Plastic: “between 400,000 and 1 million people die each year in low- and middle-income countries because of diseases related to mismanaged waste”
A group called the Tearfund published a report in 2019 on plastic waste called No Time to Waste. It states “between 400,000 and 1 million people die each year in low- and middle-income countries because of diseases related to mismanaged waste.” I expect that number has risen since.
I expect I’ll quote this finding as a measure of our culture. Consider this point: there was once no litter on earth. Not one piece of litter. Now it’s everywhere, including our arteries and brains.
I’ve quoted the Lancet’s peer-reviewed paper on 9 million deaths per year from breathing polluted air. This report seems comparable and independent. Though not peer-reviewed, it documents its methods.
Here is the beginning of the appendix that documents their methods, though read the full report for details:read the full report
The World Bank’s What a Waste report also provide figures for total household waste by country‑income group, along with estimates of the percentage that is plastic and the percentage that is ‘mismanaged’.
‘Mismanaged’ means subject to open dumping or burning. Combining these figures allows us to estimate that 70 million tonnes of plastic are burnt or dumped in low‑ and middle‑income countries each year.
As with the previous statistic, we use the Everyday Plastic report’s conversion factor for weight to volume, for plastic waste. Although this is based on a UK waste sample, our understanding of plastic waste composition across countries suggests that it is likely to be broadly similar globally. This results in a volume estimate of 3 billion m3 of mismanaged plastic waste in low‑ and middle‑income countries each year.
Deaths resulting from waste each year
This is the most complicated of the three statistics.
As described in chapter 2 of the report, the links between waste and ill health are serious and multi‑faceted.
For the purposes of the calculation, we focus on three channels:
- Premature mortality from air pollution caused by open burning of waste (which is linked with stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, ischaemic heart disease, lung cancer, lower respiratory infections and neonatal preterm birth).
- Diarrhoeal disease caused by blocked drains, flooding, and other insanitary conditions arising from
dumped waste.- Mosquito-borne disease including dengue and malaria caused by increased mosquito breeding grounds arising from dumped waste and flooding.
There are other causes that we cannot calculate, including death by drowning, falling or wounding, and other diseases such leptospirosis. We do mention these in chapter 2, but do not include them in our calculations.
In each case we produce an upper‑ and lower‑bound estimate. Taken together, these provide a range of approximately 400,000 to 1.1 million deaths annually (rounded to the nearest hundred thousand).
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