Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found plastic production emitted 2.24 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2019, measured as the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2)…
Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL)’s Plastic & Climate report estimated lifecycle plastic emissions at 850 million tonnes in 2019, rising to 1.34 billion…
ETH Zurich researchers found plastics accounted for 4.5% of global emissions in 2015, with coal-based emissions quadrupling since 1995.
Primary plastic production emitted 2.24 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases in 2019, about 71 tonnes every second and more than all aviation.
Making plastic produced 5.3% of global emissions in 2019, not counting farming and land use. A separate study put plastic’s whole life cycle at…
Tiny particles of air pollution from making plastics were linked to about 158,000 early deaths and over US$200 billion in health-related losses in 2015,…
Production has gone from 2 million tonnes in 1950 to 475 million in 2022 and is set to reach 1,200 million tonnes by 2060.
Industry’s own count of global plastics production, up 16% since 2018. That is about 820 tonnes every minute, or 13.7 tonnes every second.
Of 52 million tonnes of plastic entering unmanaged systems in 2020, 57% was burned in homes, streets and dumps, releasing toxic fumes.
The OECD’s Global Plastics Outlook is the most authoritative single dataset on the plastics economy, showing waste growing faster than recycling.
