The average person in the U.S. uses an enormous amount of plastic — much more so than in other countries. And this number has surged in recent decades.
Back in 1980, annual plastic use in the U.S. was around 60 pounds per person. By 2018, this figure had risen to 218 pounds. A paper from 2020 estimated that 46 million tons of plastic waste was created in the U.S. in 2016.
“We estimated that in the U.S., our population produces more plastic waste than in any other country on the planet. That's in total, but also per capita,” says Kara Lavender Law, a research professor with the Sea Education Association and first author on that study.
Troublingly, the recorded figures probably don’t even reflect the reality of the total sum of plastic waste, say experts like Lisa Erdle, director of research and innovation at 5 Gyres.
That’s because there are ...
