Less than 10 percent of plastics used across the world are recycled, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) said, as it called for "co-ordinated and global solutions" ahead of expected talks of an international plastics treaty. 

The report discovered that 460 million tonnes of plastics were used in 2019, a number which has nearly doubled since 2000. The amount of plastic waste has grown at the same pace, reaching 353 million tonnes. 

"After taking into account losses during recycling, only nine percent of plastic waste was ultimately recycled, while 19 percent was incinerated and almost 50 percent went to sanitary landfills," the Paris-based organization said in its Global Plastics Outlook.

"The remaining 22 percent was disposed of in uncontrolled dumpsites, burned in open pits or leaked into the environment."

READ MORE

Confusion reigns in the Ukraine/Russia border crisis

Could antivirals be the key to fighting COVID-19?

Sibling rivalry in the skies for flying world record

During 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of plastics dropped by 2.2 percent compared to the previous year. Despite this, single-use plastic consumption rose and overall use is projected to pick up again as the economy rebounds. 

Plastics contributed 3.4 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, 90 percent of it from production and conversion from fossil fuels, the report said. 

As a result, OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said it is "crucial that countries respond to the challenge with coordinated and global solutions" in the face of rampant global warming and pollution. 

Suggesting ways to fight the issues, the OECD proposed a series of actions. These include developing the market for recycled plastics, which currently represents only six percent of the total, largely because they are more expensive. And investing in new technologies focused on decreasing the environmental footprint of plastics, which currently account for just 1.2 percent of all innovation concerning the product. 

While the OECD called for "a more circular plastics lifestyle" it also advised that policies must restrain overall consumption, calling for $28 billion a year towards major investments in basic waste management infrastructure.

The report comes less than a week before the UN Environment Assembly begins on February 28 in Kenya's capital of Nairobi, where formal talks are expected to begin on a future international plastics treaty. The new report "further accentuates the need for countries to come together to start looking towards a global agreement to address this very important problem" according to Shardul Agrawala, the head of the OECD's environment and economy integration division. Agrawala said there is an "urgent waste management problem which is responsible for the bulk of the leakage to the environment" which is top of the priority list in Nairobi. 

However, he also warned at a press conference that "we should not limit our focus to just the end of pipe solutions, there is a greater need in the long term to forge international cooperation and agreement towards alignment of standards."