I’m currently watching the wonderful new BBC series “Blue Planet II” and the latest episode highlights the issue of plastic in our oceans. Consider these facts – compiled by Plastic Oceans – on plastic pollution:<\/p>\n
The proliferation of plastic products in the last 70 years or so has been extraordinary; quite simply we cannot now live without them. We are now producing nearly 300 million tons of plastic every year, half of which is for single use. More than 8 million tons of plastic is dumped into our oceans every year.<\/p>\n
Plastic is cheap and incredibly versatile with properties that make it ideal for many applications. However, these qualities have also resulted in it becoming an environmental issue. We have developed a \u201cdisposable\u201d lifestyle and estimates are that around 50% of plastic is used just once and thrown away.<\/p>\n
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- Plastic is a valuable resource and plastic pollution is an unnecessary and unsustainable waste of that resource.<\/li>\n
- Packaging is the largest end use market segment accounting for just over 40% of total plastic usage.<\/li>\n
- Annually approximately 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide. More than one million bags are used every minute.<\/li>\n
- A plastic bag has an average \u201cworking life\u201d of 15 minutes.<\/li>\n
- Over the last ten years we have produced more plastic than during the whole of the last century.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n