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Data

Greenhouse gas emissions from plastic by life-cycle stage

See all data and research on:
Plastic Pollution

About this data

Source
OECD (2022) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
September 21, 2023
Date range
2015–2019
Unit
tonnes of CO₂ equivalent

Related research and writing

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How much of global greenhouse gas emissions come from plastics?

Hannah Ritchie

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Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

Greenhouse gases emissions are aggregated using 100-year global warming potential (GWP) from AR2 (IPCC, 1995)

Emission coefficiens by stage and polymer or end-of-life fate are extrapolated from 2015 data using indexes. These indexes are built on scope-2 emissions intensity of primary and secondary plastics production (incl. upstream sectors) from the OECD ENV-Linkages model.

Retrieved on
September 21, 2023
Retrieved from
https://stats.oecd.org/viewhtml.aspx?datasetcode=PLASTIC_GHG_2&lang=en#
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
OECD (2022), Global Plastics Outlook , https://stats.oecd.org/viewhtml.aspx?datasetcode=PLASTIC_GHG_2&lang=en#,     accessed on 21 September 2023

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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Greenhouse gas emissions from plastic by life-cycle stage”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Veronika Samborska, and Max Roser (2023) - “Plastic Pollution”. Data adapted from OECD. Retrieved from https://mdim-pisa.owid.pages.dev:8789/20250624-125417/grapher/ghg-emissions-plastic-stage.html [online resource] (archived on June 24, 2025).
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

OECD (2022) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

OECD (2022) – processed by Our World in Data. “Greenhouse gas emissions from plastic by life-cycle stage” [dataset]. OECD, “Global Plastics Outlook - Greenhouse gas emissions from primary plastics” [original data]. Retrieved July 11, 2025 from https://mdim-pisa.owid.pages.dev:8789/20250624-125417/grapher/ghg-emissions-plastic-stage.html (archived on June 24, 2025).