India overtakes China as world’s largest plastic polluter: Study

NEW DELHI: A study by the University of Leeds, published in the Nature journal, reveals that India has surpassed China to become the world’s largest plastic polluter. The study found that India releases approximately 9.3 million tons of plastic waste into the environment each year.

To illustrate the magnitude, this amount of plastic could fill an area equivalent to 604 Taj Mahals. India’s plastic waste load is three times larger than that of China, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Pakistan—the next four biggest polluters.

The researchers used advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to create a comprehensive global inventory of plastic waste, identifying India as the top contributor, responsible for one-fifth of the global plastic waste burden. While China has made significant strides in managing waste through incineration and controlled landfills, India struggles with a ratio of 10:1 in favor of uncontrolled dumpsites over sanitary landfills.

The study also pointed out discrepancies in India’s waste management data. Although the country claims a 95 per cent national collection coverage, rural areas and informal recycling efforts are often excluded from official figures. “This means that India’s official waste generation rate is probably underestimated and waste collection overestimated,” the UK team reported.

The researchers estimate that nearly 57 million tonnes of municipal solid waste are burned in the open annually in India, with around six million tonnes of this being plastic. They also noted that 53 per cent of India’s plastic waste emissions come from the 255 million people whose waste remains uncollected, while the remainder largely results from open burning at dumpsites, where fires are a frequent occurrence.