Abstract
Plastic waste has been a long-standing problem, and this year the world continued to grapple with the growing mountains of discarded plastic products. Governments sought ways to curb plastic use and boost recycling efforts, companies invested in technology to recycle certain problematic plastics, and chemists created novel sustainable polymers. China kicked off 2018 by restricting plastic waste imports with more than 0.5% contaminants, such as food residue or metals. This low threshold effectively meant that many recyclers in the US and elsewhere, which previously shipped their recyclable plastics to China for the labor-intensive sorting process, would have to find alternative solutions. Also in January, the European Commission introduced its first Europe-wide plastics recycling plan, which aims to make all plastic packaging used in the region recyclable by 2030. The plan also includes the goal of recycling 55% of all that packaging material by 2030; currently, Europeans recycle 30% of their
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