India generates highest plastic pollution in world: what a new study found

Problem of ‘unmanaged’ waste

The study, carried out by University of Leeds researchers Joshua W Cottom, Ed Cook, and Costas A Velis, estimated that around 251 mt of plastic waste is produced every year, enough to fill up roughly 200,000 Olympic sized swimming pools. Roughly a fifth of this waste — 52.1 mt — is “emitted” into the environment, unmanaged.

The authors define “managed” waste as what is collected by municipal bodies, and either recycled or sent to a landfill. Most plastic waste meets the latter fate. “Unmanaged” waste refers to plastic which is burnt in open, uncontrolled fires producing fine particulates and toxic gases like carbon monoxide which have been linked to heart disease, respiratory disorders, cancer, and neurological problems. It also includes plastic which ends up in the environment as unburnt debris — polluting every conceivable place on Earth from the heights of Mount Everest to the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean.

Of the unmanaged waste, roughly 43% or 22.2 mt is the form of unburned debris and the rest, some 29.9 mt, is burnt either in dumpsites or locally.

Global North-South divide

A trend that the study identified was that there is a notable Global North and Global South divide when it comes to plastic pollution. “On an absolute basis, we find that plastic waste emissions are highest across countries in Southern Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and South-eastern Asia,” the study said.

In fact, approximately 69% (or 35.7 mt per year) of the world’s plastic pollution comes from 20 nations, none of which are High Income Countries (those with a gross national income per capita of $13,846 or more, according to the World Bank). This is despite these HICs — which are all in the so-called Global North — having higher plastic waste generation rates than countries in the South. Not a single HIC is “ranked in the top 90 polluters, because most have 100% collection coverage and controlled disposal,” the study said.

Open burning is the predominant form of plastic pollution in the Global South (with the exception of Sub-Saharan Africa, where uncontrolled debris comprised a larger share of the pollution pie) unlike in the Global North, where plastic pollution predominantly comprised uncontrolled debris. This, the researchers say, is simply a symptom of inadequate or completely absent waste management systems, and a lack of public infrastructure for the same.

However, “we shouldn’t put the blame, any blame, on the Global South… [or] praise ourselves about what we do in the Global North in any way,” researcher Costas Velis told The Associated Press, adding that people’s ability to dispose of waste depends largely on their government’s power to provide the necessary services.

Criticism of the research

The study comes as treaty negotiations for the very first legally binding international treaty on plastics pollution are ongoing. In 2022, the UN Environmental Assembly agreed to develop such a treaty — which experts say might be the most important environmental accord since the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015 — by the end of 2024. However, consensus on what it should entail has been hard to come by.

On one hand are fossil-fuel producing countries and industry groups, who view plastics pollution as a “waste management problem”, and want to focus on that instead of curbing production. On the other hand are countries in the European Union and Africa, who want to phase out single-use plastics and introduce production curbs.

This “High Ambition Coalition” says that simply “managing” plastic waste to the point where there is no pollution at all is impossible, given the scale of plastic waste generation, and the economics and complexity of recycling. A study published in April in the journal Science Advances found a linear, direct relationship between increasing plastic production and plastic pollution — meaning a 1% increase in production resulted in a 1% release in pollution. (Win Cowger et al, “Global producer responsibility for plastic pollution”, 2024).

Critics of the recent research say that the recent research plays into the plastic being a “waste management problem” narrative. “It risks us losing our focus on the upstream and saying, hey now all we need to do is manage the waste better,” Neil Tangri, senior director of science and policy at GAIA, a global network of advocacy organisations working on zero waste and environmental justice initiatives, told The AP. “It’s necessary but it’s not the whole story.”

Notably, plastics industry groups have praised the study. “This study underscores that uncollected and unmanaged plastic waste is the largest contributor to plastic pollution,” Chris Jahn, the council secretary of the International Council of Chemical Associations said in a statement.