2 published verifications about Plastic Waste Plastic Waste ×
“The world produces 355 million tonnes of plastic waste annually.”
Available evidence supports this as a reasonable approximation, not as an exact timeless statistic. The strongest source, OECD’s Global Plastics Outlook, estimates 353 million tonnes of plastic waste in 2019, and several credible summaries place the total around 350–360 million tonnes. The claim would be stronger if it specified the year and treated 355 million tonnes as rounded.
“Plastic waste eventually biodegrades in landfills.”
This claim is false. The overwhelming scientific evidence shows that conventional plastics (polyethylene, polypropylene, PET, etc.) do not biodegrade in landfills. Landfill conditions — anaerobic, UV-limited, and compacted — are hostile to biodegradation. Most plastics persist for centuries, merely fragmenting into microplastics rather than truly breaking down into CO₂, water, and biomass. Even plastics marketed as "biodegradable" often fail to biodegrade under real landfill conditions. The claim gives a dangerously misleading impression that landfills naturally resolve plastic pollution.