Saint Lucia · Share of Global River Plastic Emitted to the Ocean · % (2015)

## What this measures

The plastic carried into the ocean by rivers reaching the sea in Saint Lucia (environment.plastic.ocean_emissions_t.lca) as a percentage of the world total from all 31,819 outfalls, 2015. A Palanor calculation.

## Why it matters

Puts each country’s river plastic in proportion to the global flow.

## How to read it

0.04% of the world total in 2015.

## What it does not say

A model estimate for one year, not a measurement: the authors’ range for the world is 0.8 to 2.7 million tonnes, and country figures are less certain still. It covers floating macroplastic carried out to sea by rivers, not plastic dumped at sea, lost by fishing fleets, or blown from beaches, and it places plastic where rivers reach the sea, not where the waste was made or exported from. Outfalls just offshore of the boundaries are given to the nearest country. Single release: the series holds one estimate (2015).

## Source

Palanor calculation (scripts/v23a/plastic/assign.py) from Meijer, L.J.J., van Emmerik, T., van der Ent, R., Schmidt, C. and Lebreton, L. (2021), "More than 1000 rivers account for 80% of global riverine plastic emissions into the ocean", Science Advances 7(18): eaaz5803 (doi:10.1126/sciadv.aaz5803); data: "Supplementary data for 'More than 1000 rivers…'", Figshare, doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.14515590 (mid-point scenario, 31,819 river outfalls, metric tons a year), licensed CC BY 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0). Country boundaries: Natural Earth 1:10m Admin 0 (public domain). Palanor sums the outfalls by country; the article's own country table (CC BY-NC) is not used.