Follow us on social media! The life-cycle of a plastic bottle is environmentally problematic from the very beginning. Plastic bottles are made out of PET, or polyethylene terephthalate , a resin derived from petroleum and natural gas. These fossil fuels are heated up and mixed with water to create plastic. A typical one-liter plastic bottle uses about two liters of water during this process — so a one-liter bottle of water represents three liters of water consumption.
Each of those bottles takes about 4 million joules of energy to create, and every ton of this plastic that is produced creates three tons of CO2.
Once the bottles are ready to be filled, water is transported to the manufacturing facilities. In the United States, many of the sources for bottled water are in water-troubled locations such as California and Michigan. The Lifecycle of Plastic is Problematic. Why use all of that extra energy for virtually the same water? Nevertheless, millions of gallons are being pumped from aquifers each day to be shipped, bottled and sold.
After the drinks are bottled, they are shipped to retailers throughout the country and all over the world. Between manufacture and transportation, about 63 billion gallons of oil are used to supply the United States with plastic bottles each year. The main solution is education and informing people of the impact they are having on the environment and the health of their future generations.
With education, comes a change to consumer behaviors. Skip to content. Quick Snapshot Statistics. How long does it take for a plastic bottle to decompose? How many plastic bottles are used each day? How many plastic bottles are in the ocean? How much plastic will be in the ocean in ? How many plastic bottles are used each year?
Popular Plastic Bottle Pollution Statistics. The average person uses plastic bottles per year. By , there will be more plastic in the oceans than there are fish according to environmental scientists.
It can take up to years for a bottle to fragment, and after it does it still never disappears. Plastic bottle production Plastic bottle consumption Plastic bottles in landfills Plastic bottles in the ocean. Effects on marine life and animals Countries causing the most plastic waste Plastic waste statistics Solutions to plastic pollution. There are 66 times as many bottles as there are humans on our planet 60 million plastic water bottles are thrown away each day in America.
This requires large amounts of fossil fuels to produce and transport them. Bottled water production uses 17 million barrels of oil per year. Landfills in the US are overflowing with over 2 million tons of water bottles that are thrown away. It can take up to 1, years for a single plastic bottle to decompose. This trash vortex is a collection of two distinct patches connected by the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. There are 5 major ocean gyres which accumulate millions of pieces of plastic; our wildlife feed in these grounds.
Two patches are connected to create one large vortex comprised of 1. Along with large items of plastic being ingested and entangling wildlife, the plastic debris in the patch blocks plankton and algae from receiving any sunlight. Plankton and algae produce nutrients for other creatures from carbon and sunlight if their existence is threatened the entire food web may change.
Over 1 million seabirds and , marine mammals are killed by ocean plastic every year. How many animals die from ocean plastic pollution? While the true figure may not be known, we can estimate over , marine mammals and over 1 million seabirds are killed by ocean plastic every year. With so many animals mistaking plastic items and particles for food, or becoming entangled, the impact of plastic waste on marine life has become a global crisis.
Animals consuming plastic can starve to death as the plastic fills their stomach preventing them from eating proper food, rupturing their organs or blocking food from traveling to the intestine. In one case in the Philippines a curvier beaker whale was found vomiting blood with over 88 pounds of plastic in its belly. Its body started to destroy itself from the inside due to the plastic waste.
Plastic pollution facts show it is ridding the world of m arine species, with over on the edge of extinction, including Hawaiian monk seals and loggerhead sea turtles. Along with larger mammals even the tiniest organisms can be impacted by toxic microplastics which in turn make their way up the food chain. Your typical clothes wash will produce around , microplastic fibers. The US discards 2 billion razors and 1 billion plastic toothbrushes a year.
There are numerous reasons for ocean pollution, including toxic chemicals, nuclear waste and oil spillages, but plastic waste is high on that list.
Sewer overflows, beach visitors leaving rubbish, insufficient waste management, construction, and illegal dumping all contribute to the vast sum of plastics entering our oceans. More than 1 million plastic bag s end up in the trash every minute. If you linked them end to end they would circle the globe 4, times.
Less than 1 in 7 plastic bags are recycled. The US is responsible for around billion bags that end up in the seas. A plastic bag is used on average for 15 minutes. It can take anything between years for a plastic bag to break up. How many plastic bags are in our oceans? Plastic bags are one of the most controversial forms of plastic pollution today. We use them for only minutes on average and bin over 1 million of them every minute. The US is responsible for around billion bags ending up in the sea every year.
To recycle the cup you have to separate the paper and the plastic, which is impossible to do by hand and requires a special machine. You cannot recycle any plastic material that contains food residues on it. So clean your takeaway utensils next time before throwing them in the recycle bin. Recycling one ton of plastic bottles can save the equivalent energy used by a two-person household for one year.
Public confusion is causing a recycling crisis in the U. If you use a reusable water bottle you can eliminate the need for disposable bottles per year all by yourself. You can only recycle the same piece of plastic about times before its quality decreases to the point where it can no longer be used.
Plastic water bottles can be recycled into new bottles, home insulation materials, bin liners, carrier bags, duvet fillings, various items of clothing, DVD and video game cases, compost bins, park benches, and much more.
Want to learn more facts about how much plastic is recycled as well as how much plastic is produced each year? Here are more recycling plastic facts.
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