Global Plastic Flow: Production to Ocean

This simulator turns the global plastic economy into a visible flow: every year's production splits into four streams — recycled, landfilled, incinerated and leaked into the ocean — and you control the two levers that actually move the outcome. Raise the recycling rate or the bans/EPR policy strength and the blue "leaked" stream visibly thins out and the growing ocean debris pile slows down; raise the production growth rate and every stream, including leakage, swells even as the recycling percentage stays fixed. Live readouts track simulated years, annual production, the effective ocean leak rate and the cumulative ocean plastic total, all calibrated to the widely reported 2026 baseline of ~380 million tons produced per year, ~11 million tons leaking to the ocean annually, ~150 million tons already afloat, and a 9% global recycling rate.