CONCEPT FOR SOLVING THE PROBLEM OF POLYMER WASTE AND CLEANING THE WORLD OCEAN

Plastic pollution of the World ocean is a pressing problem of the international level. According to the most conservative estimates, millions of tons of plastic are dumped into the ocean every year, and the area of the Great Pacific Patch is 1.5 million square kilometers. Unfortunately, today the international community is being forced to adopt approaches to solving this problem that have no serious scientific basis and are deeply contradictory in their basis. The essence of the measures proposed by developed countries is to fix the current state of affairs, in which a small circle of countries has developed industry and technology (including the production of a wide range of polymeric materials), while for the rest of the world such development is artificially restrained for environmental reasons. The only way out of this situation was the development of a systemic, sovereign concept of the Russian Academy of Sciences aimed at solving the problem of polymer waste, and its further promotion both on the territory of our country and jointly with interested countries. The developed Concept assumes solving the problem of polymer waste using nature-like methods and technologies, choosing the most economical and safe of them. It is the result of a broad discussion in the professional community of specialists in the field of polymer materials science and ecology.