Since 1950, about 40 million tons of plastic debris have entered the ocean. Realizing the potential adverse effects to ecosystems, wildlife and human health, many countries have started banning single-use plastics. But the COVID-19 pandemic has halted these actions and led to an increased demand for single-use plastic intensifying 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 is unknown. Here, we use our newly developed MITgcm ocean plastic model to quantify the impact of the pandemic on plastic discharge. We show that 5.0±0.7 million tons of pandemic-associated plastic waste have been generated from 193 countries as of April 8, 2021, with 6.7±0.90 thousand tons released into the global ocean representing ~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 three years, with a significant portion of plastic debris landing on the beach and seabed later, and a circumpolar plastic accumulation zone will be form in Arctic. We find hospital waste represents the bulk of the global discharge (87%), and most of the global discharge is from Asia (63%), which calls for a better management of medical waste in developing countries.

COVID-19, plastic waste, ocean transportation