Plastic's cost to the United States runs far beyond the price at the checkout. A report from Duke's Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment and Sustainability, titled The Social Cost of Plastic to the United States, estimates the material's annual social cost to the country at between $436 billion and $1.1 trillion, a figure the authors argue is probably an underestimate given the gaps in the available data.
The analysis synthesises 13 existing studies spanning plastic's full life cycle, from fossil fuel extraction through manufacturing and use to disposal. The largest share of the total comes from human health impacts tied to chemical exposure, which the report estimates could reach as much as $930 billion a year. The work was funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the scale of the figures drew immediate national attention.
The authors are candid about the uncertainty: some of the underlying data has not been peer reviewed, and the health effects of microplastics remain poorly quantified, which is precisely why they call for further research. By attaching a dollar range to harms usually left off balance sheets, the report hands policymakers a benchmark against which the costs of action, and of inaction, can be weighed.