Malaysia's Plastic Pollution

Malaysia could do a lot better when it comes to plastic pollution.

I came across these charts recently on Statista, the statistics portal for market and consumer data:

Infographic: The Countries Polluting The Oceans The Most | Statista You will find more infographics at Statista

Malaysia is a significant source of plastic waste in our oceans, contributing three times more mismanaged plastic waste than the United States, despite being only a tenth of the size of the US in terms of population.

Infographic: Plastic Can Take 500 Years To Bio-Degrade In The Ocean | Statista You will find more infographics at Statista

This chart showing the estimated number or years it takes for different plastic items to degrade in the ocean is interesting. Many people for example assume that cigarette butts are made up of organic material which is fully biodegradable whereas in fact many cigarette filters contain plastic which can take 10 years to degrade in the ocean.

The researchers estimate that cigarette filters are the second most littered single-use plastic item and one butt can pollute between 500 and 1,000 litres of water. It is not surprising therefore that countries with high numbers of heavy smokers, like China and Indonesia, are the world's biggest ocean polluters.

Another good reason to give up smoking!

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AUTHOR BIO

cartoon of author with an orangutan

David (the one on the left) is the writer behind Malaysia Traveller, sharing firsthand travel advice from over five decades of living and travelling across Asia and the Middle East. Based in Malaysia since 2009 and now in Kuching, he has published 700+ pages, personally visited every place he covers, and uses only his own photos. Readers can learn more on his About Me page. He also shares updates on Facebook and YouTube. He loves uncovering overlooked places even many Malaysians have never visited.