Use of plastic has increased 20-fold in the past half-century; production of the global material is expected to double again in the next 20 years – and estimated to nearly quadruple over the next 50 years.
A CNN Money report, states that nearly a third of all plastic packaging “escapes collection systems.”
As for where the rest goes, more than 8 million tons of plastics end up entering our oceans each year, where it literally can survive for hundreds of years.
Sources today estimate that approximately 165 tons of plastic has found its way into the oceans of the world. To better comprehend that amount, it is equivalent to dumping garbage into the ocean at the rate one garbage truck per minute for over 20 years.
This past week the World Economic Forum and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation sent out an ominous warning – “We’re on a track to having more plastic in the ocean than fish.”
That warning comes in terms by weight factors – today it is said that the ratio is 1 to 5 parts, plastic to fish.
Reports posted in The Guardian note that only 5% of those plastics found in the ocean are recycled – 70% of all plastics are said to end up in landfills, not even reach recycling stations.
The $80 to $120 billion dollars lost annually to recycling due to landfill placement is said to come at a cost, not only labor, but overall costs associated with the entire process, from beginning to end product.
The solution? A new and improved plastics economy – including recycling, reusable packaging, and composting plastic packaging.
The Philippines is today one of the largest polluters of the sea, and plastics and garbage has inundated, not only the coastal oceans, but inner waterways. Three major Asian countries are polluting the seas at an enormous rate, creating what many today are consuming in secondary factors associated with foot sources from oceans and waterways.
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