OECD | A Chemicals Perspective on Designing with Sustainable Plastics - Goals, Considerations and Trade-offs

Executive Summary: The development of plastic products does not systematically take sustainability, particularly from a chemicals perspective, into account. The challenge in creating sustainable plastic products revolves around the selection of sustainable materials, but also the overall system within which the product circulates. A sustainable plastic product operates in a system, to which the design of the product and its plastic materials are adapted.

The objective of this document is to enable the creation of inherently sustainable plastic products by integrating sustainable chemistry thinking in the design process. Sustainable plastics have been outlined by the OECD to be “plastics used in products that provide societal benefits while enhancing human and environmental health and safety across the entire product life cycle”.