Plastic waste generated by coastal populations

Huge quantities of mismanaged plastic waste make their way into marine environments every year, causing devastating pollution. This can be from littering, illegal dumping, and inadequate waste management. It is estimated that in 2016, the coastal population of the United States (117.94 million) generated as much as 1.45 million metric tons of mismanaged plastic waste. This was one of the highest in the world, behind only India and Indonesia.

Mismanaged plastic waste generated by coastal populations worldwide in 2016, by select country (in million metric tons)

Characteristic	Mismanaged plastic waste in million metric tons
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Release date

October 2020

More information

Region

Worldwide

Survey time period

2016

Supplementary notes

* The source adds the following information: "The two U.S. estimates provide lower and upper bounds reflecting contributions from domestic litter (0.31 Mt), domestic illegal dumping (0.05 to 0.15 Mt), and inadequate management of plastic waste generated during the processing of imported U.S. plastic and paper scrap in countries with greater than 20% inadequately managed waste (0.15 to 0.99 Mt)."

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