The world produces 57 million tons of plastic waste every year, research shows

The world creates 57 million tons of plastic pollution every year and spreads it from the depths of the ocean to the top of the highest mountain to the inside of people’s bodies, according to a new study that also says that more than two-thirds of it comes from the Global South.

Enough pollution each year – about 52 million metric tons – to fill New York City’s Central Park with plastic waste as high as the Empire State Building, according to researchers at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. They examined waste generated at the local level in more than 50,000 cities and towns around the world for research in Wednesday’s journal Nature.

The study examined plastic that goes into the open, not plastic that goes into landfills or is burned properly. For 15% of the world’s population, governments fail to collect and dispose of waste, say the study’s authors – a major reason why Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa produce the most plastic waste. That includes 255 million people in India, the study said.

Lagos, Nigeria, produced the most plastic pollution of any city, according to research author Costas Velis, a professor of environmental engineering at Leeds. Other major plastic polluting cities are New Delhi; Luanda, Angola; Karachi, Pakistan and Al Qahirah, Egypt.

India leads the world in the production of plastic pollution, producing 10.2 million tonnes per year (9.3 million tonnes), more than double the next polluting countries, Nigeria and Indonesia. China, often ravaged by pollution, ranks fourth but is making great strides in reducing waste, Velis said. Some of the leading plastic polluters are Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia and Brazil. Those eight countries are responsible for more than half of the world’s plastic pollution, according to research data.

The United States ranks 90th in plastic pollution with more than 52,500 tons (47,600 metric tons) and the United Kingdom ranks 135th with about 5,100 tons (4,600 metric tons), according to the study.

By 2022, most of the world’s countries agreed to make the first legally binding agreement on plastic pollution, including in the ocean. The final negotiations for the agreement took place in South Korea in November.

The study used artificial intelligence to focus on plastics that are burned improperly – about 57 percent of pollution – or simply thrown away. In both cases it is the very small microplastics, or nanoplastics, that transform the problem from a visual nuisance on beaches and a marine life problem to a threat to human health, Velis said.

Several studies this year have looked at the prevalence of microplastics in our drinking water and in human tissues, such as hearts, brains and testicles, but doctors and scientists are still unsure what this means in terms of threats to human health.

“The big bomb of microplastics is these microplastics that have been released in the Global South in particular,” said Velis. “Currently we have a big problem of dispersal. They are in the most distant places … the peaks of Everest, the Mariana Trench in the ocean, in what we breathe, what we eat and what we drink.”

He called it “everyone’s problem” and one that will haunt future generations.

“We must not place the blame, anywhere, on the Global South,” Velis said. “And we should not praise ourselves for what we are doing in the Global North in any way.”

It’s just a lack of resources and the government’s ability to provide citizens with the necessary needs, said Velis.

Outside experts are concerned that the focus of research on pollution, rather than overall production, is allowing the plastics industry to take off. Making plastics emits a large amount of greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.

“These guys have defined plastic pollution in a very small way, like macroplastics that are released into the environment after the consumer, and it puts us at risk of losing our focus upstream and saying, hey now what we need to do is manage 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 not the whole story.”

Theresa Karlsson, science and technology advisor at the International Pollutants Elimination Network, another coalition of environmental, health and waste advocacy groups, called the amount of pollution identified by the study “alarming” and said it reflects the amount of plastics produced today. “uncontrollable.”

But he said the study misses the importance of the global trade in plastic waste with rich countries sending it to the poor. The study says the trade in plastic waste is declining, as China bans imports of the waste. But Karlsson said the trade in waste is increasing and there may be plastics too. He cited EU waste exports from 110,000 tonnes (100,000 metric tonnes) in 2004 to 1.4 million tonnes (1.3 million tonnes) in 2021.

Velis said the amount of plastic waste sold is small. Kara Lavender Law, a professor of oceanography at the Sea Education Association who was not involved in the research, agreed, based on US plastic waste trends. He said this is one of the broader studies on plastic waste.

Officials in the plastics industry praised the study.

“This study emphasizes that uncollected and unmanaged plastic waste is a major contributor to plastic pollution and that prioritizing adequate waste management is critical to ending plastic pollution,” said Chris Jahn, secretary of the International Council on Chemical Associations, in a statement. In negotiations for the agreement, the industry opposes a cap on plastic production.

The United Nations predicts that plastic production will likely increase from about 440 million tons (400 million metric tons) per year to more than 1,200 million tons (1,100 million metric tons), saying “our planet is choking on plastic.”

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– Seth Borenstein, Associated Press science writer

Jennifer McDermott contributed to this report.