Global plastic production by feedstock type 1950-2019
Since 1950 and for nearly six decades, fossil fuel-based plastics have accounted for the large majority, if not all of global plastics production, amounting to a cumulative 373 million metric tons in 2019. Bio-based plastics accounted for a significantly lower share of plastic production at that time, reaching only 3.8 million metric tons in the same year. Bio-based plastics production amounted to approximately 300,000 metric tons less one year prior to that, in 2018.
