Shocking true costs of plastic use revealed in a new study

Plastics cost the United States far more than the price printed on a package. A new report from Duke University estimates that the full life cycle of plastics – from fossil-fuel extraction to manufacturing, daily use, and disposal – carries between $436 billion and $1.1 trillion in annual costs.

These figures capture the health, environmental, and economic harms that accumulate long after a product leaves the checkout aisle.

Most of the burden stems from chemicals embedded in everyday plastics that seep into food, air, dust, and water.

Where the costs come from

The work was led by Dr. Nancy Lauer, a staff scientist and lecturing fellow at Duke’s Environmental Law and Policy Clinic. Her research focuses on plastic policy and how exposure translates into disease and cost.

Economists call many of these harms externalities, costs created by one party but paid by others. The report totals those costs by stage: extraction, production, use, landfilling, mismanaged waste, and the hits to coastal economies.

Health dominates the ledger because exposures happen everywhere we live, eat, and work.

The largest line item reflects medical expenses, lost productivity, and premature deaths tied to plastic-related chemicals found in food-contact materials and consumer goods.

“The prices that consumers pay for plastic products don’t tell the whole story of their costs,” said Dr. Lauer.

The team adjusted all figures to 2025 dollars to make comparisons meaningful.

Health impacts from plastics

Many plastic additives act as endocrine disruptors, chemicals that interfere with hormones. They are linked with reproductive problems, metabolic disease, and neurodevelopmental harms that reduce learning and lifetime earnings.

A recent U.S. study estimated $249 billion in 2018 disease costs attributable to plastic-related chemicals, including phthalates and other additives. That snapshot lines up with why health overwhelms other categories in the new estimate.

Among the most scrutinized are PFAS, a large class of highly persistent fluorinated chemicals. They resist breakdown, move through water, and turn up in people’s blood at low levels across the country.

PFAS show up in some food packaging, stain resistant coatings, and certain industrial processes. Lowering exposure requires product reformulation and stronger testing so replacements do not repeat the same mistakes.

Plastics and the body

Scientists also track microplastics, plastic fragments smaller than 5 millimeters (0.2 inches) that form as larger pieces break apart.

Routine actions like opening plastic packages or washing synthetic fabrics shed them into air, food, and water.

One clinical study found microplastics in carotid artery plaque were linked with a higher three-year risk of heart attack, stroke, or death. The association fits with growing evidence that tiny particles can provoke inflammation in tissues.

People likely ingest microplastics when they drink from plastic bottles or eat foods that picked up particles along processing steps. Inhalation adds another route, especially in indoor settings with synthetic textiles.

Researchers are now asking how microplastics interact with chemical additives already present in the same products. Combined exposures could amplify effects beyond what any single compound would cause.

The unseen cost of plastics

The report highlights losses to ecosystem services, the benefits nature provides to people, like clean water and storm protection. Marine plastic can cut fishery yields, degrade beaches, and reduce recreation value for coastal towns.

Less is known about costs on land. Plastics settle into soils, streams, and roadside habitats where they affect insects, worms, and freshwater fish that support larger food webs.

Recycling and incineration of plastics also carry costs that are not fully measured. Facilities can release fine particles and other pollutants, and the communities around them often have fewer resources to buffer those impacts.

Property values near landfills and waste sites can drop, yet studies rarely isolate plastic’s share of that decline. Filling these gaps would make future cost ranges more precise and more actionable.

What we can change

Cleaning up litter in the United States costs about $11.5 billion each year. That money goes to clearing roadsides, parks, and waterways after products have already become trash.

Downstream fixes matter, but they do not stop costs from piling up. Upstream moves, like phasing out needless single-use items and designing for refill, prevent harms before they spread across stages.

Reducing exposures requires smarter chemistry as well as less plastic. For example, limiting PFAS in food packaging lowers a durable source of exposure while incentivizing safer materials.

Better data will sharpen the price tag and the savings from each intervention. Transparent testing, public reporting, and health tracking can turn the current estimate into a tool for choosing policies that actually cut risk.

Making sense of costs

This estimate sums many distinct harms without double counting categories. It does not assume every plastic is equally risky, and it does not claim every exposure causes disease.

Instead, it treats the nation’s plastics as a system that spreads costs in different places and times. That is why the largest health costs come from long term outcomes that chip away at cognition and productivity.

The report also makes the accounting choices clear. Where U.S. data did not exist, the authors avoided guesswork and marked research needs rather than stretch small studies too far.

Those choices make the totals cautious rather than dramatic. As new health evidence and land-based ecosystem data arrive, the numbers will move, likely upward.

Everyday actions that help

Plastics are useful in sterile medical tools and other specialized applications. The problem is volume, not a single villain product.

Small changes add up when many people adopt them. Reuse systems at school and work can cut demand, which lowers both manufacturing emissions and PFAS-laden coatings in circulation.

Communities can right-size solutions by tracking which items dominate local litter. Accurate audits help target the products that drive the biggest cleanup bills and the most persistent microplastics.

Policy, design, and habits work best together. The more we prevent waste at the source, the less we pay across the system, in dollars and in health.

The study is published in a report from the Nicholas Institute.

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