Fortune - 04.2020

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