The world creates 57 million tonnes of plastic pollution each year, spreading from the deepest oceans to the highest mountaintops and into the insides of people’s bodies, with more than two-thirds of it coming from the Global South, according to a new study.
Each year, about 52 million tonnes of pollution is enough to fill New York City’s Central Park with plastic waste as tall as the Empire State Building, according to researchers at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. They examined locally generated waste in more than 50,000 cities and towns around the world for a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Each year, about 52 million tonnes of pollution is enough to fill New York City’s Central Park with plastic waste as tall as the Empire State Building, according to researchers at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. They examined locally generated waste in more than 50,000 cities and towns around the world for a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
The study looked at plastic that ends up in the open, not plastic that ends up in landfills or incinerated properly. The study authors said that for 15% of the world’s population, governments are failing to collect and dispose of waste — a big reason why Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa produce the most plastic waste, including 255 million people in India, according to the study.
According to the study’s author, Leeds environmental engineering professor Costas Velis, Lagos, Nigeria, emitted the most plastic pollution of any city. Other top plastic polluters include New Delhi; Luanda, Angola; Karachi, Pakistan; and Cairo, Egypt.
India leads the world in plastic waste, producing 10.2 million tonnes (9.3 million metric tons) a year, more than twice as much as the next biggest polluters, Nigeria and Indonesia. China, often vilified for its pollution, ranks fourth but is making tremendous strides in reducing waste, Velis said. The other biggest plastic polluters are Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia and Brazil. Those eight countries account for more than half of global plastic pollution, the study found.
According to the study, the United States ranks 90th with over 52,500 tonnes (47,600 metric tons) of plastic pollution, while the United Kingdom ranks 135th with nearly 5,100 tonnes (4,600 metric tons).
By 2022, most countries in the world have agreed to the first legally binding agreement on plastic pollution, including in the oceans. Final agreement negotiations will take place in South Korea in November.
The study used artificial intelligence to focus on plastics that were either burned incorrectly (about 57% of the pollution) or simply thrown away. In both cases, incredibly small microplastics, or nanoplastics, are transforming the problem from a visual nuisance and marine life problem on beaches to a human health threat, Velis said.
Several studies this year have examined how prevalent microplastics are in drinking water and human tissues like the heart, brain and testicles, but doctors and scientists are still not sure what that means for human health.
“The big time bomb of microplastics is these microplastics that are being released mainly in the Global South,” Velis said. “We already have a huge spillover problem. They are in the most remote places… on the peaks of Everest, in the Mariana Trench in the ocean, in what we breathe, in what we eat and drink.”
He called it “everyone’s problem” and said it would haunt future generations.
“We should not blame the Global South, any blame at all,” Velis said. “And we should not in any way praise ourselves for what we have done in the Global North.”
Velis said this was simply due to the government’s lack of ability and resources to provide the necessary services to citizens.
Outside experts worry that the study’s focus on pollution rather than overall production could put the plastic industry on the hook. Plastic production emits large amounts of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.
“These guys have defined plastic pollution much more narrowly, as macroplastics that end up in the environment after the consumer, and that risks causing us to lose focus upstream and say, ‘All we need to do now is manage our waste better,’” said Neil Tangri, senior director of science and policy at GAIA, a global network of advocacy organizations working on zero waste and environmental justice initiatives. “It’s necessary, but it’s not the whole story.”
Theresa Karlsson, a science and technical advisor for the International Pollutant Elimination Network, another coalition of advocacy groups on environmental, health and waste issues, called the volume of pollution identified in the study “alarming” and said it showed the amount of plastic produced today was “unmanageable.”
But he said the study overlooked the importance of the global trade in plastic waste, which rich countries send to poor countries. The study noted that trade in plastic waste had decreased after China banned waste imports. But Karlsson said overall waste trade had actually increased, likely including plastics. He noted that EU waste exports had risen from 110,000 tonnes (100,000 metric tons) in 2004 to 1.4 million tonnes (1.3 million metric tons) in 2021.
Velis said the amount of plastic waste traded is small. Kara Lavender Law, an oceanography professor at the Marine Education Association who was not involved in the study, agreed, citing trends in plastic waste in the U.S. She said it was one of the most comprehensive studies on plastic waste ever done.
Officials in the plastics industry praised the work.
“This study highlights that uncollected and unmanaged plastic waste is the largest contributor to plastic pollution and that prioritizing adequate waste management is critical to ending plastic pollution,” Chris Jahn, secretary of the International Council of Chemical Associations, said in a statement. In the treaty negotiations, the industry opposes a cap on plastic production.
The United Nations says “our planet is choking on plastic,” predicting that plastic production is likely to rise from around 440 million tonnes (400 million metric tons) annually to more than 1,200 million tonnes (1,100 million metric tons).
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Jennifer McDermott contributed from Providence, Rhode Island.
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Follow Seth Borenstein on X @borenbears
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