Background
Our methodology is based on MRIO analysis. In MRIO analysis, the world economy is aggregated into a given number of regions and industrial sectors, whose transactional, environmental and socioeconomic accounts are captured for a given period22,51,52. This allows the environmental and socioeconomic impacts of these regions and sectors to be assessed along the global value chain23,24,25,26,53. Standard MRIO analysis is accurate for assessing the impacts of plastics end products such as tableware directly purchased by households25,26,27,28,54,55. However, most plastics are not directly used by households but intermediately by the industry, such as plastics for food packaging, for construction materials or in electronic products. The impacts of these intermediately used plastics could not previously be properly addressed by standard MRIO methodology25,26,27,28,54,55 due to double counting29,30,31,32,56. This methodical issue…
