The Lancet Countdown on health and plastics, led by Philip Landrigan at Boston College, launched in August 2025 as an annual indicator system that will track the health effects of plastics across their whole lifecycle, from extraction to disposal. Its main funder is the Minderoo Foundation, a philanthropic organisation, with further funding and support from Boston College, the Centre Scientifique de Monaco and Heidelberg University. It builds on the 2023 Minderoo-Monaco Commission on Plastics and Human Health.
Its opening report documents plastic production growing from 2 million tonnes in 1950 to 475 million tonnes in 2022 and projected to reach 1,200 million tonnes by 2060. About 8,000 million tonnes of plastic waste now pollute the planet, and less than 10% of plastic is recycled. More than 98% of plastics are made from fossil fuels. The authors estimate health-related economic losses at more than US$1.5 trillion a year. It also estimates that fine-particle air pollution from plastic production caused about 158,000 premature deaths in 2015.
The report matters because it puts the world's leading medical journal behind the case that plastics are a health issue, not just a litter issue, and commits to updating the evidence annually.
The cost figure is a modelled estimate combining several exposure pathways, and the deaths figure (from fine-particle air pollution, PM2.5) is a modelled estimate for 2015.