The world is burning an alarming amount of plastic, scientists say
Nature Article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07758-6#Sec10
Washington Post Article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/09/04/plastic-waste-burned-study/
Background:
Macroplastic waste, defined as plastic waste particles larger than 5 mm, are accumulating in the environment, following significant increases in production over recent decates, impacting terrestrial and marine ecosystems, along with the atmosphere. [1, 2] There are numerous methods for plastic waste disposal, including biodegradation (when possible), recycling, and landfills. [2] However, existing global infrastructure is not always sufficient to process plastic wastes, leading to large volumes of mismanaged plastic waste that is often either burned in open air or transported to back into the environment uncontrollably. [3, 4] While reducing plastic waste is a major concern, it is also important to improve plastic processing infrastructure to keep plastic waste controlled. [4]
Nature Publication:
Cottom et al. compiled an inventory of macroplastics emissions as support for a U.N. draft resolution titled the “Plastics Treaty”. Cottom et al. defines emissions as plastic waste that has moved from the managed or mismanaged state (e.g. controlled landfills) to the unmanaged state. Global plastic emissions total to 51.2 Mt/yr, and are comprised of two categories: debris (i.e. plastic particles larger than 5 mm), which account for 43% (22.2 Mt/yr) of total emissions, or open burned plastics, accounting for 57% (29.9 Mt/yr) of emissions. The study used a combination of surveyed and census data from global and national waste management databases to map materials, along with statistical modeling to predict data for all municipalities based on many sub-national and socio-economic factors.
Extended Data Fig. 1: Emissions originate from five core emission sources and from three system parts (generated, managed and mismanaged), each of which exhibit different containment characteristics.
The study found that plastic pollution was highest in Southern Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia, and observed that 20 countries accounted for 69% of waste, all of which were low or middle income countries. However, low, lower-middle, and upper-middle income countries had much lower plastic generation than high income countries, though these countries do not significantly contribute to plastic waste emissions due to having nearly 100% collection coverage. Cottom et al. deliberately excluded plastic waste exports from high income countries, citing a significant decrease in the mass of plastic exported between 2017 and 2022, and the fact that exports only accounted for 0.03 Mt/yr (i.e. this is considered a mostly controlled system).
Cottom et al. compared absolute and per-capita emissions, and found large differences between these two values, indicating insufficient waste management systems in countries with large discrepancies. They cited the example of India and China, which were the #1 and #4 absolute emitters but #127 and #153 per-capita emitters. The study also acknowledged the contributions from urban v.s. rural areas, stating that urban areas had more emissions due to the number of people and sheer volume of plastic waste, as well as data gaps in rural waste management. Municipal data was used to identify sub-regional hotspots to target for improving waste management systems.
The study categorized total, debris, and burning emissions for each global sub-region into five sources: uncollected waste, littering, collection systems, uncontrolled disposal, and reprocessing plant rejection. This study is notably the first global inventory to consider uncollected waste as an unmanaged source rather than mismanaged (which isn’t included in emissions). They found that uncollected waste accounted for 68% (35.6 Mt/yr) of emissions in the Global South, which is the predominant source of plastic pollution worldwide. In the Global North, littering accounted for 49% (0.08 Mt/yr) of emissions. The study discussed the difference between the two emissions sources, how uncollected waste is a systematic issue that calls for improved waste management in many countries, rather than littering, which is largely an individual choice.
Fig. 2: a, Mean macroplastic emissions by country. Inset illustrates mean municipal-level emissions for India, from which the national results are calculated. Box plots show distribution of probabilistic material flow analysis results for the three highest macroplastic emitting countries in each United Nations sub-region. Box plot statistics: lower and upper hinges correspond to the first and third quartiles and the central line is the median. Whiskers extend to the data point no further than 1.5 times the interquartile range from the hinge, with outlier values beyond this denoted as dots. b, Emissions by United Nations sub-region and settlement typology54. Two groups of United Nations sub-regions are merged for simplicity into ‘Rest of Europe’ (Northern Europe, Southern Europe, Western Europe) and ‘Oceania’ (Polynesia, Australia and New Zealand, Melanesia, Micronesia). c, Mean emissions by United Nations sub-region and emission type. d, Mean proportion of macroplastic emissions by plastic format for the income categories of HIC and low-income or middle-income countries (LMIC).
Washington Post Article:
The Washington Post article by Durcoquet and Osaka decently summarized the main findings from the Nature article, including the top polluters. They identified burning as the predominant emissions type, and included health risks and atmospheric pollution implications of this waste disposal. They did discuss the implications of debris emissions at the end, but I don’t think appropriate weight was given to this category, when in reality, the two types (debris v.s. burning) have similar amounts (57% v.s. 43%).
In general, I felt that the WaPo article lacked context for some of the figures it presented- they stated that plastic waste exports from high income countries only accounted for 30,000 tons, though this number seems high without knowing that total global emission amount to 5,120,000 tons. The article also doesn’t clarify that this number refers to plastic emissions, not plastic waste, which is even more misleading and diminishes the amount of plastic waste produced by high income countries including the U.S. (i.e. WaPo’s target audience) since this waste is managed and thus not considered emissions. They also barely discussed plastic emissions in the Global North at all, including the effects of littering- while these effects were negligible in the context of global plastic emissions, including this discussion could give WaPo’s readers an actionable item to reduce their emissions.
Additionally, while I don’t always advocate for figures from the scientific articles to be used in mainstream news, I think this article had several great abstract figures, including the two in this post, that are self-explanatory and could be understood by non-technical audiences. They had a figure of the total emissions by country, though a more robust one could better contextualize this data. The WaPo article also had a chart of the top 20 cities, which didn’t seem to come from the Nature paper (definitely not in the main paper, and I didn’t find this exact data in the SI) and I think detracted from the main point of the journal article.
The article also included a quote from a representative from the International Council of Chemistry Associations (an industry group) that supported improved waste management, and also quoted a co-author of the Nature paper that stated that plastic waste management is limited, implying that our focus should be on reducing plastic waste (or even generation) rather than remedying the management.
Overall, I’d give this article a 5.5/10. Nothing was technically inaccurate, and they did a good job of highlighting the largest contributor to plastic emissions, but most of their presentations lacked appropriate context, and didn’t account for the difference between waste and emissions which is essential in the subsequent responsibility taken from this data, both in improving waste management where necessary and reducing plastic waste production globally.
References:
[1] Macleod, M; Arp, H. P. H.; Tekman, M. B.; Jahnke, A. The global threat from plastic pollution, Science, 2021, 373. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abg5433.
Your analysis does a great job highlighting how the Washington Post article underemphasized key distinctions, like emissions versus total waste and the roles of the Global North and South. I agree that giving more weight to debris emissions, which still make up 43% of the total, would have created a more balanced narrative. Your critique of the 30,000-ton export figure is spot-on. It’s misleading without clarifying it refers to emissions, not total waste. Do you think WaPo missed a chance to challenge high-income countries’ consumption and waste practices? I also liked your point about using figures from the Nature paper. Including visual aids could have made the data more accessible. Do you think their omission was an oversight or an attempt to simplify?
ReplyDeleteHi Jack! Absolutely agree that WaPo missed a huge opportunity to give proper weight to the plastic waste crisis in high-income countries and highlight action items. To give appropriate consideration, I think they'd have to clarify the difference between total plastic waste v.s. emissions, and maybe including some numbers about non-emissions plastic use in different regions. I read the Nature article first, but if I started with the WaPo article, I feel like I'd be shocked to hear that countries like the U.S. (which are pretty well-known for high plastic consumption) have negligible "waste", and that exporting plastic waste isn't significant. In reality that's not the case because we simply have well contained waste management so emissions are low, but that qualifier isn't really clear in the WaPo article.
DeleteRegarding your second question, I think some of this goes along with their confusion of waste and emissions. I feel like extended data fig 1 especially does a good job clarifying the two terms and would be really helpful and doesn't seem too complicated, which makes me wonder if it is intentional to keep the story focused on burning plastic waste emissions in the Global South, rather than the bigger picture.
Great analysis of the nature and news article. I agree that the article focused heavily on reducing plastic waste to help this management issue; however, seeing as plastic is a necessary product in todays society I think the article should focus on recycling improvement methods. There is a lot of work being done to improve chemical and mechanical recycling methods and I think it would benefit the reader to know that this is a hot topic in plastic waste research. Diminishing all plastic use is impossible, so I think including recycling methods (along with lowering plastic use) in combination is the way to fix this plastic problem. Although I am not an advocate for pyrolysis of plastic and increased level of greenhouse emission, I do think that it would be benefit the users to understand why pyrolysis is the main waste management device; this method is used to make energy. I would agree with your analysis and would also rate this article around a 6/10.
ReplyDeleteHi Allison! That's a great point- I agree that plastic recycling and chemical upcycling are major technologies in reducing plastic waste accumulation and should be a much larger part of discussions on the waste crisis (and like you said, this would be a chance to highlight even more current research). Even with these technologies, it's still necessary to reduce plastic generation and consumption when possible; plastic products are extremely prevalent and it's hard to live without many, but some single-use products are more wasteful than they are beneficial. I think mainstream media articles should address both of these facets to take responsibility for overconsumption but also promote improved recycling/upcycling technologies.
DeleteRegarding your point about plastic pyrolysis (assuming you're talking about the uncontrolled pyrolysis that was the main point of the article rather than controlled incineration), I agree that an explanation would be helpful, while advocating for better waste management systems that reduce plastic emissions.
Nice work summarizing the research and analyzing the Washington Post article! I agree that the figures included in the news article could have been more impactful given some added contextual details. I did enjoy how visually appealing the figures in the Washington Post article were but I was a little confused where the data was coming from. In Figure 2a that you included in your article, the world map depicts debris and open-burned plastic emissions by country. In the Washington Post figure that includes a world map, it is stated that it's showing "plastic burned in the open air," but is using data form the Cottom et al. paper. I am assuming that the Washington Post article had to adapt the researcher's figures to make them their own due to copyright issues, but is this a misrepresentation of the data? Or is there a different figure in the paper that shows just open-burned plastic emissions (not including debris) by country that I'm not seeing?
ReplyDeleteHi Baker! I agree that it's not super clear where their data is coming from. I was having issues downloading the extended SI that includes the raw dataset, but based on its description of contents it seems like the debris v.s. burned plastic emissions for each country are included, so I'm assuming that's where the data comes from. However, while I don't think this is a misrepresentation of *data* (assuming it indeed comes from the extended SI), the fact that WaPo used supplementary data rather than adapting a figure from the main body seems like a misappropriation of the overall argument to disproportionately highlight burning emissions only.
DeleteI liked this news article. I see where you're coming from with your critiques, but I think it did a good job getting the main points across from the Nature article, and doing so in a way that will stick in the reader's head. Simon Ducroquet is a graphics reporter for the Washington Post and Shannon Osaka is a climate reporter with a background in environmental science and human geography. Having both shows a level of effort that news sources like CNN fall short on. I found the figures in the Washington Post article to be very helpful, and what I've wanted to see from a lot of the other articles that we've seen. The reader could look at the figures alone and get a good idea as to what the article is about. Also, I loved that the Washington post had as option to listen to the article. I think that lowers the barrier to entry to read the article. When writing about the dangers associated with plastics later on in the article, I think their phrasing could be taken out of context, but I was happy that some of the links (not all unfortunately) were to scientific articles.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious as to how you would address your concerns for the "difference between waste and emissions". Would you want to incorporate something like Figure 1 from the Nature article?
Hi Abby! These are good points, and I agree that this WaPo article made a nice effort to involve authors knowledgeable in the subject and make the article accessible. With this in mind, I can see that my rating is a little harsh from an overall standpoint- I think my main concern was that they seemed to ignore half of the plastic emissions (debris) for most of the article, and steered the focus to only "burning plastic in the Global South" without a broader discussion of its context. What makes an article good v.s. bad is extremely nuanced and this is just based off my own priorities, though I can see a higher score on a different basis, maybe a 6.5 or even 7!
DeleteI think including something along the lines of figure 1, or even extended data figure 1, would be a good way to illustrate waste v.s. emissions. The Nature publication only focused on emissions, so it may not be appropriate to include managed plastic waste here, but I think there could have been more than a sentence or two on managed waste, and some action items that could be used to reduce its accumulation in high income countries which generate most of the plastic, rather than putting 100% of the pressure and on low and middle income countries for improved waste management.
Great job with your analysis of the nature article and washington post article! I found it interesting that one of the writers on the washington post news article has a background in environmental science (a masters degree even!) and the other, while has a background in journalism and graphic design, still focuses mainly on climate related topics. I feel like we have not really come across articles that are written by people who have backgrounds in science much during the course of these blog posts. This makes me wonder how there was such an oversight with reporting some pieces of data like the 30,000 tons of plastic emission. I know you briefly answered a similar question in another comment, but what do you think about this? I also found it interesting that they included the paragraph of the offices they reached out to asking for a comment on the data found in this paper failing to respond. In my opinion, it feels like a bit of waste space where more discussion could have been added instead (though, I believe this is a common journalistic practice hence why the inclusion). Are there any specific sections/paragraphs that you felt were irrelevant and should be changed? If yes, what would you change them to?
ReplyDeleteHi Sam! I agree that it's nice to see writers with experience in environmental science. Their figure of 30,000 tons of unmanaged plastic waste is not technically incorrect by any means, but rather lacks other values that I think are important in contextualizing it- for example, the % of total emissions from this source, or the total mass and/or % of managed plastic waste that is exported. When this is reported as a standalone number, it gives the impression that plastic waste exports aren't as concerning since they're well managed and seems to shift accountability from the exporting countries.
DeleteI agree that the paragraph about reaching out to offices seemed a little irrelevant and out of place between listing the major contributors and describing their methods. I don't know of any other paragraphs that I think should necessarily be changed/deleted, but rather just a bunch of additions to expand this discussion to the full conclusion of the Nature article and managed plastic waste.
Great analysis! I was wondering if you could elaborate more on how you felt about the figures included in the Washington Post. I agree with you and think that the table with the cities where the most plastic is burned in open air is a bit redundant. I think that generally the two figures used in the news article could have been combined to be more concise and they could have used that space to include a different figure that maybe discusses more the information from the scientific article. I also noticed, like you said, the news article did not mention much of the Global North and that many of the the countries they listed are developing countries. Do you think they had a reason for excluding the Global North? What do you think the news article's main purpose was and do you think they lacked a call for action?
ReplyDeleteGreat analysis, Leah! I am really curious who the washington post thinks their reader is, and what they want the reader to walk away with. It would be easy for a reader in the united states to walk away from this article with the idea that a. plastic emissions are too large an issue to handle b.it's not 'our' problem anyway, rather an 'evil of the other,' which is often a dangerous mindset with little accountability. Honestly, something feels off to me about even the Nature article. "100% collection coverage and controlled disposal" by HIC followed up by a the authors describing that they're we're not sure how much plastic waste is exported feels ambiguous, especially when it's British scientists in an institution (Leeds) with a DEEP colonial history.
ReplyDeleteThe nature paper studied plastic burning emissions specifically, however address that sea-based, industrial and construction sources account for a factor of 4.5 of plastic emissions (which the US would play a role in and there are calls to action to be had). I think possibly call to actions (in a news article, using additional sources) could be for control of HIC industrial waste, or support to developing nations for waste management.... I don't have the answer here.
When pointing out environmental issues from an HIC and position of power, how do we avoid 'othering' global environmental issues? Does this news article (or paper) do so effectively?