Recycling is failing to scale up fast enough to be more than a marginal activity for the global plastics sector, with the equivalent of almost 1 kilogram of single-use waste produced for every person on the planet in 2021.

With an additional 6 million tonnes of single-use plastics in circulation, the latest Plastic Waste Makers Index shows from 2019 to 2021, growth in products made from fossil fuels was 15 times that from recycled plastics.