Estimating The Global Health Burden Of Plastics

A 2026 study, published in The Lancet Planetary Health, estimates the global health burden caused by plastics across their entire lifecycle, from production and transport to recycling and disposal, between 2016 and 2040. The researchers used established modeling tools to link plastics production and waste to pollution that affects human health.

To measure health impacts, the study used disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs). A DALY is a way of counting how much healthy life is lost because people get sick earlier, live with chronic disease, or die sooner than expected. One DALY equals one lost year of good health. If ten people each lose ten healthy years due to pollution-related illness or early death, that adds up to 100 DALYs.

Under a business-as-usual scenario, the global plastics system is projected to cause 83 million DALYs from 2016 to 2040. In plain terms, plastics-related pollution would cost humanity the equivalent of 83 million years of healthy life over this period. Spread across the global population, this burden is comparable to the total health impact of major environmental risk factors such as long-term air pollution exposure.

Most of the harm comes from emissions linked to making plastics, especially greenhouse gases that drive climate change, air pollutants that damage lungs and hearts, and toxic chemicals. Scenarios that cut virgin plastics production, combined with better waste management, reduced these health losses by about 43% by 2040. The authors frame plastics not only as an environmental problem, but as a large and preventable public health burden.