An alternative approach to estimate mismanaged plastic waste at the sub-national scale.

Modeling atmospheric microplastic cycle by GEOS-Chem: An optimized estimation by a global dataset suggests likely 50 times lower ocean emissions

A few times a year, volunteers fan out along the causeway that links the South Carolina mainland with the seashore community of Folly Beach to clean up plastic bottles, straws, bags, and other debris from along the road and the salt marsh. Some of this debris has come from cities miles away. On windy days, litter is often blown off city streets into waterways. During rainstorms, debris floats into drains that empty into rivers. Other trash probably came from places closer to home. “I see bags and other plastic flying off the beds of pickup trucks going down the causeway,” says Marty Morganello, who organizes the cleanups for the Charleston-area chapter of the nonprofit Surfrider Foundation. “I see them coming out the open windows of cars and out the backs of garbage trucks and even recycling trucks. This material is lightweight, and if you don’t secure it, it will fly away.” By one estimate, the volume of plastic debris going into the world’s oceans could more than double by 2025, assuming current trends in coastal development and plastics use. Some countries have begun identifying ways to improve management of plastic ... Beach cleanups yield enormous amounts of trash, with plastic items a major constituent.1 Although the human health impacts of this marine plastic pollution remain poorly characterized, it is widely seen as an emerging problem that deserves much more research attention.2 Likewise, there is a growing urgency among industry, government, nongovernmental organizations, and environmental groups to develop tools and policies to track, capture, and recycle plastic waste before it reaches the ocean.

Mountains of plastic: Mismanaged plastic waste along the Carpathian watercourses

Plastic is one of the most efficient materials and was designed to be strong, light, resistant to degradation and highly moldable both chemically and physically. Due to these advantageous properties, plastics are used in all walks of life. We are currently living in the ‘Plastic Age’ where the presence of plastic is ubiquitous. However, effective methods and technologies to deal with end-of-life plastic products have not been developed and applied. The net result is the generation of an ever-growing amount of plastic waste. Part of this waste can escape the waste management system and enter the environment, accidentally or otherwise. Once in the environment, mismanaged plastic wastes will degrade fragment into smaller and smaller pieces, and pose a notable threat to the health of our environment, in particular to the biota. At present, plastic debris has been found in numerous marine organisms, including those intended for human consumption. Because direct human health risks associated with mismanaged plastic waste have yet to be established, statutory controls on the use plastics in general, will be difficult and at best, piecemeal. Nonetheless, mitigation measures of this pervasive issue should progress from an end-of-pipe approach to preventive strategies, with a final goal to eliminate all single-use plastic products.

Local waste management successfully reduces coastal plastic pollution

The accumulation of mismanaged plastic waste (MPW) in the environment is a global growing concern. Knowing with precision where litter is generated is important to target priority areas for the implementation of mitigation policies. In this study, using country-level data on waste management combined with high-resolution distributions and long-term projections of population and the gross domestic product (GDP), we present projections of global MPW generation at ~1 km resolution from now to 2060. We estimated between 60 and 99 million metric tonnes (Mt) of MPW were produced globally in 2015. In a business-as-usual scenario, this figure could triple to 155–265 Mt y−1 by 2060. The future MPW load will continue to be disproportionately high in African and Asian continents even in the future years. However, we show that this growth in plastic waste can be reduced if developing economies significantly invest in waste management infrastructures as their GDP grows in the future and if efforts are made internationally to reduce the fraction of plastic in municipal solid waste. Using our projections, we also demonstrate that the majority of MPW (91%) are transported via watersheds larger than 100 km2 suggesting that rivers are major pathways for plastic litter to the ocean.

Plastic pollution and infectious diseases

A substantial fraction of marine plastic debris originates from land-based sources and rivers potentially act as a major transport pathway for all sizes of plastic debris. We analyzed a global compilation of data on plastic debris in the water column across a wide range of river sizes. Plastic debris loads, both microplastic (particles <5 mm) and macroplastic (particles >5 mm) are positively related to the mismanaged plastic waste (MMPW) generated in the river catchments. This relationship is nonlinear where large rivers with population-rich catchments delivering a disproportionately higher fraction of MMPW into the sea. The 10 top-ranked rivers transport 88-95% of the global load into the sea. Using MMPW as a predictor we calculate the global plastic debris inputs form rivers into the sea to range between 0.41 and 4 × 106 t/y. Due to the limited amount of data high uncertainties were expected and ultimately confirmed. The empirical analysis to quantify plastic loads in rivers can be extended easily by additional potential predictors other than MMPW, for example, hydrological conditions.

Mismanaged plastic waste (MPW) entering the riverine environment is concerning, given that most plastic pollution never reaches the oceans, and it has a severe negative impact on terrestrial ecosystems. However, significant knowledge gaps on the storage and remobilization of MPW within different rivers over varying timescales remain. Here we analyze the exposure of river systems to MPW to better understand the sedimentary processes that control the legacy of plastic waste. Using a conservative approach, we estimate 0.8 million tonnes of MPW enter rivers annually in 2015, affecting an estimated 84 % of rivers by surface area, globally. By 2060, the amount of MPW input to rivers is expected to increase nearly 3-fold, however improved plastic waste strategies through better governance can decrease plastic pollution by up to 72 %. Currently, most plastic input occurs along anthropogenically modified rivers (49 %) yet these represent only 23 % of rivers by surface area. Another 17 % of MPW occur in free-flowing actively migrating meandering rivers that likely retain most plastic waste within sedimentary deposits, increasing retention times and likelihood of biochemical weathering. Active braided rivers receive less MPW (14 %), but higher water discharge will also increase fragmentation to form microplastics. Only 20 % of plastic pollution is found in non-migrating and free-flowing rivers; these have the highest probability of plastics remaining within the water column and being transferred downstream. This study demonstrates the spatial variability in MPW affecting different global river systems with different retention, fragmentation, and biochemical weathering rates of plastics. Targeted mitigation strategies and environmental risk assessments are needed at both international and national levels that consider river system dynamics.

Currently, plastic waste leaking into the environment is a major environmental issue worldwide. Because of the many alternative characteristics of plastic, its use is dramatically increasing while the hazard of plastic waste entering marine environments has been ignored for a long time. Information on mismanaged plastic waste is important for tracking the amount of plastic waste leaking into the environment and supporting local governance of plastic waste management. Thus, there is now a crucial need to urgently create and develop a simple method for plastic waste and plastic debris analysis. This paper presents a method to acquire temporal information on plastic waste using existing resource information. This method makes it possible: 1) to identify the significant correlation variables associated with plastic waste and 2) to develop the relationship retrieval scenario and the model of relationship retrieval scenario, which contribute to plastic waste leaking into marine environments (plastic debris). This method provides a flexible tool that can be used widely with specific patterns and minimal variables for analysis. The results have strong coefficients of determination value and high accuracy.

Variations in macroplastic transport are often linked to hydrometeorological conditions (wind, precipitation, and discharge). However, due to the predominant focus on these hydrometeorological factors as the main driving forces, most research overlooks the impact of anthropogenic factors, such as mismanaged plastic waste (MPW) on plastic transport variability. Here, we investigate the roles of both hydrometeorological and anthropogenic factors on plastic pollution. We collected field data on floating, riverbank, and land litter (macroplastics) between December 2021 to December 2022 at 10 bridge locations along the Odaw river. We tested seasonality in plastic transport/density with the Mann-Whitney U-test. Furthermore, we used multiple regression analysis to evaluate the combined effect of all the hydrometeorological variables (rainfall, discharge, and windspeed) on macroplastic transport. Additionally, we correlated peaks in plastic to peaks in discharge, wind speed, and rainfall, defined with the 90th percentile of a distribution as the threshold. Finally, we correlated the spatial variation in plastic transport/density with MPW and population density. Contrary to previous studies, our results showed no seasonal differences in plastic pollution within the Odaw catchment. Additionally, only weak to no correlations were found between plastic transport and the hydrometeorological variables. Overall, only 14-18% of the plastic peaks corresponded to the hydrometeorological peaks. More of these plastic peaks were associated to windspeed peaks. However, a strong correlation was observed between MPW and plastic transport and riverbank/land plastic density. Therefore, we hypothesize that anthropogenic factors are more important than hydro meteorological factors in plastic pollution variations. Our study emphasizes the need to holistically study the role of both anthropogenic and hydrometeorological factors in explaining plastic transport and retention dynamics at a river basin scale. This insight is vital for developing effective interventions to address plastic pollution in river catchments.

This research addresses the issue of plastic waste accumulation, particularly in developing nations like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study aims to analyze the negative impact of mismanaged plastic waste, explicitly focusing on face mask litter and marine microplastic pollution. This research reveals that 82% of plastic waste generated by the coastal population in the Middle East enters the Persian Gulf, wherein Saudi Arabia is a significant contributor to face mask litter with the highest marine microplastic content of 32.69–235.36 thousand tons. In comparison, Qatar exhibits a 71.4% abundance of plastic in marine litter. Plastics account for 13-14% and 5-17% of the total solid waste generated in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, respectively. Daily generation of 1.4 kg/person of solid waste makes Qatar one of the top solid waste-generating countries globally. Among various polymers, polypropylene contributes the most to post-pandemic plastic waste. The study finds that 494 tons of COVID-19 test plastic residues end up in landfills globally. However, Saudi Arabia demonstrates effective landfill management practices and the lowest per capita mismanaged plastic waste rate, less than 0.01 kg daily. In contrast, Qatar has more than 50% of the waste sent to landfills. Both countries have recycling rates below 15%. The study emphasizes the urgent need for sustainable solutions, advocating for a circular economy approach, including recycling initiatives, renewable energy-powered recycling plants, and waste-to-energy conversion technologies. The research aims to bridge the knowledge gap, inform policymakers, and contribute to sustainable plastic waste management practices. It also lays the groundwork for future research, transboundary interventions, and the improvement of Sustainable Development Goals in Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Plastic pollution in the Ganga River: Modeling the town-level impact of population and waste management systems using region-specific parameters.

The true cost of solving the plastic waste challenge in developing countries: The case of Ghana

Anthropogenic litter is found in marine environments from the beach, beach sediment and surface water to the seafloor. Plastic can persist and accumulate in the marine environment for a long period because of its light weight and degradation-resistant properties. The global production of plastic increased from 230 million tonnes in 2005 to 322 million tonnes in 2015. It has been estimated that plastic production will increase to 330 million tonnes in 2017. Mismanaged plastic waste can enter the marine environment via both land-based sources and oceanic-based sources. Ocean gyres, oceanic convergence zones and even polar regions are regarded as plastic waste accumulation hotspots. Over 690 species including seabirds, turtles, and fish have been reported to ingest plastic debris. Additionally, large plastic debris, especially derelict fishing gear and packing bags, pose a plastic entanglement risk to marine organisms. Plastic debris can act as vectors for the accumulation of hydrophobic organic pollutants and heavy metals or metalloids, and thus potentially cause harmful effects to marine organisms, such as endocrine system disruption, liver and kidney failure, hormone alterations and teratogenicity. This chapter summarizes the sources, distributions and fates of plastic debris in the marine environment, as well as the physical and chemical effects induced by plastic debris. Finally, recommendations including legislation reinforcement, better management of waste collection systems and landfills, raising the awareness of different stakeholders and the application of advanced technology are suggested to reduce the amount of plastics in the marine environment.