Almost 70% of all plastic waste is produced by just 20 countries

Developing nations are becoming plastic pollution hotspots, as new research lays bare global disparities in tackling the issue.

By using real-world data to simulate waste disposal in countries around the planet, a group of scientists from the University of Leeds calculated that over 52 million tonnes of plastic waste enters the environment every year.

Around 70% of this comes from just 20 countries, where the volume of waste has overwhelmed their ability to manage it effectively. India, Nigeria and Indonesia top the list of nations where the greatest volume of plastic rubbish is entering the environment.

As negotiations for a global treaty on plastic enter their final stages later this year, the scientists behind the study want to ensure that waste management isn’t left out. Dr Josh Cottom, the lead author of the research, says that everyone should have the same right to live in a clean world.

“At least 1.2 billion people live without waste collection services, forcing them to ‘self-manage’ waste, often by dumping it on land and in rivers, or burning it in open fires,” he says.

“The health risks resulting from plastic pollution affect some of the world’s poorest communities, who are powerless to do anything about it. By improving basic solid waste management, we can both massively reduce plastic pollution and improve the lives of billions.”

The findings of the study were published in the journal Nature.

Why is it important to know how much plastic there is?

As researchers have begun to realise how much plastic affects our planet, worries over the material have grown significantly.

Plastics in the environment are typically divided into two categories. Microplastics are small pieces of the material less than five millimetres in size. These are now found in clouds, water and soils, as well as the bodies of humans, animals and plants.

While the long-term impacts of microplastics on health aren’t well understood, early research shows they can help disease to spread, alter blood chemistry and affect memory.

Pieces larger than five millimetres in size are called macroplastics. These are the more obvious face of our problem with plastic. They clog up our rivers, entangle wildlife, and leach toxins and hormone-affecting chemicals.

Considering the scale of the problem, 175 countries agreed in March 2022 to begin assembling a treaty to tackle plastic pollution. Such is the scale of the problem that negotiations have been fast-tracked, and are set to conclude in December 2024.

But to effectively control the production and disposal of plastics, researchers and policy makers need to know how much plastic waste is being produced every year. This is where the new study comes in.

The researchers gathered waste management data from more than 50,000 municipal areas around the world. They then used machine learning to help model a baseline for plastic waste production based on the year 2020.

While this was the year the COVID-19 pandemic began, the team claim this had “little to negligible effect” on their results. They say that while the production of COVID-related plastics increased, this was offset by declines in other areas.

Plastic pollution – from top to bottom

The researchers estimate that 79% of plastic thrown away in 2020 was disposed of in a ‘managed’ way, which generally means that it was recycled, incinerated or put into landfill.

While this means it didn’t directly become pollution, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s environmentally friendly. Globally, half of all plastic is sent to landfill. These are associated with air and water pollution, as well as releasing greenhouse gases as the contents break down.

Another fifth of plastic waste is burnt in industrial incinerators. While these facilities have filters to remove many of the worst pollutants before they enter the atmosphere, they’re still associated with the release of particulates and nitrogen oxides which can lower air quality and can impact health.

Just 9% of all plastics are recycled each year. While this figure is increasing, it is still only predicted to double by 2060. The study recommends that recycling systems around the world need significant improvement to change this, with less plastic produced in the first place to encourage greater reuse of the material.

The remaining 21% of plastic produced every year is what the researchers describe as ‘unmanaged’. This is the plastic which ends up polluting the environment, either through being dumped in the environment or burned on uncontrolled fires.

Dr Costas Velis, a co-author of the research, says that this unmanaged waste represents a public health “crisis”, especially when burnt.

“Setting the plastics on fire may seem to make it ‘disappear’, but in fact the open burning of plastic waste can lead to substantial human health damage,” he says. “This includes neurodevelopmental, reproductive and birth defects; and much wider environmental pollution dispersion.”

“We need to start focusing much, much more on tackling open burning and uncollected waste before more lives are needlessly