About 11 million tons of plastic waste flows into the sea each year, according to UN. On International Plastic Bag Free Day, statistician Stephanie Hegarty asks how efforts to recycle plastic work.
He finds that even in countries where large quantities of plastic waste are collected, only half of it is recycled.
Some may be shipped to a developing country, where they reach an unknown destination. Some – in Germany, for example – may be burned. And when a plastic bottle is recycled it may be converted into products such as food trays or fabrics that may be recycled at the end of their lives.
