New research out of China backs what many have already said: Global plastic recycling is stagnant in the face of rapidly growing production. Researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing peg the global plastic recycling rate at 9 percent while there is what they describe as a significant shift in plastic waste disposal.
"Incineration is emerging as a prominent waste disposal method (34 percent)," researchers said, while "landfill is decreasing substantially (40 percent)."
The report uses 2022 statistics. "The global demand for plastics has quadrupled over the past decades, and it is projected to double by 2050," the report states.
Global annual plastics production grew at an average rate of 8.4 percent between 1950 and 2022, the new study states.
The paper "Complexities of the Global Plastics Supply Chain Revealed in a Trade-linked Material Flow Analysis" was published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.