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The Conversation
The Conversation
Ellen M. Considine, Assistant Professor of Geography and Fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado Boulder

A lot of ‘recycled’ plastic is being burned overseas – and causing widespread pollution linked to health problems

Workers prepare to burn imported plastic waste at a dump in East Java, Indonesia, in 2018. Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images

Picture a pile of trash the size of Manhattan and taller than one and a half Empire State Buildings. That’s how much plastic waste the world is predicted to be generating every year by 2050 if nothing is done to change course.

It’s easy to think of recycling as the solution, but the vast majority of plastic waste now ends up in landfills, or worse.

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