Plastic Pollution

The first synthetic plastic – Bakelite – was produced in , marking the beginning of the global plastics industry.

However, rapid growth in global plastic production didn’t happen until the s. Over the next 70 years, however, annual production of plastics has increased nearly 230-fold to 460 million tonnes in .

Even just in the last two decades, global plastic production has doubled.

The world produces around 350 million tonnes of plastic waste each year.

Estimates vary, but recent high-quality studies suggest that between 1 and 2 million tonnes of plastic enter the oceans annually.1

That means 0.5% of plastic waste ends up in the ocean.

The chart shows that around one-quarter of plastic waste is mismanaged, meaning it is not recycled, incinerated, or stored in sealed landfills. This makes it vulnerable to polluting the environment.

As shown in the chart, some of this is leaked to the environment; a further fraction makes its way to the ocean.

The probability that mismanaged plastic waste enters the ocean varies a lot across the world, depending on factors such as the location and length of river systems, proximity to coastlines, terrain, and precipitation patterns.

What you should know about this data

• This data comes from the OECD’s Global Plastic Outlook.2
• The model first uses estimates of the influx of plastics into natural environments based on widely-used metrics such as population density, GDP per capita, waste statistics, terrain and distances from rivers and coastlines.
• It then tries to model the transport and movement of plastics in these environments based on the density of plastics, and what is know about how they behave (for example, denser plastic tends to sink, whereas lighter plastics are buoyant and move towards the ocean).
• The uncertainties around these estimates are large. However, previous studies have found similar results, suggesting that around 1 million tonnes of plastic ends up in the ocean each year.3 Earlier estimates were as high at 8 million tonnes.

Rich countries tend to produce the most plastic waste per person.

But what’s most important for plastic pollution is how much of this waste is mismanaged, meaning it is not recycled, incinerated, or kept in sealed landfills. Mismanagement means it’s at risk of leaking to the environment.

Mismanaged waste tends to be much higher in low-to-middle-income countries. This is because these countries tend to have poorer waste management infrastructure.

As is shown in the chart, most plastic flowing into the ocean today comes from middle-income countries – particularly across Asia.4

Where does the plastic in our oceans come from?

Which countries and rivers emit the most plastic to the ocean? What does this mean for solutions to tackle plastic pollution?

What you should know about this data

• This data comes from the study by Lourens Meijer et al. (), which uses updated methods to estimate national and regional plastic inputs to the ocean.5
• It combines estimates of mismanaged waste with high-resolution mapping of factors such as terrain, winds, precipitation, and river patterns to estimate how likely mismanaged waste is to be carried from rivers to the ocean.
• Previous studies have given similar regional estimates. A study estimated that Asian countries contributed 86% of plastic emissions to the ocean.6

While we might think that much of the world’s plastic waste is recycled, only 9% is.

Half of the world’s plastic still goes straight to landfill. Another fifth is mismanaged – meaning it is not recycled, incinerated, or kept in sealed landfills – putting it at risk of being leaked into rivers, lakes, and the ocean.

This chart gives the breakdown of waste management strategies across regions.

Waste management varies greatly: incineration is high in Europe, while three-quarters of plastics in the United States go to landfills.

Improving waste management strategies is crucial to ending plastic pollution.

It is a solvable problem, and making a difference here would do much more to reduce plastic pollution than even considerably reducing plastic production. Even if the world used half as much, we’d still have significant amounts of plastic flowing into our rivers and oceans.

To end plastic pollution, waste needs to be adequately managed. Around one-fifth of plastics are still mismanaged, meaning they are not recycled, incinerated, or kept in sealed landfills.

The amount of mismanaged plastic waste varies across the world but tends to be much higher in low-to-middle-income countries. This is shown in the chart in per capita terms.

Domestic policies to improve waste management will be crucial, but richer countries can also contribute through foreign investments in waste management infrastructure.

What you should know about this data

• This data comes from the study by Lourens Meijer et al. (), which uses updated methods to estimate national and regional plastic inputs to the ocean.5
• It combines estimates of mismanaged waste with high-resolution mapping of factors such as terrain, winds, precipitation, and river patterns to estimate how likely mismanaged waste is to be carried from rivers to the ocean.
• Previous studies have given similar regional estimates. A study estimated that Asian countries contributed 86% of plastic emissions to the ocean.6