Planet vs Plastic

Plastic has various functions that are quite important in everyday life, even though its use can cause serious environmental problems. Some of the plastic production that has been used can be managed and recycled properly, but others accumulate as waste, causing environmental pollution and even ending up as waste in the ocean. Most of the waste that is not well managed comes from low to middle income countries, because they still have poorer waste management infrastructure. The countries that contribute the most plastic waste are India (12.9 million tonnes) and China (12.3 million tonnes).

In 1961, the world produced only nine million tons of plastic. But now production is more than 450 million tons. Cumulatively, from 1961 to 2019 world plastic production reached 9.49 billion tons of plastic. In fact, in the last two decades, plastic production in the world has doubled.

Every year the world produces more than 350 million tons of plastic waste. Nearly a quarter of the world's plastic waste or around 23% of waste is not managed properly or is simply thrown away. This means that around 82 million tonnes of plastic waste is not stored in safe landfills, recycled or burned. So this causes pollution in the environment and even becomes rubbish in the ocean. Around 19 million tons of plastic waste leaks into the environment, 1.7 million tons of this waste or around 0.5% of the total plastic waste that cannot be managed properly ends up in the ocean. Philippines and India are the countries that contribute the largest plastic waste to the ocean, 36.38% and 12.92%.