Little time? At the end of the text there is a summary.

Even after 50 years, the plastic bottle looks like new. "Mild and gentle, especially on your hands," says the slightly dented pack that conservationists found a few months ago on a beach in Somerset, England. A bottle on a beach, that does not matter, right? But, because the bottle from Somerset illustrates two global problems: Plastic rots slowly and ends up in the environment too often, especially in the oceans and oceans.

In Nairobi, Kenya, countries around the world spent a week discussing how mankind can manage the plastic problem. The result is the fourth Uno Environment Assembly: little. Environmental Secretary Jochen Flasbarth had already slowed expectations before the end of the negotiations. "The fact that we already have a convention or just get started in negotiations, that will not succeed here," he said in the ZDF morning magazine.

Will that be enough? Plastic has meanwhile spread all over the globe, in the Arctic, in the 11,000-meter-deep Mariana Trench, even in human blood are found components of plastics. Plastic fills the stomachs of seabirds, dolphins, whales. A PET bottle takes about 450 years to rot. But that's not exactly predictable, because there is no plastic bottle that would be that old. The plastic is a relatively new invention. On a large scale it is only used since the end of the Second World War.

An overview of the online platform "Ourworldindata" shows how the production of plastic has increased in recent years.

In 2015 alone, 381 million tons of plastic were produced worldwide, almost 50 times more than 60 years ago. Four to 13 million tons of it get into the oceans annually - depending on the estimate. The rest ends up in landfills or is burned. Only nine percent of the plastic waste produced so far has been recycled, the UN estimates. More than 140 million tons of plastic garbage now drift through the oceans in five huge whirlpools.

Who is to blame for spoiling the oceans?

Much of the plastic waste in the oceans comes from rivers. Researchers at the Ocean Cleanup Foundation have projected in a "Nature" study, which rivers in 2015, the world's oceans have particularly polluted.

The Yangtze - the longest river in China - has washed into the oceans by far the largest amount of plastic waste, an estimated 333,000 tons. In second place follows the Ganges with about 115,000 tons. According to estimates, 86 percent of the plastic that reaches the oceans via rivers comes from Asia - above all from China. By comparison, rivers in Africa contributed almost 8 percent to the pollution of the oceans with plastic, 0.28 percent in Europe.

The fact that Europe seems to contribute little to the pollution of the world's oceans is due to the fact that the waste industry is highly developed by international standards. Even the small part of the garbage that is not incinerated or recycled does not end up in nature but in strictly controlled landfills. In developing and emerging countries, things are quite different. Usually there is also a sort of official garbage collection and areas where the waste is collected. But often the landfills are hardly controlled and not shielded from the surrounding nature. This increases the risk that the waste will inadvertently get into rivers and into the sea.

In the video: The garbage dumps of the seas

Video

NASA

A world map of the online platform "Our world in data" forecasts how high a country's share of global mismanagement in waste management will be in 2025. Mismanagement in this case describes the risk of plastic waste entering the oceans unchecked. For example, because he is thrown away or ends up in open dumps. In particular, garbage that is expected to be generated in regions no more than 50 kilometers from the coast has been taken into account. Thus, China alone accounts for 25 percent of the global mismanagement of plastic waste.

Expected share of global plastic waste mismanagement in 2025

Mismanagement in this case describes the risk of plastic waste entering the oceans unchecked.

No data

0.0 - <0.1

0.1 - <0.5

0.5 - <1

1 - <2.5

2,5 - <5

5 - <10

10 - <20

20 and more

Expected share of poorly managed plastic waste worldwide in 2025

country Incorrectly managed waste in 2025 (% of total global quantity)
Albania .0913
Algeria 1.4729
angola .1980
anguilla 0.0001
Antigua and Barbuda 0.0020
Argentina .4635
aruba 0.0007
Australia 0.0357
Bahamas 0.0025
bahrain 0.0144
Bangladesh 3.1996
Barbados 0.0054
Belgium 0.0083
belize 0.0087
benin .1729
Bermuda 0.0003
Bosnia and Herzegovina 0.0292
Brazil 1.3813
British Virgin Islands 0.0001
Brunei Darussalam 0.0005
Bulgaria 0.0373
Chile 0.0616
China 25.7893
Cook Islands 0.0011
Costa Rica .1099
Curacao 0.0005
Democratic Republic of Congo 0.0629
Germany 0.0482
dominica 0.0021
Dominican Republic .3310
Djibouti 0.0660
Denmark 0.0061
ecuador .3055
El Salvador .3284
Ivory Coast .7776
eritrea 0.0629
Estonia 0.0121
Falkland Islands 0.0000
Faroe 0.0002
Fiji 0.1028
Finland 0.0093
France 0.0502
French Guiana 0.0081
French Polynesia 0.0026
Gabon 0.0224
Gambia 0.0774
Georgia 0.0355
Ghana .4706
Gibraltar 0.0001
grenada 0.0035
Greece 0.0270
Greenland 0.0002
guadeloupe 0.0167
guam 0.0008
Guatemala .2283
guernsey 0.0002
Guinea 0.0867
Guinea-Bissau 0.0752
Guyana 0.0523
Haiti .4693
Honduras .2738
Hong Kong 0.0544
India 4.1711
Indonesia 10.7345
Iraq 0.0690
Iran .6660
Ireland 0.0203
Iceland 0.0013
Israel 0.0408
Italy 0.0652
Jamaica 0.0862
Japan .2566
Yemen 0.744
Jordan 0.0043
Cayman Islands 0.0002
Cambodia 0.0910
Cameroon 0.1040
Canada 0.0212
Cape Verde 0.0267
Qatar 0.0023
Kenya .1261
kiribati 0.0101
Cocos 0.0000
Colombia .2605
Comoros .1460
Croatia 0.0284
Cuba .2612
Kuwait 0.0195
Latvia 0.0241
Lebanon .1474
Liberia .2067
Libya 0.1485
Lithuania 0.0079
Macau 0.0017
Madagascar .2571
Malaysia 2.5565
Maldives 0.0581
Malta 0.0054
Morocco 1.0229
Marshall Islands 0.0083
Martinique 0.0014
Mauritania 0.0575
Mauritius .1059
Mexico .3379
Micronesia 0.0155
monaco 0.0001
Montenegro 0.0105
montserrat 0.0001
Mozambique .4156
Myanmar 1.6637
Namibia 0.0164
nauru 0.0015
Caledonia 0.0010
New Zealand 0.0167
Nicaragua .2453
Netherlands 0.0469
Netherlands Antilles 0.0005
Nigeria 3.5916
niue 0.0000
North Korea .8839
Norfolk island 0.0002
Norway 0.0142
Northern Mariana Islands 0.0004
Oman 0.0170
Pakistan 1.7682
palau 0.0020
Palestine 0.0270
Panama 0.1024
Papua New Guinea .3508
Peru .5459
Philippines 7.3661
Poland 0.0389
Portugal 0.0281
Puerto Rico 0.0296
Republic of the Congo .0577
Romania 0.0120
Russian Federation .1867
Reunion 0.0023
Saint Pierre and Miquelon 0.0000
Solomon Islands .2556
Samoa 0.0159
Saudi Arabia 0.0635
Sweden 0.0076
Senegal 1.0687
Seychelles 0.0079
Sierra Leone 0.1756
Singapore 0.0157
Sint Maarten (Dutch part) 0.0001
Slovenia 0.0014
Somalia .4192
Spain 0.0853
Sri Lanka 2.7775
St. Helena 0.0003
St. Kitts and Nevis 0.0011
St. Lucia 0.0125
St. Vincent and the Grenadines 0.0043
sudan .0754
suriname 0.0093
Syria .4415
Sao Tome and Principe 0.0193
South Africa 1.2106
South Korea 0.0764
Taiwan 0.0936
Tanzania 0.3101
Thailand 3.1551
togo .1404
tokelau 0.0001
tonga 0.0149
Trinidad and Tobago .1064
Tunisia .6380
Turks and Caicos Islands 0.0001
tuvalu 0.0012
Turkey 1.1440
Ukraine .3379
Uruguay 0.0116
vanuatu 0,055
Venezuela .2233
United Arab Emirates 0.0086
United States of America .4876
United Kingdom .1363
Vietnam 6.0407
Christmas island 0.0000
Cyprus 0.0038
Egypt 2.8047
Equatorial Guinea 0.0204


However, there is no reason for industrialized countries to look to Asia and to lean back. For years, China was the world's dump and imported plastic waste from all over the world to extract new raw materials. Especially Germany took advantage of the offer and shipped a good ten percent of its plastic waste into the Middle Kingdom.

But often the garbage did not have the promised quality - recycling was impossible. China therefore pulled the ripcord and banned the import of plastic waste in 2018. Since then, Germany has increasingly exported to other Asian countries or has to burn more plastic waste. In any case, the recycling system in Germany is not at its best, even though hardly any other country is so diligent in separating its waste. According to estimates, only five to six percent of the waste in this country is recycled. (Here you can read more about it). At the same time, nowhere in the EU is there more packaging waste than in Germany. In 2016 alone, every person in Germany consumed an average of 220 kilograms of packaging.

Waste quotasGerman recycling system fails with plastic waste

The data shows that the plastic problem can only be solved globally. It is not enough to ban plastic forks and earsticks. It is therefore all the more regrettable that the Nairobi summit has, above all, introduced declarations of intent and no binding commitments.

In short, the UN Environmental Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, is coming to an end without a binding agreement to combat plastic waste. The international community could not even agree on opening negotiations. The plastic problem can only be solved globally. Data show that much of the plastic waste in the oceans comes from Asia, especially China. Often there is no efficient waste management there. According to estimates, millions of tons of plastic enter the oceans every year. Industrialized countries are exacerbating the problem by exporting plastic waste there.

Note: In an earlier version it was said that plastic had spread in the 11,000-kilometer-deep Mariana Trench. Right are 11,000 meters. We have corrected the corresponding passage.