How does consumer behavior influence the proliferation of plastic waste in the global market?

Consumers often choose products that are packaged in plastic because it is cheap, convenient, and keeps food fresh, so the more items we buy, the more plastic packaging ends up in landfills or oceans. Every time a consumer buys a single plastic bottle, that bottle eventually travels through the supply chain, gets discarded, and may be recycled or not, adding to the waste stream. When many households repeat this behavior, the volume of plastic waste grows faster than recycling capacity, leading to large accumulations of plastic in the global market. For example, if a city of a million people each buys one plastic water bottle a day, that’s 365 million bottles a year, many of which end up in the ocean. Thus, consumer habits directly drive how much plastic waste is produced and how quickly it overwhelms environmental systems.