Its estimated that 46,000 pieces of plastic can be found in our oceans per squared mile, Studies estimate that plastics make up anything from 60-90% of the marine pollution. Here is why: About 300 million tons of plastic is produced globally each year. Plastic water bottle pollution continues to impact our environment every year, and yet consumer brands like Coco-Cola are reluctant to using RPet because it doesn’t represent their brand as it isn’t shiny or clear.
Its estimated that around 13 billion plastic bottles are used in the UK every year.
Continuing advances in chemistry have created new grades of polyolefins with enhanced strength and durability, but these cannot always mix with other grades during recycling. For example, the supply of natural rubber for vehicle tires was cut off by the Japanese conquest of Southeast Asia, leading to a synthetic polymer equivalent. 90% of all plastic bottles don’t even get recycled! From its early beginnings during and after World War II, the commercial industry for polymers – long chain synthetic molecules of which “plastics” are a common misnomer – has grown rapidly. FACT #8: 16 billion disposable coffee cups are used each year. Consumers need to start putting more pressure on manufactures, because plastic bottle pollution is caused by the fact that only around 6.6% of the plastic bottles manufactured use recycled plastic.
A big part of the solution therefore has to be to prevent plastic from getting into the environment in the first place.
In other words, because plastic is inexpensive, lightweight and durable, virtually every industry — be it retailing, manufacturing or logistics — loves it. Plastic water bottles are manufactured from a petroleum product called polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Which in turn will end up in our food chain. Oceans are now receptacles for at least 8 billion kilograms of plastic annually—equivalent to a garbage truck full of plastic unloading into the ocean every minute. Only about 10 percent of that is recycled. Plastic packaging material reached a total of 14.5 million tonnes as the second most significant material (+12.7 %). Visit Our Resources Page To Access: RESEARCH PAPERS, VIDEOS, INFOGRAPHICS, and MUCH MORE .
Copyright © 2010–2020, The Conversation US, Inc. further development of synthetic polymers, Over 70 million tons of thermoplastics per year, generates over 90 pounds of textile waste. 80% of all the plastic water bottles we consume end up in landfills. Sadly, plastic waste statistics show that we have polluted every beach in the world, from busy tourist beaches to uninhabited islands. Over the last ten years we have produced more plastic than during the whole of the last century. Polymers are sometimes criticized for being produced from increasingly scarce petroleum and natural gas.
If a straw is a must, purchase a reusable stainless steel or glass straw. But of course that’s also the bad news: we’ve doubled plastic production tonnage in less than two decades. display this same exponential take-off.
• Pre-1950 production tonnage is assumed to be negligible, based on various sources and the very low production rates in 1950. That, in essence, is what the plastic disclosure project’s team and its backers (it also has a stamp of approval from the Clinton Global Initiative ) are trying to do. The next time you think you’ll buy a drink that comes in a plastic bottle, think again.
Simply make sure you recycle. Plastic waste constitutes 90% of all the rubbish floating in our ocean, with approximately 46,000 pieces of plastic per square mile, 40,000 eighteen-wheeled trucks are used every week to deliver bottled water across the US. Only about 10 percent of that is recycled. And because it is so durable, it does not “go away.” Plastic accumulated over half a century is now out there.
But whoever heard of a plastic footprint? “Plastic” is actually a shortened form of “thermoplastic,” a term that describes polymeric materials that can be shaped and reshaped using heat. The graph below shows the projected four-fold increase in production tonnage by 2050. And because no single nation or authority bears responsibility for the oceans, cleanup and prevention are largely left to nongovernmental organizations.
https://plasticoceans.org/infographic-reduce-plastic-pollution/ And oil, gas, and other energy sources are used to power the plastic-making processes. It’s not just plastic water bottles that are impacting the environment, find alternative household items, such as soap and cleaning products that come in environmentally-friendly packaging. Despite the US making up 5% of the world’s population, they consume 30% of the plastic waste per year. This is up from 3.8 billion plastic water bottles sold in 1996, the earliest year for available data. Electrolux, the Swedish appliance maker, for example, introduced a range of vacuum cleaners in February that are made from recycled plastic. It could potentially double in size during the next 10 years unless we don’t change our ways. Graph sources: • 1950 to 2015 data from Geyer, Jambeck, and Law, “Production, Use, and Fate of All Plastics Ever Made,” Science Advances 3, no.
Long-term graphs of nearly anything (nitrogen fertilizer production, energy use, automobile production, greenhouse gas emissions, air travel, etc.) According to the Container Recycling Institute, 100.7 billion plastic beverage bottles were sold in … https://www.earthday.org/2018/04/05/fact-sheet-plastics-in-the-ocean/
Commercial use can also be arranged on affordable and convenient terms. The average person uses 156 plastic bottles per year. Of the plastic that is simply trashed, an estimated seven million tons ends up in the sea each year. If everyone knew that 100% of turtles in the ocean have plastic in their stomach, people might change their habits and start to change the way they live. Further down the line, the time may come when plastic trash is seen as something that has greater commercial value. If consumers new about this, then they would certainly think twice about buying a bottle again.
Since then, annual production has increased nearly 200-fold, reaching 381 million tonnes in 2015. Building and construction consumes another 20 percent of the total polymers produced, where PVC pipe and its chemical cousins dominate.
71% Of Holiday Makers Still Hopeful They’ll Be Going Abroad This Summer! We found the most interesting water bottle pollution fact is the amount of oil it takes to produce a single plastic bottle – if you fill a bottle so its 25% full, this represents the amount of oil it took to make it. Plastics are forever—well, almost. There, it breaks down into smaller and smaller fragments over the years. Chinese consumers purchased 73.8 billion bottles in 2016, an increase of 5.4 billion from 2015. A plastic water bottle can last for 1,000 years in the marine environment, slowly fragmenting into smaller and smaller pieces which then ends up as microscopic, but will never go away. Evidence shows that chemicals found in plastics can be linked to endocrine disruption and even some cancers. Eventually, the combination of need, scientific advances and serendipity led to the full suite of polymers that you can now readily recognize as “plastics.” These polymers were rapidly commercialized, thanks to a desire to reduce products’ weight and to provide inexpensive alternatives to natural materials like cellulose or cotton. Plastic waste facts show that every day almost 8 million pieces of plastic pollute our oceans. Some companies have already made progress on those fronts.
Its not just a quick clean up job either as its imagined it would take 67 ships 1 year to clean up just 1% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Bottled water production uses 17 million barrels of oil per year. However, these materials have serious downsides.
We should be embarrassed. OceanWatch Australia is the national marine NRM organisation Last year, a study estimated that around eight million metric tons of our plastic waste enter the oceans from land each year. Ships, boats or ferries can be responsible for it going overboard. During this time studies show that the toxins decomposing bottles of water leaks harmful chemicals into our environment. In Australia, plastic bag bans exist in South Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory and the ACT, while NSW, Queensland and Victoria remain in a deadlock over the issue, committed to the cause, but not yet ready to act. 80 billion of Coca-Cola’s plastic water bottles end up in a landfill.
Aside from cleaning up our oceans, which is a very important step but definitely not a long-term solution, the best way to help address plastic water pollution is to change our behavior and habits.
It takes up to 1,000 years for a plastic bag to break down.
Number of plastic bags produced – worldwide, this year.
300 million tons of plastic is created every year, which weighs the same as the worlds population, yet just 50% is single use. Plastic is made from oil and natural gas feedstocks—molecules extracted from the oil and gas become the plastic. (One study found that fish in the North Pacific ingest as much as 24,000 tons of plastic debris a year). 100 years of Australian coal production, New report on agriculture, GHG emissions, climate change, and the farm income crisis, Canucks in hock: 50 years of Canadian debt levels, The nitrogen crisis: the other mega-threat to the biosphere, Another trillion tonnes: 250 years of global material use data. Quite simply, humans are addicted to this nearly indestructible material. Fairly simple questions, but ones that could help to thrust the issue of plastic waste and pollution onto the radars of corporations, investors and the public in a much bigger way.