Annual impacts of plastic production from fossil oil

Conventional plastic production process
Over 90% of plastics is produced from virgin fossil raw material. It represents 6% of global oil consumption – equivalent to the global aviation sector. Current projections indicate that plastic will account for 20% of total oil consumption and 15% of the global annual carbon budget by 2050.
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Crude oil exploration
Refining
Cracking
Polymerisation
Compounding
Product manufacturing
Amount of plastic produced:
367,000,000 t
The future estimates for global plastic production volumes are drawn from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation report “The New Plastics Economy”
Amount of fossil oil used:
321,125,000,000 l
The calculation is based on the average oil consumption for producing 1 kg of PET, drawn from a publicly available study and calculated from the minimum and maximum values.
Value of fossil oil used:
222,161,949,686 €
The calculation is based on the price for crude oil in June 2022.
Impact calculator
Explore the annual impacts of conventional plastic production based on growth projections.
Global plastic production
2020
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Average CO2 emissions
from plastic production
1,064,300,000 t CO₂e
from plastic incineration
The yearly emissions from plastic incineration are calculated based on the global incineration rate of 24% of all plastic waste (OECD, 2018).
237,816,000 t CO₂e