New study finds 52 million metric tons of plastic waste produced per year

LONDON -- An estimated 52 million metric tons of global plastic waste emissions are produced every year, a new study by the University of Leeds has found.

The study, using artificial intelligence to model waste management in 50,702 municipalities across the world, is one of the most detailed global inventories of plastic pollution ever done, researchers said.

That amount of pollution is enough to fill New York City’s Central Park with waste as high as the Empire State Building, according to the study.

“We are just starting to get to grips with the nature and scope of the problem,” Ed Cook, research fellow at the University of Leeds who took part in the new study told ABC News. “It was a great chance to advance understanding of where it’s taking place and the sources, connecting the amount emitted to human systems and activity.”

The study found that uncollected waste was the largest source of the world’s plastic pollution, accounting for over two thirds of the planet’s plastic pollution. The study highlighted that 15% of the world’s population -- around 1.2 billion people -- are living without access to adequate waste collection service, forcing them to "self-manage" waste by dumping or burning it.

“This is an urgent global human health issue -- an ongoing crisis. People whose waste is not collected have no option but to dump or burn it,” said Dr. Costas Velis, the resource efficiency systems academic who led the study. “Setting the plastics on fire may seem to make them ‘disappear,’ but, in fact, the open burning of plastic waste can lead to substantial human health damage, including neurodevelopmental, reproductive and birth defects and much wider environmental pollution dispersion.”

Littering was found to be the number one emission source in the global north. In the global south, however, uncollected waste was found as the dominant source of emissions.

Southern Asia was found to have the highest plastic pollution emissions in the world with India revealed to be the world’s biggest contributor to global plastic pollution. The Asian nation produces an estimated 9.3 million tons of waste annually -- equivalent to around a fifth of the world’s total waste.

Nigeria came in second, producing 3.5 million tons a year, followed by Indonesia with 3.4 million tons.

China -- which was previously the world’s highest polluter -- was ranked fourth on the list of worst offenders. “This lower contribution to plastic emissions from China reflects our use of more up-to-date data that shows its substantial progress in adopting waste incineration and controlled landfill,” says the study.

Cook said the U.S.A. was “relatively well performing” in the study, ranking in 90th place out of the 246 nations examined in the study.

Many nations in Sub-Saharan Africa were found to have “generally low levels of plastic pollution.” However, when looked at per capita, many nations become “hotspots,” raising fears the region could become the world’s largest absolute source of plastic pollution in the “next few decades.”

Researchers are calling on policy makers to create a “new, ambitious and legally binding” ‘Plastics Treaty’ aimed at tackling the sources of plastics pollution.

“The health risks resulting from plastic pollution affect some of the world’s poorest communities who are powerless to do anything about it,” said Dr. Josh Cotton.

Earlier this year in April, progress was made towards securing a global treaty to end plastic pollution following the fourth Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-4) in Canada that saw over 2,500 delegates and 170 member states come together.

A spokesman for the U.S. Department of State said the United States is “encouraged” by progress made in the talks.

“We were encouraged by the constructive dialogue among countries during INC-4 and remain optimistic that the text of the agreement can be finalized by the end of 2024,” the spokesman said.

“We hope that our detailed local scale dataset will help decision-makers to allocate scarce resources to address plastic pollution efficiently,” Cook told ABC News.