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  • FAQs on plastics
  • Ocean plastics: How much do rich countries contribute by shipping their waste overseas?

Charts

  • Amount of plastic waste exported by air
  • Amount of plastic waste that is imported by air
  • Annual plastic waste by disposal method
  • Beach litter
  • Cumulative displaced plastic waste as a result of Chinese import ban
  • Cumulative global production of plastics
  • Cumulative plastic exports by top ten exporters
  • Cumulative recycled plastic export value by top ten exporters
  • Decomposition rates of marine debris
  • Environmental impacts of different types of grocery bags
  • Global plastic production with projections
  • Global plastics production
  • Global primary plastic production by industrial sector
  • Global primary plastic production by polymer
  • Global primary plastic waste generation by polymer
  • Global share of plastic waste by disposal method with projectionsGeyer et al. (2017)
  • Greenhouse gas emissions from plastic by life-cycle stage
  • Greenhouse gas emissions from plastics
  • Grocery bag comparisons for greenhouse gas emissions
  • How much plastic waste did China import?
  • Macroplastics in the surface ocean
  • Mean product lifetime of plastic uses
  • Microplastics in the surface ocean
  • Mismanaged plastic waste
  • Mismanaged plastic waste per capita
  • Mismanaged plastic waste per capita vs. GDP per capita
  • Most common items of waste in the ocean by region
  • Per capita plastic waste exports and imports by income group
  • Per capita plastic waste vs. GDP per capita
  • Plastic exports to China by top 10 exporting countries
  • Plastic waste accumulated in aquatic environments
  • Plastic waste accumulated in rivers and lakes
  • Plastic waste accumulated in the oceans
  • Plastic waste by disposal method with projectionsOECD
  • Plastic waste emitted to the ocean
  • Plastic waste emitted to the ocean per capita
  • Plastic waste emitted to the ocean per capita vs. GDP per capita
  • Plastic waste generation
  • Plastic waste generation by region and industrial sector
  • Plastic waste generation by region and polymer
  • Plastic waste generation per capita
  • Plastic waste per capita imports vs. exports
  • Plastics collected in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
  • Probability of mismanaged plastic waste being emitted to the ocean
  • Projections of plastic waste by disposal method
  • Rivers that contribute the most to ocean plastic pollution
  • Share of cumulative plastic exports by top ten exporters
  • Share of global mismanaged plastic waste
  • Share of global plastic waste emitted to the ocean
  • Share of global plastic waste imports
  • Share of plastic waste exports
  • Share of plastic waste that is incinerated
  • Share of plastic waste that is mismanaged
  • Share of plastic waste that is recycled
  • Share of plastic waste that is recycled, landfilled, incinerated and mismanaged
  • Share of plastic waste that is sent to landfill
  • Surface plastic mass across the world's oceans
  • Surface plastic particles across the world's oceans
  • What are the most common items of waste found in rivers and oceans?
  • What items of waste do we find in rivers and the ocean?

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Licenses: All visualizations, data, and articles produced by Our World in Data are open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited. All the software and code that we write is open source and made available via GitHub under the permissive MIT license. All other material, including data produced by third parties and made available by Our World in Data, is subject to the license terms from the original third-party authors.

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