The world generates 57 million tons of plastic waste every year, according to a new study on plastic waste and its pollution.
Researchers at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom analyzed waste management practices across more than 50,000 cities worldwide, focusing specifically on plastic waste that is not sent to landfills or burned.
The study found India generated the most plastic pollution of any country, with 10.2 million tons per year. Nigeria, Indonesia and China were the next biggest polluters. The United States was 90th on the list with more than 52,000 tons annually. The United Kingdom, at 5,100 tons, came in 135th.
A major factor in waste production was whether a country's government managed a collection and disposal program. The study found such a guiding program is absent for about 15% of the global population.
Researchers cautioned that the study was not meant to assign responsibility for what they say is a global problem.
“We shouldn't put the blame, any blame, on the Global South,” said study author Costas Velis, an environmental engineering professor at the University of Leeds. “And we shouldn't praise ourselves about what we do in the Global North in any way.”
The study highlighted the potential health risks of ultra-small microplastics particles, which have been found all over the globe, deep in the oceans and in human tissues.
“The big time bomb of microplastics are these microplastics released in the Global South mainly,” Velis said. “We already have a huge dispersal problem. They are in the most remote places ... the peaks of Everest, in the Mariana Trench in the ocean, in what we breathe and what we eat and what we drink.”
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Early research shows microplastics could have incredibly harmful effects on humans: lung damage, gut inflammation and autoimmune disruption. Chemicals carried with microplastics are known to cause cancer and organ damage and interfere with the human nervous and reproductive system.
The United Nations says global plastic production is expected to grow from roughly 400 million tons annually in 2021 to 1,100 million tons per year in 2050.
A 2021 report from the organization says less than 10 percent of plastic waste generated to date worldwide has been properly recycled.
