Fig. 1

Global plastics budget and cycle for the year 2015 based on best-available observations and model estimates. Reservoir sizes are shown in teragrams (Tg), and fluxes in Tg y⁻¹ (arrows). Three plastics size classes are considered: macroplastics > 5 mm (P), microplastics from 0.3 to 5 mm (LMP), and small microplastics < 0.3 mm (SMP) that can become airborne. The discarded (Disc) plastic pools represent the terrestrial technosphere, where managed and mismanaged waste has accumulated in urban-industrial areas, landfills, agricultural soils impacted by mulching or waste disposal, wetlands, lakes and other ecosystems. The remote terrestrial reservoir lies outside the technosphere and is only impacted by airborne SMP deposition, re-emission and runoff. Numbers in black are based on observations, and numbers in red on the box model simulation. Underlined red fluxes indicate P and LMP degradation at a rate of 3% per year. Uncertainties are provided in Table 4. Note that the 2015 global budget is not at steady-state and fluxes and pool sizes continue to gradually increase today and in the future