chains only, [2] has a mixture of aliphatic and aromatic side chains, and [3] exhibits aromatic side chains only.…”

Section: Ternary Copolymer Extrapolationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multitask Neural Network for Mapping the Glass Transition and Melting Temperature Space of Homo- and Co-Polyhydroxyalkanoates Using σ_Profiles Molecular Inputs

Boublia

Lemaoui

AlYammahi

et al. 2022

ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng.

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Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are an emerging type of bioplastic that have the potential to replace petroleum-based plastics. They are biosynthetizable, biodegradable, and economically viable and have a range of tunable properties. Despite their great potential, the structure and properties of PHA remain unexplored due to their theoretically infinite chemical space. Therefore, computational approaches for accurate predictions of their various properties need to be developed to effectively explore this large chemical space. For this purpose, this work presents a multitask artificial neural network (ANN) capable of predicting the glass transition temperature (T g ) and melting temperature (T m ) of PHA homopolymers and copolymers. The ANN inputs included the σ Profiles as molecular parameters describing the monomer chemistry and their composition. In contrast, the polymer molecular weight (M) and polydispersity index (PDI) were used to describe the polymer state. The results showed that after optimizing the hyperparameters, the selected ANN architecture was remarkable in predicting the T g and T m of PHA with R 2 values of 0.979 and 0.986 and average absolute relative deviation (AARD) of 0.476% and 0.520%, respectively. The proposed model represents an initiative to promote the development of robust, open source, and user-friendly models capable of predicting the properties of polymers based solely on molecular parameters (σ Profiles ), thereby saving time and resources for researchers worldwide. The framework described in this work is flexible so that it can be applied to a larger chemical space and incorporate other properties of polymers.

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A global plastic treaty must cap production

Cited by 124 publications

References 9 publications

A transdisciplinary approach to reducing global plastic pollution

A transdisciplinary approach to reducing global plastic pollution

Integrating a Chemicals Perspective into the Global Plastic Treaty

Multitask Neural Network for Mapping the Glass Transition and Melting Temperature Space of Homo- and Co-Polyhydroxyalkanoates Using σ_Profiles Molecular Inputs

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A global plastic treaty must cap production

Cited by 124 publications

References 9 publications

A transdisciplinary approach to reducing global plastic pollution

A transdisciplinary approach to reducing global plastic pollution

Integrating a Chemicals Perspective into the Global Plastic Treaty

Multitask Neural Network for Mapping the Glass Transition and Melting Temperature Space of Homo- and Co-Polyhydroxyalkanoates Using σProfiles Molecular Inputs

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Multitask Neural Network for Mapping the Glass Transition and Melting Temperature Space of Homo- and Co-Polyhydroxyalkanoates Using σ_Profiles Molecular Inputs