Some hard facts about plastic wasteReader submitted

Over the last 60 years plastic has become central to our lives and now approximately 500 billion plastic bags are used annually worldwide. They take 1000 years to biodegrade and litter the planet, causing mayhem to plants and animals.

• Over 1 trillion plastic bags are used every year worldwide. Consider China, a country of 1.3 billion, which consumes 3 billion plastic bags daily, according to China Trade News.
• About 1 million plastic bags are used every minute.
• A single plastic bag can take up to 1000 years to degrade.
• More than 3.5 million tons of plastic bags, sacks and wraps were discarded in 2008.
• Only 1 in 200 plastic bags in the UK are recycled. (BBC)
• The US goes through 100 billion single-use plastic bags. This costs retailers about $4 billion a year.
• Plastic bags are the second-most common type of ocean refuse, after cigarette butts. (2008)
• Plastic bags remain toxic even after they break down.
• Every square mile of ocean has about 46,000 pieces of plastic floating in it.
• It is estimated that worldwide, plastic bag consumption falls between 500 billion and 1 trillion bags annually. That breaks down to almost 1 million every minute.
• Ten per cent of the plastic produced every year worldwide ends up in the ocean, 70 per cent of which finds its way to the ocean floor where it will likely never degrade. (UN, 2006)

http://www.reuseit.com/learn-more/top-facts/plastic-bag-facts

• Because plastic bags don’t go away, they just break up into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic, the number of plastic bags in the environment continues to accumulate, with 80 million littered per year.
• Plastic bags are lightweight and moisture resistant, which means that they float easily in air and water, often traveling long distances.
• Every year over 6 million tonnes of rubbish is dumped into the world’s oceans, 80 per cent of which is plastic, and a further 10 per cent of this being plastic bags.
• With an estimated 46,000 pieces for every square mile of ocean, plastic is responsible for killing 1 million sea birds and over 100,000 sea mammals each year.
• Turtles, whales and sea birds mistake rubbish for food or get entangled in it, resulting in painful injuries, or even death.
• Australians dispose of an estimated 4 billion plastic bags, or 20,700 tonnes of plastic, that can be recycled.
• Even plastic bags that are reused as bin bags end up in municipal waste streams and will never be recycled, filling our already limited landfill space.
• When gas, oil and coal are used to produce plastic bags, they emit dangerous greenhouse gases.
• Large amounts of plastic end up in landfill, also a significant source of greenhouse gases.
• It is estimated that it costs governments, businesses and community groups over $4 million per annum to clean up littered plastic shopping bags.
• Plastic bags can be returned to your supermarket for recycling but only 3 per cent are currently recycled.
• Australians currently use 4 billion plastic bags annually, which means over 10 million new bags are used every day, or that everyone each uses 200 every year.
• The energy consumed in the life cycle of one plastic bag is estimated to be equivalent to 13.8 millilitres of crude oil, or about a teaspoonful.
• Australians throw away about 7150 recyclable plastic bags a minute, with 429,000 recyclable plastic supermarket bags dumped into landfill every hour.
• Plastic bags can become serial killers. Once a bag is ingested, the animal dies and decomposes, releasing the bag back into the environment to kill again.

http://www.cleanup.org.au/PDF/au/cua_plastic_bags_fact_sheet.pdf

• Kiwis use 800 million bags each year, which works out at around 200 bags per head per year.
• Marine animals (especially turtles) and birds are killed by plastic they mistake for jellyfish and squid.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10369719

• So called ‘biodegradable’ bags are not as fantastic as they sound, most require light to break down and there isn’t much light to be found in landfills and at the bottom of the ocean. Some alternative products break down into flakes which can harm wildlife, and a degradable bag looks as much like a jellyfish to a dolphin as a non-degradable one.

Death by plastic

Sunday looks at what we can do to help save Green sea turtles.

Kelly Tarlton's acts as a sort of A&E for turtles that get washed on shore – one of the ones that didn't survive had 224 different pieces of plastic in its gut – truly awful.

http://tvnz.co.nz/sunday-news/death-plastic-video-5364855

What is the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch?

A swirling sea of plastic bags, some say the size of Texas, composed of bottles and other debris is growing in the North Pacific and now another one has been found in the Atlantic. But how did they get there? And is there anything we can do to clean them up?

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/translating-uncle-sam/stories/what-is-the-great-pacific-ocean-garbage-patch