Holistic, system-level assessments of products and processes are necessary when designing for circularity and environmental impact. This analysis requires foresight of life cycle outcomes and recognition of tradeoffs between impacts. Historically, missing from formal methods (e.g., LCA) has been an accounting of a plastic's persistence in the environment ; despite its recognized contribution to the adverse impacts of plastic pollution . Previously, there was limited data on degradation rates and undefined frameworks for evaluating persistence and tradeoffs with other environmental impacts and metrics of circularity . Now, with data from this study and newly developed frameworks , evaluating plastics based on material efficiency and persistence is achievable. In this section, we provide a system-level assessment for redesigning plastic articles for food storage applications, considering material selection metrics, economic and societal costs, and aspects of renewability and circularity.