We’ve produced 8bn tons of plastic since 1950... but just 10% is recycled
HUMANS have produced a staggering eight billion tons of plastic since 1950 – changing the face of the planet forever.
Four fifths of the plastic made is polluting the planet, and is either dumped in landfill, in the sea or the countryside.
The shocking scale of the plastic menace was revealed for the first time yesterday in a major study.
It is estimated that 8.3billion tons of plastic has been produced, comparable to the weight of 90,000 Eiffel Towers or 1.2billion African elephants.
As of 2015, just 9 per cent had been recycled and 12 per cent had been incinerated, the report said, with 79 per cent polluting the planet.
The plastic will hang around for hundreds if not thousands of years, with potentially harmful consequences for the environment, the US researchers warn.
The scientists conducted the world’s first analysis of the production, use and fate of plastic since the start of its large- scale manufacture.
They calculated that by 2050, on current measures, we will have thrown away around 12billion tons of plastic waste in landfill sites or the environment.
They also found that around four to 12 million tons of plastic ends up in the sea each year.
The Daily Mail is campaigning to end the scourge of plastic dumped in the environment.
The successful campaign ‘Banish the bags’ led to a huge reduction in single-use plastic bags at supermarkets, and now this paper is calling for a deposit scheme on plastic bottles as part of the ‘Take back your bottles’ campaign.
In a strongly worded attack, the study authors warn that virtually all plastic produced does not biodegrade. They also highlight how recycling plastic is not the solution as it ‘merely delays, rather than avoids, plastic disposal’.
Furthermore, they say that mixing different types of plastic in recycling merely creates ‘secondary plastics’
‘Weight of 90,000 Eiffel Towers’
which are of limited technical or economic value.
The authors warn that plastic’s toughness makes it ‘difficult or impossible for nature to assimilate’ and add that the consequences of dumping so much plastic are unknown.
Writing in the journal Science Advances, they say that the human race is carrying out an ‘uncontrolled experiment on a global scale, in which billions of metric tons of material will accumulate across all major terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems on the planet’.
The calculation was made by Roland Geyer and his colleagues at the Bren School of Environmental Science at the University of California in Santa Barbara.
The study is the first to estimate the amount of plastic made.
Dr Geyer said that most of the plastic produced has been so-called single-use packaging – such as plastic bottles and trays. The only substances humans have made more of are building materials – steel and cement.
But he said: ‘Roughly half of all the steel we make goes into construction, so it will have decades of use – plastic is the opposite.
‘Half of all plastics become waste after four or fewer years of use.’
Study co-author Jenna Jambeck, of the University of Georgia, said: ‘Most plastics don’t biodegrade in any meaningful sense, so the plastic waste humans have generated could be with us for hundreds or even thousands of years.
‘Our estimates underscore the need to think critically about the materials we use and our waste man
‘Be with us for thousands of years’
agement practices.’ The authors calculated how much plastic has been made by combining data on production, use and disposal statistics.
The main plastics produced are: high density polyethylene, used for plastic bottles; PET (polyethylene terephthalate); polystyrene; PVC; polyester; polyamide and acrylic.
They also noted that an emerging technology, pyrolysis, breaks plastic back into the oil it was made of, but this has to date destroyed a negligible amount of plastic compared to incineration – which varies in its environmental friendliness.
Worldwide, European countries recycle most – at 30 per cent – followed by China at 25 per cent. The United States recycles just 9 per cent of its plastic, a figure that has not gone up since 2012.
But the report added that most plastics in the form of fibre – such as synthetic fabrics – are not recycled at all, and are either burnt or sent to landfill. It was calculated that at current rates, by 2050 just 6 per cent of plastic will be thrown away, with the global recycling rate hitting 44 per cent by then. A further 50 per cent of plastic will be incinerated.