We rarely hear positive things about plastic. Headlines overflow with alarming statistics on microplastic contamination and unsettling images of ocean pollution. Yet plastic has quietly played an essential role in reducing poverty, improving global living standards, and even saving lives. How could toxic, Earth-choking plastics possibly combat poverty around the world?
In recent articles titled “In Praise of Plastics” and “Plastics Are Greener Than They Seem” The Economist highlights how plastic reduces transportation weight and cost. For example, a one-liter plastic bottle weighs just five percent of its glass equivalent — making it 20 times lighter and far easier to transport! While the original articles mainly focused on efficiency, my point is that lighter packaging doesn’t just cut costs — it dramatically increases the global poor’s access to basic goods.
Plastic-packaged food lasts much longer — a huge win for the poorest one billion people. Airtight plastic containers keep everyday staples like maize flour, rice, and cooking oil fresher, more affordable, and easier to store. Moreover, plastic packaging enables food to travel longer distances and reach remote areas more easily. This is especially important in poor regions, where road infrastructure is lacking and refrigeration is rare.
In healthcare, plastic syringes and protective gear like gloves and masks have made a big difference. Single-use plastic equipment helps reduce infection rates and has played a huge role in vaccine distribution. Plastic medical equipment is vital to protecting the world’s most vulnerable from disease and death.
A specific but woefully overlooked example is the role plastic has played in halving annual global malaria deaths. In 2000, malaria killed almost a million people worldwide. But disposable plastic syringes ensured safe malaria treatment while preventing transmissions due to contaminated needles. Mosquito nets, often made from plastic fibers, provided physical barriers against malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Another brilliant plastic product, insecticide-treated plastic sheeting (ITPS), is used in house construction and refuge shelters, and kills mosquitoes upon contact. Over the past 25 years, these plastic products have significantly reduced malaria infection rates worldwide, especially in Africa, and have cut annual malaria deaths by half.
Here’s what the big picture looks like over the past 25 years: as plastic production has surged worldwide, malaria death rates have fallen, and poverty has sharply declined. According to The Economist, global plastic production doubled between 2000 and 2021, rising from 234 million tons to nearly 460 million. Over that same period, extreme poverty (defined as living on less than $2.15 per day) dropped from about 28 percent of the global population to just 8.5 percent, according to World Bank data. The IMF projects that poverty rates will further decline to around seven percent by the end of 2025.
The connection between rising plastic use, falling poverty, and declining malaria deaths is striking. Could plastic be the unsung hero in the fight against poverty and disease? And if it is, we must also confront a difficult question: is plastic pollution an acceptable, or even inevitable trade-off for reducing human suffering?
The economic way of thinking requires acknowledging trade-offs. In a world of scarcity, there are no perfect solutions. Solving one problem often creates or exacerbates another. Plastic contamination is undoubtedly alarming. As I write these words, I cannot escape the unsettling thought that microscopic fragments of plastic might be circulating through my brain at this very moment. But what is the alternative? If we were to stop using plastic tomorrow, global supply chains would collapse, food wouldn’t reach the people who need it in remote areas, and millions would lose access to life-saving medical supplies. Are we willing to accept this increase in human suffering to live in a plastic-free world? I am not.
The role of plastic in poverty reduction is immense. Plastic allows the poor to improve their health, and access food and other goods easier. For the poorest billion on this planet, the benefits of plastic vastly outweigh its environmental drawbacks.
We must, of course, try to manage plastic waste in a responsible way. Our current recycling rates are at about nine percent, which is still too low. Other important priorities associated with plastic use are innovations in recycling technology, improved waste collection infrastructure, and safer landfill management. Last but not least, we should try to use less plastic whenever it is redundant or unnecessary.
Global demand for plastic will continue to rise while global poverty rates will continue to decline. Perhaps accepting both trends is the best compromise humanity can realistically achieve at this moment: tomorrow’s world is going to be one with less poverty and more plastic.