Why our throwaway culture has to end
The plastic waste crisis is a symptom of our single-use approach to products and to solve it we need a new approach - the circular economy.

When you sail around the world, at times you can be 2,500 miles away from the nearest town. This awareness really brings home the fact that what you have on the boat is all you have, there is no more. You understand what finite means.
When I stepped away from professional sailing in 2009, I spent the next four years travelling the world to research the challenges facing our global economy. This led me to translate my understanding of finite to the global economy, which I began to realise is no different from that boat.
As a planet, we have finite materials – oil, metals, minerals and so on – available to us just once. Using them more sparingly and slowly merely delays the date at which we will exhaust them. We cannot continue in this linear fashion. Using less is not a solution, it just buys you time.
The world’s current take-make-dispose linear economy is outdated. It is also the root cause of some of today’s most challenging problems.
Planet Earth faces a waste plastic crisis that no amount of well intentioned clean-ups can solve.
The answer lies in the creation of a circular economy. We need to move beyond a philosophy of single use. All products, and especially plastics, metals and textiles, should be designed with the intention that their raw materials will be recovered and recycled.
The circular economy offers a blueprint for a way of life that is restorative and regenerative. It makes sound business sense. Increasingly, the biggest companies in the world agree – household names such as L’Oréal, Mars, Marks & Spencer and The Coca-Cola Company are now working towards using 100% reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging by 2025 or earlier.
The circular economy also delivers long-term benefits to the environment. It will protect our oceans from the onslaught of plastics and microfibres that they face, keep our shorelines clean, and spare our soils from landfill pollution.
I am delighted that National Geographic has turned its spotlight on this issue. By highlighting the scale of the problems we face as a planet, and outlining a viable framework for a solution, National Geographic can amplify the rallying cry to people, industries, companies and governments to commit to a sustainable future within a circular economy.
Dame Ellen MacArthur is the guest editor for the June 2018 issue, Planet or Plastic.
