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<p>Microplastics pose a major threat to the environment, and their waste recycling remains critically inadequate globally, requiring effective solutions. In order to address this problem, this study investigates 17 major plastic producing countries and employs seven scenarios, where three are diagnostic (e.g., principal component analysis, K-means clustering, linear regression) to evaluate three distinct intervention strategies (e.g., infrastructure-led development, research and technology-led solutions, and integrated approaches combining infrastructure, research, and policy enforcement). The seventh scenario compares the efficiency of the three predictive intervention scenarios. The results reveal that the infrastructure quality is the strongest predictor of the recycling success (<i>r</i> = 0.427, <i>p</i> = 0.028). An integrated approach combining all the three intervention strategies generates the highest global recycling rate improvement that led to advancing from 21.5% to 40.4% (+ 18.9% points) and diverting an additional 20.91&#xa0;million tonnes of plastic waste annually. The integrated solution benefits 16 of the 17 countries studied, which demonstrate the complementary effects of coordinated infrastructure, research, and policy interventions and provide the most equitable distribution of improvements across diverse country profiles. It is recommended that the implementation should prioritize the United States and China immediately as critical intervention targets due to their large waste volumes, with Indonesia, Brazil, and Mexico as secondary targets to begin their implementations within 1–2 years, maximum.</p> Graphical Abstract <p>Integrated scenario analysis demonstrating superior performance compared to the single-intervention approaches, with the score of United States enhancing from 5% to 26%. China shows progress from 17% to 33% whereas Indonesia achieves the highest percentage of improvement. The integrated approaches reveal substantial recycling potential in the countries of limited infrastructure.</p>

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The Global Challenge of Microplastic Waste Recycling: A Comparative Analysis and Intervention Scenarios

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年6月3日

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  • Ashraf M. T. Elewa,
  • M. Santosh

摘要

Microplastics pose a major threat to the environment, and their waste recycling remains critically inadequate globally, requiring effective solutions. In order to address this problem, this study investigates 17 major plastic producing countries and employs seven scenarios, where three are diagnostic (e.g., principal component analysis, K-means clustering, linear regression) to evaluate three distinct intervention strategies (e.g., infrastructure-led development, research and technology-led solutions, and integrated approaches combining infrastructure, research, and policy enforcement). The seventh scenario compares the efficiency of the three predictive intervention scenarios. The results reveal that the infrastructure quality is the strongest predictor of the recycling success (r = 0.427, p = 0.028). An integrated approach combining all the three intervention strategies generates the highest global recycling rate improvement that led to advancing from 21.5% to 40.4% (+ 18.9% points) and diverting an additional 20.91 million tonnes of plastic waste annually. The integrated solution benefits 16 of the 17 countries studied, which demonstrate the complementary effects of coordinated infrastructure, research, and policy interventions and provide the most equitable distribution of improvements across diverse country profiles. It is recommended that the implementation should prioritize the United States and China immediately as critical intervention targets due to their large waste volumes, with Indonesia, Brazil, and Mexico as secondary targets to begin their implementations within 1–2 years, maximum.

Graphical Abstract

Integrated scenario analysis demonstrating superior performance compared to the single-intervention approaches, with the score of United States enhancing from 5% to 26%. China shows progress from 17% to 33% whereas Indonesia achieves the highest percentage of improvement. The integrated approaches reveal substantial recycling potential in the countries of limited infrastructure.