Science 13 February 2015: Vol. 347 no. 6223 pp. 768-771 DOI: 10.1126/science.1260352 [subscription req’d]: “Plastic debris in the marine environment is widely documented, but the quantity of plastic entering the ocean from waste generated on land is unknown. By linking worldwide data on solid waste, population density, and economic status, we estimated the mass of land-based plastic waste entering the ocean. We calculate that 275 million metric tons (MT) of plastic waste was generated in 192 coastal countries in 2010, with 4.8 to 12.7 million MT entering the ocean. Population size and the quality of waste management systems largely determine which countries contribute the greatest mass of uncaptured waste available to become plastic marine debris. Without waste management infrastructure improvements, the cumulative quantity of plastic waste available to enter the ocean from land is predicted to increase by an order of magnitude by 2025.”
- Commentary referencing report via rt.com – “The researchers combined data on solid waste from 192 different coastal countries with factors such as population density and economic status. They identified the major sources of ocean-bound plastic and listed the 20 countries that contribute the most. It turned out that China was responsible for the most ocean plastic pollution per year with an estimated 2.4 million tons, about 30 percent of the global total, followed by Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Egypt, Malaysia, Nigeria and Bangladesh. The US was the only rich industrialized nation in the top 20, and ranking No. 20. Coastal EU nations combined would rank 18th.”
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