The world produces 57 million tonnes of plastic pollution every year, from the deepest oceans to the highest mountain peaks and into human bodies, according to a new study that finds more than two-thirds of plastic comes from the Global South.

That’s enough pollution each year — about 52 million metric tons — to fill New York’s Central Park with plastic waste as tall as the Empire State Building, according to researchers at the University of Leeds in the U.K. They examined local waste in more than 50,000 cities and towns around the world for a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

The study looked at plastic that ends up in the open environment, not plastic that ends up in landfills or is properly incinerated. For 15% of the world’s population, governments don’t collect and dispose of waste, the study authors said — a major reason why Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa produce the most plastic waste. That affects 255 million people in India, the study said.

Lagos in Nigeria emits the most plastic pollution of any city, according to study author Costas Velis, professor of environmental engineering at Leeds. Other major plastic-polluting cities include New Delhi; Luanda in Angola; Karachi in Pakistan and Al Qahirah in Egypt.

India is the world leader in generating plastic pollution, producing 10.2 million tons per year (9.3 million metric tons), more than twice as much as the next biggest polluters, Nigeria and Indonesia. China, often maligned for its pollution, ranks fourth but is making great strides in reducing waste, Velis said. The other biggest plastic polluters are Pakistan, Bangladesh, Russia and Brazil. Those eight countries account for more than half of the world’s plastic pollution, according to the study.

According to the study, the United States ranks 90th for plastic pollution with more than 52,500 tonnes, while the United Kingdom ranks 135th with almost 5,100 tonnes.

In 2022, most of the world’s countries agreed to the first legally binding treaty on plastic pollution, including oceans. Final treaty negotiations will take place in November in South Korea.

The study used artificial intelligence to focus on plastics that were improperly burned — about 57 percent of the pollutants — or simply thrown away. In both cases, the extremely small microplastics, or nanoplastics, are turning the problem from a visual nuisance on beaches and a problem for marine life into a threat to human health, Velis said.

Several studies have been conducted this year to determine how widespread microplastics are in drinking water and human tissues such as hearts, brains and testicles. Doctors and scientists are still unsure about the implications in terms of human health risks.

“The biggest microplastic time bomb is the microplastic released mainly in the Global South” said Velis. “We already have a huge dispersal problem. They’re in the most remote places… the peaks of Everest, in the Mariana Trench, in the ocean, in what we breathe, what we eat, what we drink.”

He called it “everyone’s problem” and one that will haunt future generations.

“We should not put the blame, any blame, on the Global South” said Velis. “And we should not in any way brag about what we are doing in the Global North.”

The reason, Velis says, is simply the government’s lack of resources and ability to provide necessary services to citizens.

Outside experts worry that the study’s focus on pollution rather than overall production absolves the plastics industry of responsibility. Plastic production emits large amounts of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

“These people have defined plastic pollution in a much narrower sense, as really just macroplastics that are released into the environment after the consumer receives them. That risks causing us to lose focus upstream and say we just need to manage waste better now.” said Neil Tangri, senior director of science and policy at GAIA, a global network of organizations advancing zero waste and environmental justice. “It’s necessary, but it’s not everything.”

Theresa Karlsson, scientific and technical adviser to the International Pollutants Elimination Network, another coalition of environmental, health and waste groups, called the scale of the pollutants identified in the study “alarming” and he said that it shows how much plastic is produced today “fractious.”

But she said the study ignores the importance of the global trade in plastic waste, which rich countries send to poor ones. The study says the trade in plastic waste is declining, and China has banned waste imports. But Karlsson said the overall trade in waste is actually growing, and plastics are likely to be too. She cited EU waste exports, which have risen from 110,000 tonnes in 2004 to 1.4 million tonnes in 2021.