Why does the Arctic have more plastic than most places on Earth? Plastics travel on ocean currents and through the air to the far north and accumulate—sometimes inside the animals that live there.Nat Geo Cheryl Katz October 30, 2019   Photographs by Lawrence Hislop Tiny fibers and debris collected during a sampling of a Greenland sea ice core are illuminated under a microscope in the lab of the research vessel Kronprins Haakon. Photo in article. GREENLAND SEA, aboard the Kronprins Haakon — On an ice floe in the Greenland Sea, high above the Arctic Circle, Ingeborg Hallanger is vacuuming up plastic. We’re standing on a patch of “fast ice,” so called because it’s held fast in a jumble of icebergs stuck on the shallow shelf off Greenland’s northeast coast. A rumpled white tabletop, pocked by blue meltwater pools and webbed with cracks, stretches to the horizon. Greenland’s glaciers shimmer in the distance. Hallanger, a researcher with the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromsø, Norway, peers into a hole that has been drilled through the yard-thick ice and threads a hose down to the liquid surface just below. As other members of the research expedition patrol with rifles for polar bears, whose appearance would force a hasty retreat to the ship moored nearby, Hallanger switches on a pump and begins filtering tiny particles out of the seawater. Here in the Arctic, hundreds of miles from the nearest big city, are some of the greatest loads of plastics on the planet.

Studies find higher concentrations of microplastics in sea ice in these remote, high-latitude hotspots than in the five infamous ocean garbage patches. And a recent report finds airborne microplastics are falling on the far north mixed with snow.Hallanger, an ecotoxicologist, wants to know how the deluge of synthetic materials may affect life in the ice-edge habitats that form the foundation of the ocean food web.“If it’s true that the ice has so much plastic in it,” she says, “then organisms living in and beneath the ice may have some of the ocean’s most contaminated living spaces.” 

Plastics across the North.......The area where Hallanger is working is one of the most plastic-polluted parts of the Arctic. Within this passage between east Greenland and Norway’s Svalbard Islands—a hub of ocean currents called the Fram Strait—a recent study found more than 12,000 microplastic particles per liter of sea ice. That amount is similar to the highest reported concentrations floating off polluted urban coasts. And it’s surpassed by the 14,000 particles per liter recently found in the snow on top of Fram Strait sea ice.But the Arctic plastics invasion isn’t confined to the Fram Strait. Scientists are finding microplastics across the High North, from the Beaufort Sea to the Canadian archipelago to the waters off Siberia, and they’re starting to tease out the reasons why. Arctic Ocean surface waters hold the most plastics of any ocean basin. The number of particles measured in some parts of the Arctic ocean bottom are the highest in the world. Fragments of man-made materials are turning up in Arctic wildlife. Especially birds. And especially a gull-like bird called the Northern fulmar, which has become a magnet for plastics. “Every group of fulmars that we have looked at across the Arctic in the past 30 years had plastics in them,” says Jenn Provencher, head of the wildlife health unit for the Canadian Wildlife Service. The flood of plastics in our oceans today—scientists estimate up to 12.7 million metric tons of plastic waste are dumped into the seas every year—is a global problem. But on top of having some of the world’s highest microplastic burdens, the Arctic, with its harsh living conditions, limited food web, and monumental climate changes now under way, is likely especially vulnerable to the effects. “We just add more and more stress on the animals living in this environment,” says Hallanger, who’s examining microplastics exposures, routes and impacts in Arctic birds, foxes, and other animals. “This could be the one thing that puts them over the edge.” 

Plastic everywhere.......Back on the Kronprins Haakon, a Norwegian Polar Institute research icebreaker, Hallanger, graduate student Vegard Stürzinger, and I decide to conduct an impromptu microplastics experiment. Hallanger’s own samples, which also include ice cores, pieces of newly formed “pancake” ice, and deeper seawater, will wait for analysis back in her lab at the institute in Tromsø. But here, we filter several samples of melted ice scraped from the top of the floe where no one has walked, and examine the remains through a microscope. The filters are sprinkled with red, blue, black, and yellow smidgens smaller than a pencil eraser—the maximum size to be classified as microplastic. Most app ear to be synthetic fibers, along with a few chips and shards. Our procedure is totally nonscientific. We haven’t calibrated our measurements, standardized our methods, or scrupulously avoided contamination, as Hallanger will be careful to do with her actual analyses—although we are in a clean and sealed lab where synthetic clothing is not allowed. But it is eye-opening nevertheless. “That’s really high!” says Hallanger about the number of plastic flecks we’re seeing. Where does all this plastic in the Arctic come from, and how is it getting into this supposedly pristine environment? [ed. most of it comes from the US......read on   https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/remote-arctic-contains-more-plastic-than-most-places-on-earth                                       

Can the plastic recycling industry be saved? BBC MaryLou Costa Technology Reporter 23 October 2025 In the plastic recycling industry, the casualties keep coming.  Like falling dominoes, plastic recycling plant closures have been endemic across Europe too: another big name, Veolia, will close its two German operations this year, while seven plastic recyclers closed in the Netherlands last year.  Waste management company Biffa's Sunderland plant closed in February after opening in 2022 at a cost of £7m, while rival Viridor closed its Avonmouth plant in 2022, Skelmersdale in 2023 and confirmed this summer that its Rochester plant would close, too. Meanwhile, companies Borealis, Dow and Neste have all dropped plans to construct new plastic recycling plants in Europe. Industry body Plastic Recyclers Europe equates this to the loss of nearly one million tonnes of plastic recycling capacity since 2023.

"Without decisive political action, Europe will replace its recycling industry with dependency on unsustainable imports and growing volumes of waste, undermining both its economic resilience and its climate leadership," the organisation told the BBC in a statement. And more closures are likely, warns James McLeary, managing director for Biffa's polymers division, as the industry here and in Europe faces its most challenging year yet. High energy and labour costs here are two factors, in parallel with the fact that sourcing virgin and recycled plastic from Asia is currently cheaper than buying European recycled plastic.

Plastic recycling plant closures are affecting the US as well, also prompted by the low price of virgin plastic, causing the country to miss its recycled content targets, as S&P Global reports. "There's a big global dependence building on Asian plants, and we then have the situation where (plant operators in the UK and Europe) are going to make very tough decisions. Either they run their plants at a point where they're literally not making anything, or they decide to close," explains Mr McLeary, who is based in County Durham. A dependence on exporting plastic waste also hasn't helped. The UK exported around 600,000 tonnes of plastic waste last year, according to environmental analysts at ENDS Report - 5% more than in 2023.

Loopholes in current UK legislation mean plastic waste collectors are inadvertently incentivised to export rather than process domestically. Meanwhile, manufacturers using plastic packaging are still inclined to use cheaper virgin plastic from abroad, and stomach being taxed for it. Ahmed Detta, CEO and founder of plastic waste recycler Enviroo, is frustrated by the flaws and contradictions that he feels are plaguing the industry and disrupting the goal of creating a circular economy that keeps materials in use for as long as possible. "For me, a circular economy is a win-win. Every single person in that journey has to have some benefit, and that's not working," says Mr Detta, who is based in London. "Brands aren't aligning with the circular economy. They're saying, 'why should I buy recycled material when it's cheaper for me to pay the fine for the plastics packaging tax, than actually pay for recycled materials? No one is saying, 'let's unite'." But there are some bright spots in an otherwise struggling industry.......read on     https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yv8e0prg9o

Every day, the equivalent of 2,000 garbage trucks full of plastic are dumped into the world's oceans, rivers, and lakes.UNEP Plastic pollution is a global problem. Every year 19-23 million tonnes of plastic waste leaks into aquatic ecosystems, polluting lakes, rivers and seas. Plastic – not so fantastic. Since the 1950s,9.2 billion tonnes of plastic have been produced, of which 7 billion tonnes have become waste, filling up landfills and polluting lakes, rivers, the soil and the ocean/ Plastic’s durability means it can take thousands or even tens of thousands of years to degrade. We now produce and consume 430 million tonnes of plastic, two thirds of which are short-lived products which soon become waste. Without urgent action that figure will rise with devastating impacts for ecosystems and human health. It is therefore time to eliminate unnecessary plastic, redesign products so they can be reused, repurposed, repaired and recycled, switch to non-plastic substitutes and strengthen systems for sound waste management. 

Plastic is embedded into every aspect of modern life, from what we wear, how we travel and what we eat. But where exactly is all this plastic coming from? And it will expandthree-fold by 2060, with devastating impacts for ecosystems and human health.It is therefore time to eliminate unnecessary plastic, redesign products so they can be reused, repurposed, repaired and recycled, switch to non-plastic substitutes and strengthen systems for sound waste management.  Plastic pollution can alter habitats and natural processes, reducing ecosystems’ ability to adapt to climate change, directly affecting millions of people’s livelihoods, food production capabilities and social well-being.  UNEP’s body of work demonstrates that the problem of plastic pollution doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The environmental, social, economic and health risks of plastics need to be assessed alongside other environmental stressors, like climate change, ecosystem degradation and resource use. 

Global Waste Management Outlook 2024   Jointly published with the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA), the report provides an update on global waste generation and the cost of waste and its management since 2018. The analysis uses life cycle assessments to explore what the world could gain or lose through continuing business-as-usual, adopting halfway measures, or committing fully to zero waste and circular economy societies. The report also evaluates three potential scenarios of municipal waste generation and management, examining their impacts on society, the environment, and the global economy. Furthermore, it presents potential strategies for waste reduction and enhanced management, following the waste hierarchy, to treat all waste materials as valuable resources.  Explore the website     https://www.unep.org/beatpollution/beat-plastic-pollution/gameplan-it-is-time-to-beat-plastic-pollution

Key findings.......Municipal solid waste generation is predicted to grow from 2.1 billion tonnes in 2023 to 3.8 billion tonnes by 2050. In 2020, the global direct cost of waste management was an estimated USD 252 billion. When factoring in the hidden costs of pollution, poor health and climate change from poor waste disposal practices, the cost rises to USD 361 billion. Without urgent action on waste management, by 2050 this global annual cost could almost double to a staggering USD 640.3 billion. The report’s modelling shows that getting waste under control by taking waste prevention and management measures could limit net annual costs by 2050 to USD 270.2 billion. However, projections show that a circular economy model, where waste generation and economic growth are decoupled by adopting waste avoidance, sustainable business practices, and full waste management, could in fact lead to a full net gain of USD 108.5 billion per year. We need to act now in order to avoid the worst scenario. The report provides guidance and suggested actions for Multinational development banks, national governments, municipalities, producers and retailers, the waste management sector as well as citizens......read the report    https://www.unep.org/resources/global-waste-management-outlook-2024