A new study from the University shines a light on the enormous scale of uncollected rubbish and open burning of plastic waste in the first ever global plastics pollution inventory.
A new study from the University shines a light on the enormous scale of uncollected rubbish and open burning of plastic waste in the first ever global plastics pollution inventory.
Researchers used A.I. to model waste management in more than 50,000 municipalities around the world. This model allowed the team to predict how much waste was generated globally and what happens to it.
Their study, published in the journal Nature, calculated a staggering 52 million tonnes of plastic products entered the environment in 2020 – which, laid out in a line, would stretch around the world over 1,500 times.
It also revealed that more than two thirds of the planet’s plastic pollution comes from uncollected rubbish with almost 1.2 billion people — 15% of the global population — living without access to waste collection services.
Read more at University of Leeds
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