Plastic Pollution and Biodiversity: a Global Overview

The report details how plastic pollution acts as a primary driver of biodiversity loss through physical harm, habitat degradation, and chemical contamination, causing significant economic losses in fisheries, tourism, and agriculture. Drawing on field assessments in nine regions, it advocates for 'source-to-sea' governance and the integration of biodiversity metrics into extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes and corporate risk assessments.

• Plastic pollution is identified as one of the top five drivers of biodiversity loss, with annual plastic waste pollution estimated at 130 million tonnes, a figure projected to reach 280 million tonnes per year by 2040 under business-as-usual scenarios.
• Plastic waste harms biodiversity through three primary pathways: physical harm (affecting over 4,000 species via entanglement and ingestion), habitat degradation (such as suffocating mangrove roots and increasing coral reef disease risk), and chemical contamination that disrupts reproductive systems and soil fertility.
• The economic impact of marine plastic is severe, with one study estimating annual losses of between $500 billion and $2.5 trillion in marine ecosystem services. In the Asia-Pacific region, marine debris cost economies $10.8 billion in 2015, primarily affecting tourism, shipping, and fisheries.
• Terrestrial ecosystems, particularly agricultural soils, may store more microplastics than all ocean basins combined. This pollution can lead to a projected 5-15% decline in crop yields in coming decades by impairing plant growth and soil structure.
• A map-based 'source-to-sea' approach reveals that plastic waste often travels vast distances from urban centers to sensitive ecosystems, such as plastic from highland cities in Colombia traveling 1,000 kilometres to damage Caribbean coral reefs and mangroves.
• Businesses face significant financial risks, including potential corporate liability cases linked to plastic pollution that could reach $100 billion per year by 2030, and another $100 billion in costs from mandatory extended producer responsibility (EPR) schemes by 2040.
• Shifting private sector spending of $570 billion away from single-use plastics toward scalable reuse systems could reduce plastic pollution and create 8.6 million new jobs.
• Informal waste pickers, predominantly women, are critical to the global recycling economy, collecting nearly two-thirds of all recycled plastic globally, yet they typically lack formal recognition, legal protection, or stable wages.
• Current global governance is fragmented; most National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) fail to identify plastic as a primary threat, and negotiations for a global plastics treaty have faced deadlocks.
• The report recommends reforming EPR schemes to link compliance targets to ecological outcomes and biodiversity recovery in high-risk hotspots rather than simply measuring the total volume of waste collected.

APA

World Economic Forum (2026). Plastic Pollution and Biodiversity: a Global Overview. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Plastic_Pollution_and_Biodiversity_2026.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Plastic Pollution and Biodiversity: a Global Overview. 2026. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Plastic_Pollution_and_Biodiversity_2026.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Plastic Pollution and Biodiversity: a Global Overview |date=June 2026 |url=https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Plastic_Pollution_and_Biodiversity_2026.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2026plastic, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Plastic Pollution and Biodiversity: a Global Overview}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2026}, month = jun, url = {https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Plastic_Pollution_and_Biodiversity_2026.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }