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Data

Plastic waste accumulated in rivers and lakes

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
2000–2019
Unit
tonnes

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Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

OECD – Global Plastics Outlook - Plastic leakage to aquatic environments

This dataset provides estimates of plastics leakage for the 15 global regions of the OECD ENV-Linkages model, detailed in the Annex of the OECD Global Plastics Outlook.

This database provides estimates for:

  • Leakage from mismanaged waste and litter to aquatic environments
  • Transport to oceans
  • Accumulated stock of plastics in rivers and lakes
  • Accumulated stock of plastics in oceans

Plastic leakages to aquatic environments and the subcategory transport to oceans are estimated by applying the methodology adapted from Lebreton and Andrady (2019), on OECD ENV-Linkages model outputs and plastic leakage from mismanaged and litter. The accumulated stock of plastics leakages in rivers and lakes corresponds to the net cumulative sum of leakages in rivers and lakes from 1951 onwards. The accumulated stock of plastics leakages in oceans corresponds to the net cumulative sum of leakages to oceans from 1951 onwards.

Retrieved on
September 21, 2023
Retrieved from
https://stats.oecd.org/viewhtml.aspx?datasetcode=PLASTIC_LEAKAGE_5&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_LEAKAGE_5&lang=en, accessed on 21 September 2023

This dataset provides estimates of plastics leakage for the 15 global regions of the OECD ENV-Linkages model, detailed in the Annex of the OECD Global Plastics Outlook.

This database provides estimates for:

  • Leakage from mismanaged waste and litter to aquatic environments
  • Transport to oceans
  • Accumulated stock of plastics in rivers and lakes
  • Accumulated stock of plastics in oceans

Plastic leakages to aquatic environments and the subcategory transport to oceans are estimated by applying the methodology adapted from Lebreton and Andrady (2019), on OECD ENV-Linkages model outputs and plastic leakage from mismanaged and litter. The accumulated stock of plastics leakages in rivers and lakes corresponds to the net cumulative sum of leakages in rivers and lakes from 1951 onwards. The accumulated stock of plastics leakages in oceans corresponds to the net cumulative sum of leakages to oceans from 1951 onwards.

Retrieved on
September 21, 2023
Retrieved from
https://stats.oecd.org/viewhtml.aspx?datasetcode=PLASTIC_LEAKAGE_5&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_LEAKAGE_5&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: Plastic waste accumulated in rivers and lakes”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Veronika Samborska, and Max Roser (2023) - “Plastic Pollution”. Data adapted from OECD. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260304-094028/grapher/plastic-waste-accumulated-rivers-lakes.html [online resource] (archived on March 4, 2026).

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. “Plastic waste accumulated in rivers and lakes” [dataset]. OECD, “Global Plastics Outlook - Plastic leakage to aquatic environments” [original data]. Retrieved April 1, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260304-094028/grapher/plastic-waste-accumulated-rivers-lakes.html (archived on March 4, 2026).

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Data API

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Data URL (CSV format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/plastic-waste-accumulated-rivers-lakes.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false
Metadata URL (JSON format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/plastic-waste-accumulated-rivers-lakes.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false

Code examples

Examples of how to load this data into different data analysis tools.

Excel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/plastic-waste-accumulated-rivers-lakes.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests

# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/plastic-waste-accumulated-rivers-lakes.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})

# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/plastic-waste-accumulated-rivers-lakes.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false").json()
R
library(jsonlite)

# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/plastic-waste-accumulated-rivers-lakes.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")

# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/plastic-waste-accumulated-rivers-lakes.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Stata
import delimited "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/plastic-waste-accumulated-rivers-lakes.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", encoding("utf-8") clear