Be the Solution! – Reducing your Waste Footprint Van Burbach, PhD, PG In the last 50 years the amount of solid waste generated in the United States has increased by over 250%, to over 262 million tons in 2015, of which over 13% are plastics! Globally, plastic waste has increased over 1500% between 1965 and 2015. Globally, we generate over 300 million metric tons of plastic waste annually and almost 8 million metric tons of that plastic ends up in the world's oceans annually