Plastic, not so fantastic
What makes one country a bigger plastic waste generator than others?
In 2015, over 381 million tonnes of plastic were produced globally. That is equivalent to the mass of two-thirds of the world population! Take a look around and see how many plastic items you can find. All of those water bottles, straws, and plastic grocery bags add up and their waste is making a large negative impact on our oceans and wildlife.
While this is a global issue, some countries produce more waste than others. Which countries do you think produce the most waste, and why? Check out this dataset to see the reality of global plastic waste.
Why do some countries produce more plastic waste than others?
This dataset describes the plastic waste generation rate per person versus gross domestic product (GDP) per capita based on purchasing power parity (PPP). Gross domestic product per capita is the value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given year divided by its population. Purchasing power parity adjusts for differences in cost of living and inflation rates between different countries. Effectively, GDP PPP is a conversion to international dollars that allows for easy comparison of global economies.
Think like a scientist and use Claim Evidence Reasoning (CER) to draw conclusions from this dataset!
Below are two claims that can be used to answer the main question, “What makes one country a bigger plastic waste generator than others?” To use CER to answer this question we must make a claim, support this claim with data and finally reason or explain why the data counts as evidence.
Activity:
Claim 1: More productive economies produce more plastic waste (per capita) than less productive economies.
Claim 2: Countries with large populations do not produce less plastic waste per person.
Create a graph to serve as evidence for each claim. Use the camera icon (upper right corner of DataClassroom graphs) to copy and paste the graphs into this CER template and reason why and how the evidence supports each claim
Plastic debris in the marine environment is widely documented, but the quantity of plastic entering the ocean from waste generated on land is unknown. By linking worldwide data on solid waste, population density, and economic status, we can estimate the mass of land-based plastic waste entering the ocean.
This dataset is a representative subset of 37 countries from the larger data published in Science which contained:
Jambeck, J. R., Geyer, R., Wilcox, C., Siegler, T. R., Perryman, M., Andrady, A., ... & Law, K. L. (2015).
Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean. Science, 347(6223), 768-771.
Find the article here: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/768/