Abstract
The United Nations have agreed to negotiate a legally binding instrument to eliminate plastic pollution which includes provisions to reduce environmental emissions of plastic through improved waste management. However, there is a paucity of scientific evidence to prioritize the actions which will have the greatest impact on plastic pollution mitigation and many of the specific emission and transmission pathways are highly challenging to observe and measure. To this, we apply an expert elicitation study to provide a systematic evidence base on which parts of the solid waste management (SWM) system have the highest potential for plastic emission as well as the effectiveness of specific interventions to reduce them. We found that SWM processes closer to the waste generator, such as the waste storage and collection stage, have the greatest potential for plastic emission, with the most effective mitigations often simple solutions, such as provision of rigid containers or ensuring waste is disposed of in bags. Our results contribute to a much-needed evidence base and demonstrate significant reduction in plastic debris emissions is achievable by deploying tangible and effective local SWM infrastructure and service interventions.