Europe: Plastic lifecycle in the Mediterranean

This statistic displays the lifecycle of plastics produced in the Mediterranean region. In 2016, production reached approximately 38 million metric tons. 24 million metric tons is generated as waste, with 20 million metric tons collected. However, 3.6 million metric tons of this is uncollected.
In 2017, 5 percent of single-use plastics items littering the Mediterranean sea were beverage bottles.

Lifecycle of plastic produced in the Mediterranean region (in million metric tons)

Characteristic	Plastic volume in million metric tons
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Release date

June 2019

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Region

Europe

Survey time period

2019

Supplementary notes

The source adds the following information:
* This total production figures includes all plastic products manufactured using local and imported virgin plastic material. It includes all plastic goods reported by national plastics associations which cover packaging, construction, transport, textiles, electronics, industrial equipment, and others
** These are plastic goods produced with a mean product lifetime greater than 1 year, and/or exported for consumption in another country.
*** A proportion of plastic generated in previous years becomes waste over time. This is already accounted in waste generated figure. The figure includes waste with a mean product lifetime from 1 year (or less) or less to 35 yrs.
**** In Europe less than 60% of the plastic collected for recycling is actually recycled; 40% is lost in the process. Recycling losses result from mixed plastic entering in the same recycling process, plastic additives making material unsafe to recycle, and plastic contamination from substances they held.

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