Bans, taxes and polluter-pays laws are the most potent weapons available to policymakers to fight plastic pollution now.

But these three policy tools will do little to stem the tide of plastic pollution because of the sheer volume of plastic products being consumed by the world’s biggest economies, a new study by Economist Impact and Nippon Foundation suggests.

Bans on single-use plastic, levies on plastic production, and extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes that make firms responsible for post-consumer waste are the three main policy levers that underpin a planned global treaty on plastic trash.

The United Nations-led treaty on plastic pollution, which is expected to come into force by 2024, involves 175 countries and has been billed as the most important piece of environmental legislation since the Paris climate accord.

But even a combination of bans, taxes and EPR laws will not cap plastic consumption, the report, titled Peak Plastics: Bending the consumption curve, predicts. With these measures in place, polymer use in G20 countries is set to rise by 1.25 times the amount currently consumed by 2050.

The report emerges two weeks after researchers found that 6 million tonnes of single-use plastic has been produced over the past two years, and a further 15 million tonnes is expected to be in circulation by 2027 as oil and gas firms pivot from oil to petrochemicals to sustain revenue growth.

The Peak Plastics study suggests that the UN treaty will be too weak to bend the plastic consumption curve downwards, and only the most aggressively applied measures will have any impact at keeping plastic use under control.

Read the full article about plastic production and consumption by Robin Hicks at Eco-Business.