Our Plastic Future: Design in the Age of Plastic Waste
JUNE 2021
It’s estimated that at least 8 million tons of plastic enter the oceans every year¹. That is roughly one garbage truck of plastic entering the ocean every minute of every day.
Plastic has become one of the defining materials of modern life. From packaging to consumer goods, production has increased dramatically over the past century, sustaining a global waste problem that will persist for generations.
At the current growth rate, the amount of plastic entering the ocean is projected to double by 2030². By 2050, plastic in the ocean is expected to outweigh fish³.
This rise of plastic consumption is a multifaceted problem. While plastic pollution is often framed as a consumer waste problem, waste is also a design outcome. Every decision surrounding material selection, packaging lifespan, manufacturability, distribution, and disposal shapes whether a product becomes reusable infrastructure or environmental debris.
Designers play a central role in shaping material culture because design decisions determine how materials move through extraction, production, consumption, and waste systems. Packaging is not only a branding exercise, it is infrastructure with environmental consequences that can persist for centuries.
I spoke with Plastic Bank about the growing crisis of microplastics and the broader pollution challenges their program aims to address. As a designer working in the legal cannabis industry, I was interested in understanding how this sector contributes to consumer packaging waste and what more responsible design solutions might look like.
Cannabis packaging is tightly regulated, which makes reducing material waste particularly challenging. During the first year of legalization in Canada, the cannabis sector produced approximately 6 million kg of plastic waste⁴.
This represents only a small fraction of global single-use plastic production. According to the 2023 Plastic Waste Makers Index, just 20 companies account for more than half of the world’s single-use plastic waste⁵. Single-use plastics remain one of the largest contributors to global pollution. Disposable products such as bottles, packaging, and shopping bags make up a significant share of the waste entering ecosystems worldwide. In 2019 alone, macroplastics (pieces larger than 0.5 mm) accounted for roughly 20 million metric tons of plastic leakage into the environment⁶.
“Anyone drinking normal tap water over the course of one year is drinking the same amount of plastic as it would take to make a credit card.
There are amazing companies with dredging boats that go out into the ocean and they pull the plastic out. But even all those organizations put together are nowhere near rescuing a million tonnes each year. And we’re putting 8 million tons into the ocean. So we have to approach it differently.
The way that our founder talks about this, he refers to walking into a kitchen where the sink is overflowing. There’s water flowing over the counter, pouring into the dog’s bed, leaking across the floor. What’s the first thing you do? It shouldn’t be grabbing a mop and bucket. The first thing is to turn off the tap.”
– Phil Shuttlewood, Plastic Bank
The scale of plastic pollution is so severe that international legislative frameworks addressing marine pollution should not only be maintained, but strengthened. Without intervention, plastic pollution will continue threatening ocean systems and the communities that depend on them.
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Plastic debris harms hundreds of marine species through ingestion, suffocation, and entanglement. Marine animals frequently mistake plastic for prey, leading to starvation, internal injury, and death. Floating plastics also transport invasive species across ecosystems, disrupting biodiversity and marine food webs.
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Microplastics have been detected in tap water, salt, beer, and ocean samples worldwide. Chemicals associated with plastic production may interfere with endocrine function and have been linked to developmental, reproductive, neurological, and immune disorders. Microplastics have also been found in human placentas, though research into long-term impacts remains ongoing.
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Plastic pollution degrades coastal environments and tourist destinations. Accumulated waste increases cleanup costs, reduces tourism revenue, and negatively impacts local economies and community well-being.
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Plastic production relies heavily on fossil fuels, while plastic waste releases greenhouse gases during incineration and decomposition. As global plastic production increases, so does its contribution to climate emissions.
Plastic Bank operates as an environmental, social, and economic impact organization. Their model creates solar-powered recycling ecosystems in vulnerable coastal communities, many located near ocean-bound rivers or shorelines where plastic waste frequently enters marine environments.
Through this system, local micro-entrepreneurs collect discarded plastic and exchange it for payment based on the material’s value as a recoverable resource. By creating a financial incentive for recovery, plastic waste becomes a form of economic opportunity rather than environmental neglect.
The program provides collectors with a premium for recovered material, helping transform waste collection into a viable income source. In regions where the global poverty line may be roughly equivalent to $1.70 USD per day, even modest economic opportunities can significantly affect household stability.
Plastic Bank also uses a blockchain-based tracking system to document each stage of the recovery process. Because blockchain records cannot be altered retroactively, the system provides transparent traceability for recovered plastic, allowing companies and organizations to verify the origins and lifecycle of the materials they use.
This approach reframes sustainability as both a systems design challenge and an accountability problem. Transparency within supply chains is often invisible to consumers, yet design determines how information is tracked, communicated, and verified across global production networks.
This brings me back to my original question: how can the legal cannabis space as a CPG industry become more environmentally responsible as a contributor to consumer packaging waste?
As the industry matures, environmental initiatives addressing waste and climate impact will become an increasingly important part of its contribution to public well-being.
Most provinces in Canada, including Ontario, already operate extended producer responsibility (EPR) programs that hold packaging producers financially accountable for recycling or disposal. Additional initiatives such as TerraCycle, HyRyse, and (Re)Waste have also emerged to support specialized packaging collection and recycling.
However, regulatory requirements imposed by Health Canada often require packaging materials that are difficult to process within standard recycling systems. Many cannabis containers rely on complex plastics that require specialized reclamation programs before they can be properly recycled or reused. Despite these constraints, some companies are investing in alternative packaging systems intended to reduce environmental impact.
One of the most persistent challenges in sustainability is greenwashing. This is when companies market environmentally responsible practices without verifiable evidence. Plastic Bank’s tracking system addresses this issue directly. Their blockchain platform allows organizations to trace recovered plastic through each stage of the supply chain, identifying the collectors, locations, and processing stages involved. This level of transparency creates measurable accountability, distinguishing verified recovery systems from sustainability claims that cannot be substantiated.
On an individual level, recycling can help reduce the amount of plastic entering the environment and decrease demand for newly produced materials. Replacing single-use plastics with biodegradable alternatives may also reduce long-term environmental damage.
However, recycling and individual behavior alone cannot solve the plastic pollution crisis at the scale required. The issue ultimately requires systemic change in how plastics are designed, produced, distributed, used, and recovered. Designers, manufacturers, and policymakers all play a role in reshaping these systems. Supporting legislation that limits unnecessary plastic production and encourages responsible material use is one way to address the source of the problem rather than simply managing its consequences.
This issue is not solely about consumer responsibility or individual behavior. It is about the systems we design around production, accountability, recovery, and material use. Design influences what gets manufactured, what gets discarded, what gets recovered, and what remains invisible within global supply chains. As environmental pressures intensify, sustainability will increasingly depend on whether products and systems are designed for short-term consumption or long-term responsibility.
Because ultimately, the future of plastic is not only about waste, it is about how we design the systems that produce it.
Selected Research and References
¹ United Nations Environment Programme. From Pollution to Solution: A Global Assessment of Marine Litter and Plastic Pollution. Published 2021.
² Pew Charitable Trusts. Breaking the Plastic Wave. Published 2020.
³ World Economic Forum. The New Plastics Economy. Published 2016.
⁴ Deloitte Canada. An Industry Makes Its Mark: Canadian Cannabis Industry Report. Published 2022.
⁵ Minderoo Foundation. Plastic Waste Makers Index 2023.
⁶ International Union for Conservation of Nature. Plastic Pollution Issues Brief.