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The U.S. Plastics Problem: The Road To Circularity, Ruth Jebe

Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Plastics pollution has been an issue in the United States since discovery of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch catapulted it to the forefront of news reporting. Regulatory and academic activity around plastics has had a common feature: it focused almost exclusively on one stage in plastics’ linear model and framed the problem as a waste problem. Challenges have come in two forms: the shift from the linear production model of take-make-waste to a sustainability paradigm represented by the concept of circular production, and disruption of the global plastics waste supply chain occasioned by changes in China’s waste import policies. These …