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Facts and Figures Regarding the
True Cost of Plastic bags
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Want to know more about Ireland's wildly successful PlasTax? How about numbers on consumption? Think paper bags are
better than plastic bags?
Think again, and be in the know.
Top Facts - Consumption
•Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute. Billions end up as litter each year.
•According to the EPA, over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed in the U.S. each year.
•According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is $4 billion)
•According to the industry publication Modern Plastics, Taiwan consumes 20 billion bags a year - 900 per person.
•According to Australia's Department of
Environment, Australians consume 6.9 billion plastic
bags each year - 326 per person. An estimated 0.7%
or 49,600,000 end up as litter each year.
Top Facts - Environmental Impact
Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food.
Plastic bags don't biodegrade, they photodegrade - breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest them.
As part of Clean Up Australia Day, in one day nearly 500,000 plastic bags were collected.
Windblown plastic bags are so prevalent in Africa that a cottage industry has sprung up harvesting bags and using them to weave hats, and even bags. According to the BBC, one group harvests 30,000 per month.
According to David Barnes, a marine scientist with the British Antarctic Survey, plastic bags have gone "from being rare in the late 80s and early 90s to being almost everywhere from Spitsbergen 78 degrees North [latitude] to Falklands 51 degrees South [latitude]."
Plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris most often found in coastal cleanups, according to the nonprofit Center for Marine Conservation.
Six Misconceptions About Plastic
1. Plastics that go into curbside recycling bins get recycled.
FACT: Most do not.
2. Curbside collection reduces the amount of plastic land filled.
FACT: It does not.
3. Packaging resins are made from petroleum refinery waste.
FACT: Nearly all are made from virgin petroleum and
natural gas.
4. Plastic recyclers promote its recyclability.
FACT: Plastic resin pellet producers pay for recycling ads
to promote the sale of plastics.
5. Using plastic containers conserves energy.
FACT: Most of the energy costs of plastic are incurred by
the manufacturer. Virgin glass uses an equal amount of
energy, while recycled glass uses far less than either virgin
plastic or virgin glass.
6. Our choice is limited to recycling or wasting.
FACT: Source reduction is key, and quite simple.
Top Facts - Solutions
In 2001, Ireland consumed 1.2 billion plastic bags, or 316 per person. An extremely successful plastic bag consumption tax, or PlasTax, introduced in 2002 reduced consumption by 90%. Approximately 18,000,000 liters of oil have been saved due to this reduced production. Governments around the world are considering implementing similar measures.
In July 2003, ReusableBags.com went live, advancing the mainstream adoption of reusable shopping bags.
Each high quality reusable shopping bag you use has the potential to eliminate hundreds, if not thousands, of plastic shopping bags over its lifetime.
For more information, visit http://www.algalita.org or http://www.plasticdebris.org.
