There’s no better way to celebrate Earth Day every day than to reduce dependency on single-use plastic products by using reusable shopping bags and washable drink containers. If anyone thinks disposable plastic products are no big deal, the folks at earthday.org offer some sobering statistics:
Annual global plastic production virtually equals the weight of all humanity.
Fifty percent of global annual plastic production goes into single-use products.
Five trillion plastic bags are made worldwide each year.
Americans discard about 100 billion plastic bags annually.
The global population uses about 1.2 million plastic bottles per minute.
Only around 9% of plastic water bottles are recycled; the other 91% end up in landfills or as plastic litter in bodies of water.
The global population uses about 500 billion plastic cups every year.
Americans discard about 25 billion Styrofoam cups a year.
About 146 million metric tons of packaging plastic was used worldwide in 2017.
Americans use about half a billion drinking straws each day on average.
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