Page 50 - Plastics News September 2024

INTERNATIONAL NEWS
tic pollution. They combined modeling of emis-
sion mechanisms with measurable activity data
to identify so-called emission hotspots across
50,702 municipalities worldwide. This can help
to determine the most effective means to pre-
vent plastic pollution in various geographies.
Uncollected waste is the largest contributor to
plastic pollution in the Global South, while litter- come nations,” which it characterizes as “waste
ing accounts for 49% of all debris emissions in
the Global North. Littering note the researchers
in the Nature article, “is largely driven by the de- environmental health, Malaysia, Indonesia, India
cisions of individuals” while the “1.5 billion indi- and other less industrialized nations are among
viduals whose waste is uncollected in the Global
South have little choice but to self-manage it.”
India, Nigeria, and Indonesia are biggest pol-
luters
Based on their methodology, India is the big-
gest polluter, accounting for about one-fifth of
the total global amount, followed by Nigeria and
Indonesia. China has traditionally topped this list
for many years, but now ranks as fourth thanks
to improvements in collecting and processing
waste.
Sub-Saharan Africa currently has low levels of
plastic pollution, but has the potential to become
the world’s largest source of plastic pollution in
the coming decades as populations rapidly grow
in countries that lack effective waste manage-
ment, according to the researchers. Sub-Saha-
ran Africa produces an annual average of 12 kg
of plastic pollution per capita, the equivalent of
400 plastic bottles. By comparison, the United
Kingdom has the per-capita equivalent of less
than three plastic bottles per person per year.
Another striking example cited by the research-
ers: Mogadishu, Somalia, has 680 times more
median plastic emissions than Hamburg, Ger-
many.
50 52 PLASTICS NEWSASTICS NEWS
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Study neglects role of high-income countries,
says NGO
In its critique of the research, Break Free From
Plastics calls out the exclusion of “pollution
caused by plastic production . . . [neglecting] to
recognize that many of the listed countries are
major importers of plastic waste from high-in-
colonialism.” Citing data from the Basel Action
Network, an NGO dedicated to promoting global
the top destinations for plastic waste generated
in the Global North. (China was in that cohort un-
til late 2017, when it banned the importation of
most plastic waste.) “These same countries then
get blamed in the study for being top plastic pol-
luters,” writes Break Free From Plastics.
The Leeds researchers acknowledge data gaps
in their study, and have deliberately excluded
plastic waste exports, which they say have de-
creased considerably since 2017 (which coin-
cides with China’s ban on plastic waste imports).
“Although this might affect some individual
country results, the overall effect would be neg-
ligible in comparison with other sources,” they
write.
Break Free From Plastics considers the acknowl-
edgment “insufficient,” noting that “evidence
shows that Global North countries, including the
UK, house companies driving plastic produc-
tion and pollution, while also being top plastic
waste exporters.” The first point, of course, is
the NGO’s meat and potatoes — equating pro-
duction with pollution — while it offers only one
piece of data to bolster the second point: “In
2023, the UK exported 568 million kg/yr of plas-
tic waste. An increase compared to 2020, which
is the data year used in this study.”
September 2024
September 2024