“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.  The findings further show that in 2020 roughly 30 million tonnes of plastics — amounting to 57% of all plastic pollution — was burned in homes, on streets and in dumpsites, without any environmental controls in place. Burning plastic comes with ‘substantial’ threats to human health, including neurodevelopmental, reproductive and birth defects.” The paper, A local-to-global emissions inventory of macroplastic pollution, is published in Nature today. (September 4) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07758-6