People light candles and form the 60+ sign on Saturday in Cali, Colombia at an Earth Hour organized by the green group WWF. Earth Hour is a global call to turn off lights for one hour in a bid to highlight global climate change. Photo: AFP

The pollution, emissions and cleanup costs of plastic produced in 2019 alone could be $3.7 trillion, according to a report released Monday by wildlife charity WWF, warning of the environmental and economic burden of this "seemingly cheap" material. 

There is increasing international alarm over the sheer volumes of fossil fuel-based plastics entering the environment, as microplastics have infiltrated even the most remote and otherwise pristine regions of the planet.  

In its report, WWF said societies were "unknowingly subsiding" plastic, with their estimates for the lifetime costs of 2019 production equivalent to more than the gross domestic product of India. "Plastic appears to be a relatively cheap material when looking at the market price primary plastic producers pay for virgin plastic," said the report Plastics: The Cost to Society, Environment and the Economy, produced for WWF by the consultancy Dalberg. 

It estimated that unless there was concerted international action, a projected doubling of plastic production could see costs rocket by 2040 to $7.1 trillion. 

The analysis looked at factors including the greenhouse gas emissions in the production process, health impacts, waste management and estimates of the reduction in the economic "services" of ecosystems on land and in water. 

Since the 1950s, roughly a total of 8.3 billion tons of plastic have been produced with around 60 percent of that tossed into landfills or into the natural environment. 

The debris is estimated to cause the deaths of more than 1 million seabirds and over 100,000 marine mammals each year. "Tragically, the plastic pollution crisis is showing no signs of slowing down, but the commitment to tackle it has reached an unprecedented level," said Marco Lambertini, director-general of WWF International, in a statement. 

The report comes as the International Union for the Conservation of Nature meets in Marseille, France, with one motion under consideration: an end to plastic pollution by 2030. 

France's minister in charge of biodiversity, Berangere Abba, said if the world failed to act there would be "more plastic in the oceans than fish" by 2050.

AFP