Abstract
In 2020, the Plastics Policy Inventory and accompanying report, 20 Years of Government
Responses to the Global Plastic Pollution Problem, were published, providing a baseline
for the trends in government responses to the plastic pollution problem, as well as
highlighting some gaps. Since that time, momentum has grown toward negotiation of
an international agreement as a collective response to the problem, even as governments
and resources have been strained by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. This first brief
builds upon the 2020 report and baseline by adding new data on national policy responses
to plastic pollution from 2020 and 2021. Assessment of the more up-to-date policy
inventory suggests that the twenty-year trend of an increase in the number of national
policies introduced to reduce plastic pollution has stalled. While additional data
on national policies may subsequently become available to revise these estimates,
if confirmed they would suggest a pause in government responses to the problem, coinciding
with the pandemic (though we cannot show causality). Our goal is for this brief to
be the first in a regular series of annual updates on the trends in government responses
to the global plastic pollution problem.
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