The Plastic
Emergency

THE PLASTIC EMERGENCY

• Globally, 460 million tons of plastics, generating 350 million tons of waste, were used in 2019, doubling the 2000 figures. Without ambitious measures, this figure will have tripled by 2060 and plastic waste will exceed 1000 million tons, of which only 17% will be recycled. The share of recycled plastic waste is now less than 10%. (Global Plastics Outlook, Action Scenarios to 2060, OECD). 
• If nothing changes, the ocean could, by 2025, contain 1 ton of plastic for every 3 tons of fish and, by 2050, more plastics than fish (source: Ellen MacArthur Foundation).
• The lifetime cost of plastic produced in 2019 is ten times greater than the market cost(source : WWF Plastics, the costs to society, to the environment and the economy).
• As part of the European recovery plan adopted in July 2020, a plastic tax of €800 per ton of non-recycled plastic packaging waste is applied to Member States with effect from 1st January 2021. For 2021, France paid €1.2 billion.
• 29% of French people, and even 33% of those over 55, place household or plastic waste among the two most worrying environmental problems, behind global warming and the degradation of biodiversity (Ademe 2021).
• 4.8 million tons of plastics used per year in France or 70 kg per capital, 40% of which is packaging (Ademe 2021 plastic paradox)." Packaging represents 40% of the plastic used, including just over 20% for household packaging alone with 1.1 million tons.
• Reduction initiatives (the plastic bottle lost 40% of its weight between 1994 and 2012, the number of disposable plastic bags distributed by supermarkets decreased from 10 billion to 700 million between 2002 and 2011 (Ademe 2021 plastic paradox) have not made it possible to compensate for the increase in usage.
• After first measures in terms of the ban, in recent years, of cups, plates, cotton swabs, straws,... the AGEC law and the 3R decrees set as a target a 20% reduction in single-use plastic packaging by 2025 and the elimination of disposable plastic by 2040.
• 3.7 million tons of plastic waste collected per year (Ademe 2021). In 2018, 24.2%, 0.9 million tons, were recycled, 43.3% incinerated, 1.6 million tons and 32.5% landfilled, 1.2 million tonnes (Plastic Europe).
• Household packaging represents 1.1 million tons of waste per year for which only 29% is recycled far behind glass (85%) and paper (70%) (Ademe the paradox of plastic). 65% of household packaging is recyclable in the current state of the art but if 54.5% of bottles and vials, in PET or HDPE, are recycled, only 7.5% of other packaging is recycled (Citeo).