PLASTIC PANDEMIC

US PLASTIC

• 5 trillion plastic bags are produced year
• About 1 million plastic bags are used every minute
• only 1 percent of plastic bags are recycled in the US
• 90% are discarded

Plastic bags are used for an average of 12 minutes, but a single plastic bag has a life expectancy of up to 1,000 years

80% of pollution enters the ocean from the land

Every square mile of the ocean has about 46,000 pieces of floating plastic in it

photodegrade: the materials break down to smaller fragments that readily soak up toxins, contaminating soil, waterways, and animals upon digestion

GIANT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH

• Twice the size of the United States
• Plastic bags are the second-most common type of ocean refuse, after cigarette butts

In the North Pacific Ocean, there are 6x more plastic debris than plankton.

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85% of all sea turtles will be injured or killed by plastics in their lifetimes

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Each reusable bag can eliminate hundreds if not thousands of plastic bags.

The solution is to gradually convert to reusable bags with a tax on plastic and paper bags

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