Singapore

Ranked: Top 20 Countries by Plastic Waste per Capita

visualcapitalist.com/ranked-top-20-countries-by-plastic-waste-per-capita

June 12, 2024

By Marcus Lu

Single-use plastic waste is perhaps one of the biggest environmental issues of our time. Every year, millions of tons of plastic end up in oceans and landfills, harming wildlife and ecosystems.

To make matters worse, plastics take hundreds of years to decompose, leading to long-term environmental and health hazards as they break down into microplastics that contaminate water and food sources.

In this graphic, we visualized the top 20 countries that generated the most single-use plastic waste per capita in 2019, measured in kilograms per person. Figures come from research published in May 2021, which we sourced from Statista.

Data and Key Takeaways

The data we used to create this graphic is listed in the table below.

Rank	Country	Kg per person	Pounds per person
1	Singapore	76	168
2	Australia	59	130
3	Oman	56	123
4	Netherlands	55	121
5	Belgium	55	121
6	Israel	55	121
7	Hong Kong	55	121
8	Switzerland	53	117
9	U.S.	53	117
10	UAE	52	115
11	Chile	51	112
12	S. Korea	44	97
13	UK	44	97
14	Kuwait	40	88
15	New Zealand	39	86
16	Ireland	39	86
17	Finland	38	84
18	Japan	37	82
19	France	36	79
20	Slovenia	35	77

Countries from all around the world are present in this ranking, highlighting how plastic waste isn’t concentrated in any one region.

It’s also interesting to note how most of the countries in this top 20 ranking are wealthier, more developed nations. These nations have higher levels of consumption, with greater access to packaged goods, take-out services, and disposable products, all of which rely on single-use plastics.

Where’s China and India?

Note that we’ve visualized plastic waste per capita, which is different from the total amount of waste produced by a country. It is for this reason that major polluters, such as China and India, are not present in this ranking.

It’s also worth noting that this focuses on the demand side of plastics, rather than where plastic products were initially created or produced.

If you’re interested to see more visuals on plastic waste, check out Which Countries Pollute the Most Ocean Plastic Waste?.