Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
By identifying and synthesizing dispersed data on production, use, and end-of-life management of polymer resins, synthetic fibers, and additives, this work presents the first global analysis of all mass-produced plastics ever manufactured.Abstract:
Plastics have outgrown most man-made materials and have long been under environmental scrutiny. However, robust global information, particularly about their end-of-life fate, is lacking. By identifying and synthesizing dispersed data on production, use, and end-of-life management of polymer resins, synthetic fibers, and additives, we present the first global analysis of all mass-produced plastics ever manufactured. We estimate that 8300 million metric tons (Mt) as of virgin plastics have been produced to date. As of 2015, approximately 6300 Mt of plastic waste had been generated, around 9% of which had been recycled, 12% was incinerated, and 79% was accumulated in landfills or the natural environment. If current production and waste management trends continue, roughly 12,000 Mt of plastic waste will be in landfills or in the natural environment by 2050.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Thermophilic whole-cell degradation of polyethylene terephthalate using engineered Clostridium thermocellum
TL;DR: These findings provide clear evidence that, compared to mesophilic species, thermophilic microbes are a more promising synthetic microbial chassis for developing future biodegradation processes of PET waste.
Journal ArticleDOI
Anthropogenic Marine Debris assessment with Unmanned Aerial Vehicle imagery and deep learning: A case study along the beaches of the Republic of Maldives
Luca Fallati,Annalisa Polidori,Christian Salvatore,Luca Saponari,Alessandra Savini,Paolo Galli +5 more
TL;DR: This work confirmed the efficiency of commercial UAVs as tools for AMD monitoring and demonstrated - for the first time - the potential of deep learning for the automatic detection and quantification of AMD.
Journal ArticleDOI
Occurrence and distribution of microplastics in domestic, industrial, agricultural and aquacultural wastewater sources: A case study in Changzhou, China
TL;DR: The occurrence, composition and distribution of MPs in the influents and effluents from 9 domestic wastewater treatment plants, 5 industrial WWTPs, wastewater of 10 industrial plants, 4 livestock farms and 4 fish ponds in China were investigated to fill MP data gaps regarding different sources, guide future monitoring work and policy making.
Journal ArticleDOI
Plastic contamination of forest, urban, and agricultural soils: a case study of Yeoju City in the Republic of Korea
TL;DR: In this article, the distribution and abundance of microplastics in 100 soils, representing different land use types that include forest, urban (traffic and residence), and agriculture the environs of Yeoju City.
Journal ArticleDOI
Consistent microplastic ingestion by deep-sea invertebrates over the last four decades (1976-2015), a study from the North East Atlantic.
TL;DR: An assessment of the historic occurrence of microplastics on the deep seafloor and a detailed quantification and characterisation ofmicroplastics ingested by benthic species are presented to advance knowledge on the long-term fate of microPlastic in marine systems.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean
Jenna Jambeck,Roland Geyer,Chris Wilcox,Theodore R. Siegler,Miriam E. Perryman,Anthony L. Andrady,Ramani Narayan,Kara Lavender Law +7 more
TL;DR: This work combines available data on solid waste with a model that uses population density and economic status to estimate the amount of land-based plastic waste entering the ocean, which is estimated to be 275 million metric tons.
Supplementary Materials for Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean
Jenna Jambeck,Roland Geyer,Chris Wilcox,Theodore R. Siegler,Anthony L. Andrady,Ramani Narayan,Kara Lavender Law +6 more
Journal ArticleDOI
Accumulation and fragmentation of plastic debris in global environments.
TL;DR: Global plastics production and the accumulation of plastic waste are documented, showing that trends in mega- and macro-plastic accumulation rates are no longer uniformly increasing and that the average size of plastic particles in the environment seems to be decreasing.
What a Waste : A Global Review of Solid Waste Management
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors estimate that the amount of municipal solid waste (MSW) generated by urban populations is growing even faster than the rate of urbanization and that by 2025 this will likely increase to 4.3 billion urban residents.
Journal ArticleDOI
Microplastics in freshwater ecosystems: what we know and what we need to know
Martin Wagner,Christian Scherer,Diana Álvarez-Muñoz,Nicole Brennholt,Xavier Bourrain,Sebastian Buchinger,Elke Fries,Cécile Grosbois,Jörg Klasmeier,Teresa Marti,Sara Rodríguez-Mozaz,Ralph Urbatzka,A. Dick Vethaak,Margrethe Winther-Nielsen,Georg Reifferscheid +14 more
TL;DR: To assess the environmental risk associated with microplastics, comprehensive data on their abundance, fate, sources, and biological effects in freshwater ecosystems are needed.