plastic in ocean video ↓, facts ↓, news.com.au ↓
“Plastic bags, plastic bottles, plastic cups, plastic sheets, plastic buckets, plastic sachets, plastic straws, plastic baskets, plastic bags, more plastic bags, plastic, plastic. So much plastic!”
We produce nearly 300 million tons of plastic every year. Half is for single use. More than 8 million tons of plastic are dumped into our oceans each year. ?
Some general facts:
- Packaging is the largest end use market segment accounting for just over 40% of total plastic usage.
- Annually approximately 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide. More than one million bags are used every minute.
- A plastic bag has an average “working life” of 15 minutes.
- Over the last ten years we have produced more plastic than during the whole of the last century.
On Beverage Bottles:
- 14% of all litter comes from beverage containers.
- To produce bottled water takes about 6 times as much water per bottle as there is in the bottle.
- According to the Container Recycling Institute, 100.7 billion plastic beverage bottles were sold in the U.S. in 2014, or 315 bottles per person.
Read more about facts in PlasticOceans.org and EcoWatch
For an environmental engineer’s calculation of marine pollution, read the article of Jambeck et al in Science, vol 347 issue 6223 page 768. ?