Fortune - 04.2020

(Wang) #1
STILL IN FIRST USE
3,000 MILLION TONS

STILL IN
SECOND USE
200 MILLION TONS

SECOND USE
(MOSTLY NOT RECYCLABLE)
700 MILLION TONS

INCINERATED
100 M. TONS

RECYCLED
100 M. TONS

DISCARDED
300 M. TONS

RECYCLED AFTER FIRST USE
700 MILLION TONS

DISCARDED AFTER USE
5,500 MILLION TONS

TOTAL DISCARDED
5,800 MILLION TONS

TOTAL
STILL
IN USE
3,200 M.
TONS

TOTAL INCINERATED
1,100 MILLION TONS

TOTAL
RECYCLED
800 M. TONS

INCINERATED
AFTER USE
1,000 M. TONS

ALL PLASTIC
PRODUCED BETWEEN
1950 AND 2017
10,100 MILLION TONS

NOTE: U.S. SHORT TONS
SOURCE: UC SANTA BARBARA BREN SCHOOL OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & MANAGEMENT

76 FORTUNE APRIL 2020

is equally worrying. According to a study commissioned by
the World Wildlife Fund, the average American consumes
at least a teaspoon’s worth of plastic a week through food—
roughly the amount in a credit card—with unforeseeable
health consequences.
The durability that makes plastic so appealing, it turns
out, also makes it an environmental time bomb. An esti-
mated 90.5% of all the plastic produced since 1950 is still
in existence, according to analysis by Roland Geyer, an
industrial ecology professor at the University of California
at Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science &
Management. Only 8.4% of plastic waste in the U.S. was re-
cycled in 2017, according to the Environmental Protection
Agency. An additional 15.8% was burned to generate energy;
the rest wound up in landfills. Recycling rates are even lower
in parts of Asia and Africa. Even Europe, with its stringent
environmental laws, recycles only about 30% of plastics.
For decades, plastics producers and their biggest
customers—consumer-goods giants like Coca-Cola,

PLASTICS ARE FOREVER

The global consumer revolution might not have been possible without plastic, which is inexpensive and durable. But
that latter quality has come back to haunt us. According to industrial ecologist Roland Geyer, 90.5% of all the plastic
made since 1950 is still on the planet, somewhere. Here’s where it goes—and doesn’t go.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35 MILLION TONS

LANDFILLED

RECYCLED

PLASTIC WASTE MANAGEMENT IN THE U.S.

COMBUSTION
WITH ENERGY
RECOVERY

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2017
NOTE: U.S. SHORT TONS SOURCES: EPA; AMERICAN CHEMISTRY COUNCIL; NAPCOR

PLA.W.0420.XMIT.indd 76 FINAL 3/10/2020 4:00:15 PM

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