Fuck me.

We’re currently in a “plastic age” where we make a lot of plastic for various needs1. It’s predicted that by 2050, we’ll be producing more than 34,000 million metric tons of plastic2. Miserably, only 9% of the plastic we use gets recycled, 12% is burned, and the rest, a whopping 79%, ends up buried in the ground3. In 2020, Asia, North America, and Europe accounted for 49%, 19%, and 15% of the world’s plastic, respectively. Asia, North America, and Europe each contributed 49%, 19%, and 15%, respectively, of the world’s plastics output in 2020, which is close to 370 million Metric Tons (Mt)4. On an individual level, each person makes over 130 kg of plastic waste every year5. The problem is that a lot of this plastic waste ends up in the soil, where it breaks down into tiny pieces like fragments, fibers, and pellets6. We call these tiny pieces Microplastics (MPs).

God that hurts to read.