UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation

The global plastics crisis is one of the most important environmental challenges facing the world today. Although California has historically been proactive in innovating new policy strategies to tackle plastic-related impacts - contributions to climate change and proliferation of microplastics among them - these efforts have largely been local or regional and of limited scope. Now, as the California legislature explores options for comprehensive policy action, it is important to take an expansive view of how overreliance on plastic creates negative impacts across its entire life cycle. To inform this holistic consideration of plastic impacts, researchers at the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation conducted an in-depth review and analysis of scientific research and other sources. This report provides an overview of how plastic is manufactured, used, and disposed of - its "life cycle" - and identifies the environmental, health, and economic harms created in the pre-use, use, and post-use stages. Of particular note are plastic's inseparability from the broader fossil fuel industry, its inherent contributions to climate change, and myriad health and environmental risks created from the extraction, refining, and manufacturing processes involved in bringing plastic to market. The multifaceted nature of plastic impacts highlight the need for large-scale, systemic policy interventions to mitigate harms and move away from the throwaway economy model.