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sometiara1 OP t1_j8re8f8 wrote

First time making anything like this, so any feedback is welcome :)

Note: I took some creative liberties with the scaling (each stem is square root scaled) to try and make the visualization more appealing but yea it does suffer readability.

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urban_thirst t1_j8s5x0q wrote

Maybe it's just me but I think when using 2d shapes, the area of the shape is more intuitive at communicating the data than the diameter/length. Here a country with 5 times more output look like it's 25 times more by area.

Interesting stuff though, thanks!

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Confirmation_By_Us t1_j8sxprv wrote

Adding to this, if you’re not scaling for area, a line/bar would make more sense. For this chart, the circle (scaled properly for area) seems like the right choice.

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redandblue4lyfe t1_j8t73hk wrote

Reading a lot of the names is hard since half of them are upside down. I also have to really zoom in to be able to read any of the countries, which isn't great design either. I would rather have maybe just the top 20, plus a few additional notable countries with a large population.

Also, the total plastic waste is hard to compare across countries given the circular nature of the presentation which is compounded by using the area of a circle to show total volume, so it just clutters up space without really adding much in my opinion.

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From a distance though, and without trying to really get any information from the plot, it is very pretty!

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BenTheHokie t1_j8tjz93 wrote

Love this visualization. However for a few of the data points, including the Philippines, seems like they are emitting more waste than they produce. Is that because other countries are exporting trash for them to then negligently dispose of?

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khelfen1 t1_j8vyzxs wrote

Yes, probably. We (EU in my case) export a lot of our waste to SE Asia. Would be nice to have data accounting for exports.

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BenTheHokie t1_j8xmhzf wrote

Looks like OP answered a different comment thread. The emission and generation are from different time periods (as per the bottom right corner) so while it is a cool visualization, it's hard to draw definitive conclusions about whether trash is being exported.

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Elitesparkle t1_j8rkpvg wrote

Do you have data proportional to the population too?

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Khyron_2500 t1_j8rtfkr wrote

The link lists that 80% of ocean plastics is land-based, I’m assuming river based plastics are considered land-based. Is that correct?

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IamKingDoge t1_j8uyq9i wrote

Can you flip the country names when they are completely upside down?

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Upstairs-Coat-7476 t1_j95a4ix wrote

Good job of conveying multiple metrics on a single chart (total plastic waste vs waste in ocean vs per capita). Once you take the time to understand the chart, you can visually compare different countries in multiple dimensions at the same time.

The circular/spiral arrangement works well for this data, for two reasons: If it were a bar chart, you'd have to scroll back and forth to compare countries, rather than seeing them all at the same time (I hate scrolling back and forth!). Plus, the arrangement gives more space on the outside of the circle to fit the occasional large data points such as the US, China,...That would be harder to read in a linear format. Good choice!

However, the way circles represent the values is misleading -- the value should correspond to the area of the circle, not the diameter.

Also, according to the discussions in this post, it seems the data itself is misleading -- not taking into account the originating source of plastic waste, which ends up being quite significant.This is an issue with the data that was selected for the chart, not an issue with the visualization. (I doubt that there's accurate or comprehensive data available for country of origin.)

Overall, I learned quite a bit that I hadn't known previously.

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