Is Your Plastic Going Up in Flames?

Each year, more than 400 million metric tons of plastic is produced. Unfortunately most items you toss in the recycling bin don’t end up being recycled. Many plastic products are single-use, hard to recycle, and can stay in the environment for decades or centuries, often being fragmented into smaller items. Some plastics contain potentially harmful chemical additives which could pose a threat to human health, particularly if they are burned in the open. In fact we are inhaling tiny plastic particles every day.

Everyday Plastic tracked parcels of soft plastic that the supermarkets collected in the UK from customers with the promise they would be recycled. Of the tracked soft plastic packaging waste collected for recycling at Sainsbury's and Tesco stores, 70% of the soft plastic that reached a known destination was burnt, not recycled.

In 2021, UK supermarkets began to roll out an initiative to tackle the growing plastic problem – soft plastic packaging take-back schemes that claimed to help tackle the impact of plastic waste. Soft plastic is hard to recycle and very few facilities in the UK have the ability to process it.

Plastic Burning is a Global Problem

But it’s not just the UK. Everywhere, people are burning plastics. A 2024 study using A.I. to model waste management in more than 50,000 municipalities around the world found that 57% of all plastic pollution -- was burned without any environmental controls in place, in homes, on streets and in dumpsites. Plastic burns hot and fast, so it is also used as kindling in cooking fires by individuals in developing countries. One study attributed 90% of black carbon emitted from burning wastes to two plastics—polyethylene terephthalate and polystyrene.

Just nine countries account for more than half of mismanaged plastics pollution emissions to the air, land and water, in absolute terms. But some countries with low absolute emissions rank high in per capita terms. For example, China, the world’s fourth largest emitter of plastics pollution has a very low per-capita emission rate, while South Sudan has high per-capita rates but low overall emissions. For example, in China, emissions of PM 10 micrometers or less in diameter (PM10) from open domestic waste burning are equivalent to 22% of China’s total reported anthropogenic PM10 emissions. Waste is burned even in areas with waste collection coverage because of the costs or wait times posed by these services. Open burning was seen as an option for those unwilling to pay the monthly collection fee.

Globally, burning plastic packaging adds 16 million metric tons of GHGs into the air, which is equivalent to more than 2.7 million homes’ electricity use for one year. Burning plastic for energy emits 3.8 times more greenhouse gas emissions than the energy grid average and is a significantly dirtier source of energy than coal and oil. Plastic is burned (incinerated) as a form of waste management and is often hidden under an umbrella term known as “advanced recycling” or “chemical recycling.” According to the World Bank, about 11 % of waste produced globally is incinerated, although the figure is higher for plastic waste, with UNEP finding that 17% of plastics are incinerated.

Chemical recycling involves using extreme heat or powerful chemicals to turn plastic into acids, smoky pollutants, and diesel fuel—destined to be burned and release more air pollution. Only 1% to 14% of the plastic material sent to “chemical recycling” or “advanced recycling” plants is actually recycled into new products. Instead, plastic sent to these facilities is almost always being burned up for energy and fuel. 

How Does Burning Plastic Affect Us?

That US National Institutes of Health states that burning plastic, in particular, can generate and release pollutants like microplastics, bisphenols, and phthalates — all toxins that can disrupt neurodevelopment, endocrine, and reproductive functions.

Not only is the smoke from burning plastic filled with climate change-accelerating gasses, but it also contains carcinogens like lead, mercury, dioxins and furans, fine particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, arsenic, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and brominated polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHS).

The open burning of plastics is associated with many health issues such as an increased risk of heart disease, respiratory issues, neurological disorders, nausea, skin rashes, numbness or tingling in the fingers, headaches, memory loss, and confusion.

Both fly and bottom ash from incinerators is highly contaminated with dioxins and other chemicals such as PFAS “forever chemicals,” polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and other persistent organic pollutants, yet its disposal is largely unregulated. Often this is disposed of in landfills and leaks into nearby groundwater and even local rivers.