According to a new study, US and UK citizens produce the most plastic waste than any other major country. Previous research suggested that Asian countries led marine plastic pollution and ranked the US in 20th place, but that figure didn’t include illegal dumping within the country or US waste exports. This new analysis places US citizens as the third in the world in contributing to plastic waste in the oceans.
Nick Mallos, one of the study authors, said:
The US is 4% of the world’s population, yet it produces 17% of its plastic waste. The US needs to play a much bigger role in addressing the global plastic pollution crisis.
The study, published on October 30 in Science Advances, used World Bank data on waste production in 217 countries. It primarily focused on the US and applied additional information on illegal dumping, littering, and contamination by exported plastic, which is likely discarded rather than recycled.
When the researchers looked at the World Bank calculations, they found the US produced the most plastic waste – 34M tons – in 2016. However, when they added the additional data, that number rose to 42M tons. India was second, followed by China, but since they have larger populations, their figure for plastic waste per person was less than 20% of a US citizen.
Among the other top nations with the highest plastic waste production per person, the UK was second, followed by South Korea and Germany.
Finally, the researchers assessed how much of each country’s plastic waste winds up in the oceans. They ranked Indonesia and India the highest; and the US between third and eleventh, depending on the allegations made on waste leakage into the environment. The analysis concluded that 1M tons of exported US plastic waste end up as marine pollution.
Mallos advised:
The solution has to start at home. We need to create less by cutting out unnecessary single-use plastics, and we need to develop new ways to package and deliver goods. Where plastics are inevitable, we need to drastically improve our recycling rates. It’s incredibly low.
Figures from 2016, the latest available, showed that only 9% of US plastic waste was recycled, and over 50% of plastic collected for recycling in the US was shipped abroad. Decades of exporting waste had camouflaged the US’s massive contribution to plastic pollution.
Winnie Lau, who was not involved in the analysis, explained:
A country’s contribution to plastic pollution does not stop at its border. The export of plastic waste from the US, for example, can contribute substantially to the global ocean plastic problem, and this important research puts a number on just how much pollution that is.
Lau highlights how this type of research helps countries to take full accountability for their plastic waste. In September, Lau conducted a study that found even if all possible measures were used to reduce plastic pollution, it would only fall by 40%, meaning 700M tons would still enter the environment by 2040.
Lau concluded:
To avoid a massive buildup of plastic in the environment, coordinated global action is urgently needed to reduce plastic consumption, increase reuse, waste collection, and recycling.
Recently, some of the world’s top plastic producers have joined a plea by environmental charities for a new international treaty to fight plastic pollution in the oceans. The demand comes after a devastating report highlighted how more than 11M tons of discarded plastic, equivalent to the weight of around 60K blue whales, are dumped into the sea each year.
