SAN FRANCISCO, April 16 (Xinhua) -- U.S. researchers have found plastic's substantial impact on climate change after they conducted the first global assessment of the life cycle of greenhouse gas emissions from plastics, a new study said Monday.
The researchers led by Sangwon Suh, professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara, discovered that the production and consumption of plastics emit greenhouse gases, even after the plastic products were dumped.
In 2015, the emissions from plastic were equivalent to about 1.8 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, according to their study. The findings were published in the Nature Climate Change journal.
The researchers forecasted that the emissions would continue to grow as the global demand for plastic is expected to rise by about 22 percent over the next five years.
"If we truly want to limit global mean temperature rise from the pre-industrial era below 1.5 degrees Celsius, there is no room for increasing greenhouse gas emissions," Suh said.
The researchers suggested several strategies to control plastic-related emissions, including recycling and cutting the demand for plastic products, as well as increasing the percentage of bio-based plastics.
As 90.5 percent of plastic was not recycled across the globe, replacing fossil-based energy with renewable sources can cut the largest amount of plastic's greenhouse gas emissions overall, said the researchers.
"The public really has to understand the magnitude of the challenge that we are facing," Suh said.
