Plastic heterogeneously affects social systems – notably human as well as local and global establishments. Here we discuss illustrative examples within the benefits and burdens of stage of the plastic lifecycle (e.g., macroplastic production, consumption, recycling). We discover the advantages to communities and stakeholders are principally economic, whereas burdens fall largely on human health. Furthermore, the economic benefits of plastic are rarely applied to alleviate or mitigate the health burdens it creates, amplifying the disconnect between who benefits and who is burdened. In some instances, social enterprises in low-wealth areas collect and recycle waste, creating industry for upcycled goods. While such endeavors generate local socioeconomic benefits, they perpetuate a status quo from which the burden of responsibility for waste management falls on downstream communities, rather than on producers who have generated far larger economic extra benefits. While the traditional cost-benefit analyses that inform decision-making disproportionately weigh economic benefits over the indirect, and they sometimes unquantifiable, costs of health burdens, we stress the need to would be the health burdens of plastic to all impacted stakeholders across all plastic life stages in policy design. We therefore urge the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to think all available knowledge on the deleterious outcomes of plastic across the entire plastic lifecycle while drafting might international global plastic agreement.
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