The UN’s annual World Environment Day on Monday comes days after negotiations on an international agreement against plastic pollution ended on Friday in Paris with 170 countries agreeing to create a first draft of a agreement in November. FRANCE 24 looks at the scale of the problem and its implications through 10 key statistics.
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This is the number of tons of plastic produced worldwide each year, according to tthe Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). From 2000 to 2019, this number more than doubled, a trend that shows no sign of slowing down. If no measures are taken, global production will almost triple by 2060, reaching 1,231 million tons of plastic.
>> Read more: Plastic recycling targeted as countries meet in Paris for treaty talks
The maximum length of nearly two-thirds of the plastics produced each year, according to the OECD. Commonly used for food packaging (31 percent) and textiles and consumer goods (20 percent), these plastics often end up as waste after one or only a few uses.
This is the number of tons of plastic waste produced worldwide in 2019. The proportion of waste varies greatly among different countries and groups: 21 percent from the United States and 28 percent from other OECD states. member while 19 percent from China and 5 percent from India. The remaining 27 percent are from the rest of the world.
>> Read more: Tackling plastic pollution: ‘We can’t recycle our way out of it’
The average amount of plastic waste produced per person per year in France, according to Eurostat, is less than the European average (35kg). This number corresponds to 1,070 bottles with a capacity of 500ml. In total, around 30 million tonnes of plastic waste is produced every year in the EU.
The percentage of plastic waste recycled worldwide in 2019, according to the OECD. Half of the remaining plastic waste goes to landfill sites, 19 percent is incinerated, and 22 percent is thrown into the environment or burned in the open air. In total, 22 million pieces of plastic waste are thrown into the environment every year.
The contribution of plastics to global greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, according to the OECD. In addition to creating pollution, plastics contribute significantly to climate change. Most of these emissions come from the production and processing of fossil fuels, as more than 99 percent of plastics are derived from oil, gas and coal. If their use continues to grow as planned, plastic-related emissions will account for 15 percent of the global carbon budget by 2050, according to Human Rights Watch estimates.
>> Read more: Plastic recycling targeted as countries meet in Paris for treaty talks
The estimated number of people in developing countries who die each year from diseases related to poor waste management, especially from toxic fumes released from the burning of waste plastic, according to a study by UK-based Christian aid agency Tearfund.
The amount of plastic waste, in tons, accumulated in water environments between 1970 and 2019, according to the OECD – 109 million tons in rivers and lakes and 30 million tons in the oceans. It is estimated that the equivalent of a garbage truck’s worth of plastic exits the ocean every minute.
The number of marine mammals that die each year due to plastic consumption or entanglement in debris, according to various studies. Besides nets and plastic bags, the ocean is full of microplastics – tiny particles less than 5mm in diameter that result from the breakdown of bags, bottles, tires, cigarette butts, clothing fibers and more. Blue whales eat 10 million microplastics per day, according to a study published in Nature in 2022.
The number of grams of plastic people eat every week is equivalent to a credit card, according to an Australian study published in 2019.
(This is a translation of the original French.)
