The scale and visible nature of the plastic pollution problem has captured grassroots imagination like no other environmental issue.
Fugitive plastics
If current trends continue, from 2016 to 2050, there will be 7.2 billion tonnes of total plastic packing waste generated, of which 2.1 billion tonnes will end up in the natural environment. 1.6 billion tonnes of this will remain on land and 0.5 billion tonnes will find its way into the marine environment.
Reducing the amount of plastic that would end up in the marine environment alone would cost USD c 1.6 trillion.
Source: Terrestrial fugitive plastic packaging: the blind spot in resolving plastic pollution, Wallis C (2020).
Global Flow of Packaging Waste (2015)
Primary
Focus
Tackling Leaked Post-Consumer Plastic Wastes on Land
Fugitive plastic
Plastic not collected or leaked out of waste collection systems into the natural environment.
2.1 billion tonnes
Estimated amount of fugitive plastic packaging by 2050.
80%
Plastic found in the ocean which initially comes from leaked waste on land.
Find out how we are solving the problem:
What is Biotransformation?