Research Scientist ยท Data scientist
Since the 1970's, the plastic industry has heavily advertised the "Reduce, reuse, recycle" mantra. The recycle logo is one of the most widely recognizable images in the world. However, behind this successful advertisement strategy is a sad truth that recycling does not produce much savings for the environment, and this is only just coming to light. An example of this malpractice are the resin identification codes. Of the 7 codes, all bearing the recycle logo, only 2 are widely recyclable, and those that are can only be reused 2-3 times on average. Not to mention that the recycling process requires additional virgin plastic to make up for the associated decrease in quality. So just how much plastic is being thrown away, and is it a big issue? Lets explore the data...
This map contains data for the total plastic waste, population, GDP per capita and mismanaged plastic waste for all available counties. Mismanaged plastic waste is waste that is not recycled, incinerated or buried in land fill, but instead ends up in the environment, and eventually the oceans. Globally, a quarter of a billion tonnes of plastic waste are generated each year. Over half of this is from the top 4 countries alone. 24% of this ends up as mismanaged waste that pollutes the oceans. Of the mismanaged waste it is predominantly from poorer countries (see GDP per capita), with China and India alone accounting for over half of this. Plastic waste in richer countries almost never ends up as pollution, although until recently it was often green washed by selling it to poorer countries.
Only 9% of plastic is recycled, which itself is only 12% of total waste. So is the solution to focus on improving the recycling rate of plastics? Given that the massive 5-decade push behind recycling has only resulted in a small reduction in new plastic being made, and that wealthy countries are not directly responsible for any environmental pollution, we need to refocus these efforts on enabling poorer countries to manage their waste properly. The cost of recycling this 9% of plastics would be better used as aid or incentives to developing countries. Of course, this is not mutually exclusive - we could (and should) both improve our recycling rates, and tackle plastic waste management at a global scale, but we need to be realistic about the lack of success of current recycling practices, and their associated costs.