According to International Energy Agency, total quantity of plastic wastes in the world ocean may double by 2030, Bloomberg reports.

Scary pictures of tropical waters full of garbage and suffering turtles turned public attention to this rising problem. However, by IEA forecast, such actions as ban on using plastic straws for drinks will not help to change the situation radically. To do that, global revolution in waste recycling and management is needed.

According to the estimate, there are more than 100 million tons of plastic wastes in the ocean already. Annual increase is from 5 to 15 million tons. Infamous plastic waste spot in Pacific is three time larger than territory of France, while contains only 79000 tons. About 80% of plastic wastes is coming from the land, about half is from China, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

The main problem is that pace of waste recycling and management cannot keep up with the massive growth of waste quantity. Now less than 20% of plastic wastes goes for recycling.

Plastic consumption grew 10 times since 1970, it almost doubled since the beginning of this millennium. According to IEA estimates, plastic consumption will grow 70% by 2050 compared with 2017.

US and Europe are now consuming 20 time more plastic per capita than developing countries. However, the share of developing nations will grow along with increase in population and its wealth.