Most waste plastics are disposed of in landfills, incinerated, or recycled, although much is mismanaged and enters the natural environment. Over the last 70 years the nations of the world have become increasingly dependent on plastics. Between 1950 and 2015 the annual growth rate of production has been 8.4% (Geyer et al., 2017). Emerging and poor countries are now adopting usage of plastics en masse (Lwanga et al., 2017), resulting in an upsurge in global plastic manufacture and consumption. The rate of plastic production has recently surpassed that for carbon emissions (Figure 1). Ironically, affluent nations have shipped substantial amounts of plastic wastes, including obsolete electronics (e-waste), to poorer countries for recycling. In many cases these materials have been mishandled and much of the remnants (after removal of valuable components such as copper and circuit boards) discarded improperly or even burned (Asante et al., 2016). For these reasons and a lack of waste management infrastructure, the Asian Pacific region is believed to have overtaken Western countries as the major contributor of plastic debris to coastal ocean waters (Jambeck et al., 2015).
