Every year, more than 52 million tons of plastic end up in one way or another in terrestrial ecosystems. This is more than double what was previously estimated, according to the latest inventory of spills published this Wednesday in Nature.
To calculate the amount of waste filtered into nature, researchers from the universities of Leeds and Stockholm call plastic emissions the material that passes from any management system, even basic – after all, it “contains” the plastic – into the environment where “it is neither contained nor controlled.”
Based on this principle, the authors have developed an inventory of macroplastic discharges (greater than 5 mm) whose results “can be used for the negotiations of the international treaty to stop plastic waste” which are due to be completed in December this year.
Global plastic production has been growing steadily, from about two million tonnes in the mid-20th century to an average of over 450 million tonnes today. These scales have led UN Environment Executive Director Inger Andesen to declare that “we will not be able to recycle out of the plastic pollution crisis. “We need a transformation to the circular economy,” he says. That is, even if “we do everything right,” the dumping is still there.
Although the methodologies are not equivalent, the OECD document Global plastic landscape Two years ago, the amount of plastic released into the environment each year “through uncontrolled accumulation or open burning” was estimated at around 22 million tonnes. Although the majority ends up in terrestrial ecosystems, a third of the waste ends up in rivers and coasts. From there leap towards the sea where, according to the UN, the flow of waste could triple in the next 20 years: from 11 million to 30 million tonnes.
After analyzing more than 50,000 municipalities, the researchers found that littering after bagging is the main source in the Global North, and uncollected waste is the root cause of plastic pollution in the Global South. Overall, the highest plastic emissions occur in countries in South and Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
In this model, the country that dumps the most waste is India, followed by Nigeria, Indonesia and China. The book explains that India claims to collect 95% of its waste, but “its data does not include rural areas, open burning and lack of waste collection.” About 69% of all plastic waste comes from 20 countries, according to the study.
However, if we analyse it from the point of view of waste per capita, the “contrast between the North and the South of the planet is very striking”.
The triple crisis: climate, pollution and biodiversity
This work “serves as a reminder to the negotiations that must develop a legally binding international instrument on plastic pollution, including the marine environment,” Carmen Morales Caselles, professor at the University of Cadiz, told the Science Media Center (SMC). The doctor also insists that “plastic pollution encompasses the triple planetary crisis: climate emergency, pollution and loss of biodiversity, so we must agree on measures that lead to a reduction in non-essential products and a chemical simplification of plastic, with a safe design and sustainable products.”
Before the publication of this work, the OECD itself already estimated that “the international community is far from having put an end to this pollution”. The UN described the situation more explicitly: “The world is drowning in plastic”.
In March 2022, UN countries agreed to propose a legally binding treaty to combat this pollution. The goal, they say, is to “reduce plastic waste in the environment.” The schedule worked and the technical meetings took place. All that remains is the last session, from which the text that is binding on all parties should emerge. The final date is December 1.
In this sense, the researchers of this new inventory recall that once macroplastics enter ecosystems, it is very difficult and expensive to extract them: “It is an economic and technical challenge,” they describe. In addition, over time, they will inevitably become “countless microplastics that make their cleaning even more difficult.” This scientific reality leads them to affirm that “minimizing pollution at the source, that is, avoiding discharges, should be a priority of this treaty.”
To do this, we must first reduce the production of waste itself, then improve waste collection systems and tackle open-air incineration which, in addition to adding plastic to nature, “releases a cocktail of potentially hazardous and greenhouse gas substances,” they explain.
