Mitigating life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of plastics is perceived as energy intensive and costly. We developed a bottom-up model that represents the life cycle of 90% of global plastics to examine pathways to net-zero emission plastics. Our results show that net-zero emission plastics can be achieved by combining biomass and carbon dioxide (CO₂) utilization with an effective recycling rate of 70% while saving 34 to 53% of energy. Operational costs for net-zero emission plastics are in the same range as those for linear fossil-based production with carbon capture and storage and could even be substantially reduced. Realizing the full cost-saving potential of 288 billion US dollars requires low-cost supply of biomass and CO₂, high-cost supply of oil, and incentivizing large-scale recycling and lowering investment barriers for all technologies that use renewable carbon feedstock.

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通过循环碳经济实现净零温室气体排放塑料

减少塑料的生命周期温室气体排放被认为是能源密集型和成本高昂的。我们开发了一个自下而上的模型，该模型代表了全球 90% 塑料的生命周期，以检查实现净零排放塑料的途径。我们的研究结果表明，通过将生物质和二氧化碳 (CO ₂ ) 结合利用，可以实现净零排放塑料，有效回收率为 70%，同时节省 34% 至 53% 的能源。净零排放塑料的运营成本与具有碳捕获和储存的线性化石生产的运营成本相同，甚至可以大幅降低。实现 2880 亿美元的全部成本节约潜力需要低成本的生物质和 CO _2供应，高成本的石油供应，并鼓励大规模回收利用并降低所有使用可再生碳原料的技术的投资壁垒。