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The United States is the world leader in generating plastic waste, producing an annual 42 million metric tons of plastic waste. [59] [60] Per capita generation of plastic waste in the United States is higher than in any other country, with the average American producing 130.09 kilograms of plastic waste per year. Other high-income countries ...
The trade in plastic waste from industrialized countries to developing countries has been identified as the main cause of marine litter because countries importing the waste plastics often lack the capacity to process all the material. [249] Therefore, the United Nations has imposed a ban on waste plastic trade unless it meets certain criteria.
As the plastic flotsam photodegrades into smaller and smaller pieces, it concentrates in the upper water column. As it disintegrates, the pieces become small enough to be ingested by aquatic organisms that reside near the ocean's surface. Plastic may become concentrated in neuston, thereby entering the food chain. Disintegration means that much ...
Plastics accounts for 80% of waste dispersed in the marine and coastal environment of the Mediterranean Sea. [24] Recent studies focus on the types of plastics found and primarily on the issue of microplastics, both at a global but also at a regional level, as in the case of the Mediterranean Sea, which was identified as a "target hotspot of the world" due to its amounts of microplastics ...
Packaging waste, the part of the waste that consists of packaging and packaging material, is a major part of the total global waste, and the major part of the packaging waste consists of single-use plastic food packaging, a hallmark of throwaway culture.
Plastic recycling is the processing of plastic waste into other products. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Recycling can reduce dependence on landfill , conserve resources and protect the environment from plastic pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
[5] [106] Plastic in the oceans is spread far beyond the gyres; experts estimate that less than 5% of all the plastic pollution which enters the oceans makes its way into any of the garbage patches. [ 5 ] : 1 Much of the plastic that does make it to gyres is not floating at the surface, [ 103 ] though recent research confirms it is mostly ...
Plastic pellet pollution is a type of marine debris originating from the plastic particles that are universally used to manufacture large-scale plastics. In the context of plastic pollution , these pre-production plastic pellets are commonly known as ' nurdles' . [ 1 ]