Facts About Plastics
A person uses a plastic carrier bag on average for just 12 minutes. Something that we use for a mere 12 minutes will be Mother Earth's acne for 1 thousand years...
Worldwide over 1.2 trillion plastic bags are used a year, an average of 300 bags for per person. That’s over 1 million bags being used every minute.
Plastic bags may take one thousand years to decompose. Do you realise the implication of this? That means they'll keep accummulating over the years in landfills to mountains of plastics that will be here to stay for centuries ... There is no way of purging them from our environment.
It is estimated that between 1 - 3 % of plastic bags produced worldwide end up as litter. A small percentage you may think, but we are talking about that percentage of trillions of plastic bags!
You have been taught that plastics are do not biodegrade. That's right, but what many of you don't know is that they PHOTODEGRADE. That is, break down into smaller toxic bits contaminating soil, waterways, oceans and entering animal food chains.
86% of all known species of sea turtles have had reported problems of entanglement or ingestion of marine debris. Nearly 90% of floating marine litter is plastic (Algalita) (MSC) Creating floating islands of plastics now, aren't we?
Plastic production uses 8% of all the world's oil production. At the current rate the world produces 200 million tons of plastic a year (waste online)
Worldwide over 1.2 trillion plastic bags are used a year, an average of 300 bags for per person. That’s over 1 million bags being used every minute.
Plastic bags may take one thousand years to decompose. Do you realise the implication of this? That means they'll keep accummulating over the years in landfills to mountains of plastics that will be here to stay for centuries ... There is no way of purging them from our environment.
It is estimated that between 1 - 3 % of plastic bags produced worldwide end up as litter. A small percentage you may think, but we are talking about that percentage of trillions of plastic bags!
You have been taught that plastics are do not biodegrade. That's right, but what many of you don't know is that they PHOTODEGRADE. That is, break down into smaller toxic bits contaminating soil, waterways, oceans and entering animal food chains.
86% of all known species of sea turtles have had reported problems of entanglement or ingestion of marine debris. Nearly 90% of floating marine litter is plastic (Algalita) (MSC) Creating floating islands of plastics now, aren't we?
Plastic production uses 8% of all the world's oil production. At the current rate the world produces 200 million tons of plastic a year (waste online)
Sources :
By the way, I just found out that Brunei in fact has a national campaign to help cut down the usage of plastic bags from a Brunei Times article dated June 10, 2008. Here are some parts of the article -
The campaign, themed 'Reducing the Use of Plastic Bag Towards A Low Carbon Economy' was launched yesterday at the Giant premises in Rimba by Pehin Orang Kaya Hamzah Pahlawan Dato Seri Setia Hj Abdullah Begawan Mudim Dato Paduka Hj Bakar, Minister of Development.
Yusrin Hadi Ghani, an environment officer at the Department of Environment, Parks and Recreation (DEPR) said the campaign was held in cooperation with two large retailers, Giant and Supa Save, to provide reusable shopping bags for the public.
The department is planning to get other supermarkets to be involved in the drive. "For a start, the department would approach these supermarkets and distribute reusable bags for them in a bid to encourage their consumers to use these bags. We also hope to expand the campaign to the three other districts Belait, Tutong and Temburong," he said.
Source : http://www.bt.com.bn/en/home_news/2008/06/10/choose_reusable_bags_not_plastic_ones
Things are changing slowly but surely, and I sure do hope that the campaign will get in full swing soon. Now you have an extra reason to participate in our bid to reduce the use of plastics. By doing so, you will be part of a larger campaign, a NATIONAL campaign to be exact. Be part of something big and let's get going!
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