{"id":253100,"date":"2021-05-19T00:11:05","date_gmt":"2021-05-18T21:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/us-and-china-leading-in-single-use-plastic-waste-generation\/"},"modified":"2021-05-19T00:11:05","modified_gmt":"2021-05-18T21:11:05","slug":"us-and-china-leading-in-single-use-plastic-waste-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/us-and-china-leading-in-single-use-plastic-waste-generation\/","title":{"rendered":"#US and China leading in single-use plastic waste generation"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#US and China leading in single-use plastic waste generation<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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Fossil fuel companies based in the US are driving the world\u2019s plastic pollution crisis, according to a damning new report<\/a> on the single-use plastics industry. <\/p>\n

Top research institutions contributed to the study assembled by Australian watchdog group Minderoo Foundation<\/a>, which puts blame on fossil-fuel companies such as ExxonMobil and Dow, as well as China\u2019s Sinopec, for contributing 16% of the world\u2019s single-use plastic waste \u2014 nearly all of which ends up in the air, earth or water. <\/p>\n

At least one-third of all plastic waste globally \u2014 130 million tons in 2019 \u2014 are considered single-use, meant to be used once and discarded immedia<\/a>tely, such as grocery bags, bottles and to-go utensils.<\/p>\n

Globally, the US ranked No. 2 in single-use plastic waste generation with over 17.1 million tons created in 2019, but ninth in single-use plastic waste per capita with 52 kilograms (114.6 pounds) annually. Compare that to China, which led the world in waste generation with over 25.3 million tons, but accounted for only about one-third of the US\u2019s per capita rates at only 18 kilograms (39.6 pounds) per year, despite being home to about 1.07 billion more residents.<\/p>\n

\"Plastic
Plastic waste has reached a scary level in the US and China.<\/figcaption>
Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In third place, India, the world\u2019s second-most populated country, contributed just a fraction of plastic waste compared to China and the US: 5.6 million tons of single-use plastic waste generated in 2019 and only 4 kilograms (8.8 pounds) per capita. <\/p>\n

While creating much less single-use plastic waste overall, wealthy nations who ranked above the US in per capita single-use plastic waste included Singapore (first), Australia (second), the Netherlands (third), Belgium (fourth), Hong Kong (fifth), Israel (sixth), Oman (seventh) and Switzerland (eighth).<\/p>\n

According to the annual \u201cNo Plastic Waste\u201d report, it\u2019s often smaller companies \u2014 restaurants, grocers or salons, for example \u2014 who bear the brunt of reform, as with recent state- and local-level legislation to ban certain single-use plastics in California, New York and elsewhere. Nevertheless, 98% of all single-use plastics are produced thanks to polymers created by fossil-fuel companies, who turn a higher profit on manufacturing \u201cvirgin\u201d materials rather than developing \u201ccircular\u201d systems based on recycling, reuse and alternative, sustainable resources.<\/p>\n

\"Single-use
Single-use plastic water bottles often end up not being recycled.<\/figcaption>
Getty Images\/Westend61<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the BBC\u2019s request, ExxonMobil has issued a statement<\/a> in response to the \u201cNo Plastic Waste\u201d report, claiming they are \u201ctaking action to address plastic waste by increasing plastic recyclability, supporting improvements in plastic waste recovery \u2026 and minimizing plastic pellet loss from our operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

They added, \u201cWe are also working on advanced recycling solutions that create and capture value from plastic waste with opportunities for lower overall greenhouse gas emissions over the full life cycle of the plastic.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot at stake for the world\u2019s richest investors, the new report revealed<\/a>. Just 20 of the world\u2019s most powerful investment firms, namely US-based groups such as Vanguard Group, BlackRock and Capital Group, possess more than $300 billion of shares in polymer-producing parent companies, which reap an estimated $10 billion on single-use plastics alone. <\/p>\n

In the absence of meaningful political action and government support, the world stands to grow its single-use polymer market by 30%, according to \u201cNo Plastic Waste.\u201d Its report notes that 30% of the sector by value is state-owned, in Saudi Arabia, China and the United Arab Emirates, among others. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is critically important petrochemical companies move towards circular economy-based alternatives,\u201d said Professor Sam Fankhauser, economist at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics, who contributed to the report. In a statement to the BBC<\/a>, he continued, \u201cThe benefits on offer are transformative and hugely beneficial, not only for our environment and ecosystems but also the communities living with the realities of plastic pollution.\u201d\n <\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#US and China leading in single-use plastic waste generation” Fossil fuel companies based in the US are driving the world\u2019s plastic pollution crisis, according to a damning new report on the single-use plastics industry. Top research institutions contributed to the study assembled by Australian watchdog group Minderoo Foundation, which puts blame on fossil-fuel companies such…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":253101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/05\/plastic-waste-4.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[106210,71387,71388,106359,27204,72872],"class_list":["post-253100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-5-18-21","tag-plastic","tag-plastic-bags","tag-plastic-straws","tag-pollution","tag-waste-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}