by The world creates 57 million tons of plastic pollution every year and spreads it from the deepest oceans to the highest mountain to the inside of people’s bodies, according to a new study which also said that more than two-thirds of it comes from from the Global South.
There is 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 produced locally at more than 50,000 cities and towns around the world for a study in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
The study examined plastic that goes into the open environment, not plastic that goes into landfills or is properly incinerated. For 15% of the world’s population, the government fails to collect and dispose of waste, the study’s authors said – a big 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, emits the most plastic pollution of any city, according to study author Costas Velis, professor of environmental engineering at Leeds. The other plastic polluted cities are New Delhi; Luanda, Angola; Karachi, Pakistan and Al Qahirah, Egypt.
India leads the world in generating plastic waste, producing 10.2 million tonnes per year (9.3 million metric tonnes), more than double the next largest polluting nations, Nigeria and Indonesia . China, often villainized for pollution, is in fourth place but is making great progress in reducing waste, Velis said. The other top plastic polluters are Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia and Brazil. Those eight nations are responsible for more than half of the world’s plastic pollution, according to the study’s 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 nearly 5,100 tons (4,600 metric tons), according to the study.
In 2022, most of the world’s nations agreed to make the first legally binding treaty on plastic pollution, including in the oceans. Final contract negotiations will take place in South Korea in November.
The study used artificial intelligence to target plastics that had been improperly burned – about 57% of pollution – or simply dumped. In both cases it is extremely tiny microplastics, or nanoplastics, that turn 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, and doctors and scientists are still not entirely sure what it means in terms of threats to human health.
“These microplastics that are released mainly in the Global South are the big ticking time bomb,” Velis said. “We have already spread a big problem. They are in the most remote places… the peaks of Everest, in the Mariana Trench in the ocean, in the things we breathe and eat and drink.”
He called it “everyone’s problem” and one that would affect generations to come.
“We should not put the blame, any blame, on the Global South,” Velis said. “And we shouldn’t brag about what we do in the Global North in any way.”
It’s just a lack of resources and the government’s ability to provide the necessary services to citizens, Velis said.
Outside experts were concerned that the study’s focus on pollution, rather than overall production, lets the plastics industry off the hook. When plastics are made, it releases a large amount of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.
“These guys have defined plastic pollution in a much narrower way, as actually macroplastics that are emitted into the environment after the consumer, and there is a risk that we lose our focus on the stream and say, hey now it is what we need to do is 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.
Theresa Karlsson, science and technical advisor for the International Pollution Elimination Network, another coalition of advocacy groups on environmental, health and waste issues, called the volume of pollution identified by the study “alarming” and said it shows the amount of plastics are being produced today. “unmanageable.”
But she said the study misses the importance of the global trade in plastic waste that rich countries send to poor people. The study said the trade in plastic waste is declining, with China banning waste imports. But Karlsson said that the overall waste trade is actually increasing and that it is likely to make plastics with it. She cited EU waste exports going from 110,000 tonnes (100,000 metric tonnes) in 2004 to 1.4 million tonnes (1.3 million metric tonnes) in 2021.
Velis said the amount of plastic waste traded is small. Kara Lavender Law, an oceanography professor at the Sea Education Association who was not involved in the study, agreed, based on US plastic waste trends. She said this was one of the more comprehensive studies of plastic waste otherwise.
Officials in the plastics industry praised the study.
“This study shows that uncollected and unmanaged plastic waste is the biggest contributor to plastic pollution and that prioritizing adequate waste management is critical to ending plastic pollution,” said Chris Jahn, council secretary of the International Council of Chemical Societies, in a statement. In contract negotiations, the industry opposes a cap on plastic production.
The United Nations predicts that the production of plastics is likely to 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.”
___
Added by Jennifer McDermott from Providence, Rhode Island.
___
Follow Seth Borenstein on X at @borenbears
___
Read more about AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment
___
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage is financially supported by multiple private foundations. AP is responsible for each and every subject. Find AP standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and covered areas of funding at AP.org.
