Fig. 5: Socioeconomic impacts of global plastics production and international trade between plastics producers and consumers in 2015.
From: Growing environmental footprint of plastics driven by coal combustion
a,b, The sum of the vertical bars refers to the total employed workforce (106 million FTE, 100%) (a) and created value added (€1.56 trillion, 100%) (b) of global plastics production (including resin production, manufacturing into plastics products and related upstream activities) from production and consumption perspectives in 2015. The production perspective indicates the region where the plastics-related workforce is employed and the value added is created. The consumption perspective allocates the plastics-related workforce and value added to the region where plastics were finally consumed. Coloured flows refer to plastics consumed in another region than produced due to international trade. The value added of global plastics production includes workforce compensation (48%), operating surplus (40%) and taxes (12%).
