ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
Plastic waste release caused by COVID-19 and its fate in the global ocean.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 95 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
95 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 518 citations in OpenAlex.
- Community Engagement Within the Evaluation of Public Policies for Zoonotic Spillover Prevention: A Secondary Matrix Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Pooled it
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- Sustainable trans-scale fibrous membranes for stable ultra-protective air filtration.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Formation and Transformation of Micro(nano)plastics: Mechanisms and Environmental Health Implications.Environment & health (Washington, D.C.) · 2026Review
- Closing the Loop on Personal Protective Equipment: Collection, Polymer Recovery, and Circular Pathways for Post-Consumer PPE.Polymers · 2026Review
- Article
- Face mask littering: environmental impacts, regulatory challenges, and AI-driven waste management strategies for the postpandemic era.Turkish journal of medical sciences · 2026Review
- Post-mortem evidence of microplastic bioaccumulation in human organs: insights from advanced imaging and spectroscopic analysis.Archives of toxicology · 2025Article
- Biosynthesis of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-Biodesign research · 2025Article
- Microstructure, Polymer Dynamics, Polymer-Nanoparticle Interactions, and Rheology of Biodegradable Polylactic Acid Nanocomposites with Cellulose Nanocrystals: A Microscopic Perspective.Macromolecules · 2025Article
- Nanofibrillated collagen fiber networks for enhanced air purification.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Marine Plastic Waste in Construction: A Systematic Review of Applications in the Built Environment.Polymers · 2025Review
- Real-world usage of mass rapid antigen testing for COVID-19 in long-term care facilities and support programmes: results from long-term surveillance in North-Eastern Germany.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Isolation of marine bacteria with potential for polyhydroxyalkanoate degradation and optimization for enzyme production.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Global environmental plastic dispersal under OECD policy scenarios toward 2060.Science advances · 2025Article
- Feasibility of snapshot testing using wearable sensors to detect cardiorespiratory illness (COVID infection in India).NPJ digital medicine · 2024Article
- Tandem microplastic degradation and hydrogen production by hierarchical carbon nitride-supported single-atom iron catalysts.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Study of Factors Affecting UV-Induced Photo-Degradation in Different Types of Polyethylene Sheets.Polymers · 2024Article
- Adverse health effects of exposure to plastic, microplastics and their additives: environmental, legal and policy implications for Israel.Israel journal of health policy research · 2024Review
- Selective and Controllable Cracking of Polyethylene Waste by Beta Zeolites with Different Mesoporosity and Crystallinity.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2024Article
35 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increased demand for single-use plastics that intensifies pressure on an already out-of-control global plastic waste problem. While it is suspected to be large, the magnitude and fate of this pandemic-associated mismanaged plastic waste are unknown. Here, we use our MITgcm ocean plastic model to quantify the impact of the pandemic on plastic discharge. We show that 8.4 ± 1.4 million tons of pandemic-associated plastic waste have been generated from 193 countries as of August 23, 2021, with 25.9 ± 3.8 thousand tons released into the global ocean representing 1.5 ± 0.2% of the global total riverine plastic discharge. The model projects that the spatial distribution of the discharge changes rapidly in the global ocean within 3 y, with a significant portion of plastic debris landing on the beach and seabed later and a circumpolar plastic accumulation zone will be formed in the Arctic. We find hospital waste represents the bulk of the global discharge (73%), and most of the global discharge is from Asia (72%), which calls for better management of medical waste in developing countries.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.