Plastic packaging has gained an increasing amount of attention in all aspects of society. Over the past several decades, plastics became the material of choice due to their excellent properties, performance, and economics, but the end of life of plastics is not well managed. This has led to plastic waste in our environment, especially the oceans, rivers, and estuaries, driving legislative, industrial, and voluntary initiatives to make the necessary pivot to circularity. While the plastics recycling industry has made many advances in its relatively short life, there are still many technical and societal hurdles to be overcome. The goal of this work is not to provide a complete review of recycling as it pertains to circularity, but rather to highlight the technical gaps that need to be collaboratively addressed by the entire plastics community to achieve circularity. Each stage along the path, from design of packaging and materials of construction to sortation, recycling, and reprocessing are ripe for innovation. The most relevant issues are introduced to provide a starting point for research across all fields of polymer science to aid in reducing the environmental impact of plastic packaging waste.

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高分子科学100周年视点：塑料包装循环的需求

塑料包装越来越受到社会各方面的关注。在过去的几十年里，塑料因其优异的性能、性能和经济性而成为首选材料，但塑料的寿命结束并没有得到很好的管理。这导致了我们环境中的塑料垃圾，尤其是海洋、河流和河口，推动了立法、工业和自愿举措，以实现必要的循环转型。虽然塑料回收行业在其相对较短的生命周期中取得了许多进步，但仍有许多技术和社会障碍需要克服。这项工作的目标不是对与循环有关的回收进行全面审查，而是强调需要由整个塑料界共同解决以实现循环的技术差距。从包装和建筑材料的设计到分类、回收和再加工的每个阶段都适合创新。介绍了最相关的问题，为聚合物科学所有领域的研究提供一个起点，以帮助减少塑料包装废物对环境的影响。