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
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.
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.