Beating our plastic addiction will not happen overnight, but we are finally on the road to recovery. 31.

Interactions of microplastic debris throughout the marine ecosystem. In Proceedings of the Workshop on the Fate and Impact of Marine Debris, 27–29 November 1984, Honolulu, Hawaii, ed. This feature is limited to our corporate solutions. (2015). Other than preventing the plastic waste in the Atlantic Ocean stats from going out of control, South Africa’s HDPE recycling efforts have helped minimize the emission of toxic fumes and bring more savings to taxpayers. & Gorokhova, E. The effects of natural and anthropogenic microparticles on individual fitness in Daphnia magna. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 1(5), 0116. Available at: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/768. We would need countless of these caterpillars to improve most plastic waste stats. Offshore we find large plastic objects dating as far back as the 1950s and 1960s. The impact of debris on marine life. 23, 1031–1033 (2013). Brooks, A. L., Wang, S., & Jambeck, J. R. (2018). Mismanaged waste is the sum of inadequately managed waste (that which is not formally managed such as disposal in dumps or open, uncontrolled landfills which could leak to the surrounding environment) and littered waste. Plastics are valuable resources that bring numerous benefits to society by offering sustainable solutions in countless sectors. Source: Ocean Crusaders Foundation & Plastic Recycling Library. To put this into perspective for you, about 2 million plastic bags are used every minute, which puts us at an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags being used each year.

Which countries produce the most plastic waste? Available at: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6223/768. While the global beer industry needs to step up their game in order to pull down the statistics on plastic waste, Carlberg’s sustainability shift may pressure its competitors to follow suit.

Beyond domestic plastic waste generation, there is also a large global commodity market for recycled plastic waste.

42. Such a negative view of plastic did not always exist, though. Considering that plastic degradation is a process that can take centuries to complete, a recycling rate of 9% is definitely one of the most worrying. 43. Since microplastics are hydrophobic (insoluble), and are have a high surface area-to-volume ratio, they can sorb environmental contaminants.68 If there was significant accumulation of environmental contaminants, there is the possibility that these concentrations could ‘biomagnify’ up the food chain to higher levels.69 Biomagnification of PCBs varies by organism and environmental conditions; multiple studies have shown no evidence of uptake by the organisms of PCBs despite ingestion70 whilst some mussels, for example, have shown capability to transfer some compounds into their digestive glands.71. After entry to oceans from coastal regions, plastics tend to migrate towards the centre of ocean basins.

Available at: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-16510-3_4. East Asia, in relative terms, will remain approximately constant. And, any additional plastics we add will contribute further. A House of Commons Library Briefing Paper on plastic waste in the UK, including statistics on plastic waste and information on UK Government and devolved Government plans and ambitions to reduce avoidable plastic waste and examples of voluntary initiatives from the plastics industry, environmental groups and retailers. If this prediction comes true, most fish could literally drown in their own habitats, which would have devastating consequences for terrestrial ecosystems alike.

In the same period, the South African plastics industry recycled about 5.9 million PET bottles a day. 90.5% of plastic waste ever made has never been recycled. over time best. What determines how much plastic waste we produce? Note that these figures represent total plastic waste generation and do not account for differences in waste management, recycling or incineration. 20. Sooner or later, the problem will come back to land and hurt us through seafood consumption. About 91% of plastic is not recycled. In: Bergmann M., Gutow L., Klages M. (eds) Marine Anthropogenic Litter. 37. Plastics in the marine environment. Unlike traditional plastic bottles that can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade, edible water containers can harmlessly break down in six weeks. Interaction – interaction includes collisions, obstructions, abrasions or use as substrate. -highest contributor of plastic pollution on Earth. This does not include ‘littered’ plastic waste, which is approximately 2% of total waste (including high-income countries).76, Mismanaged waste: material that is either littered or inadequately disposed (the sum of littered and inadequately disposed waste). This recognition is a testament to the troubling plastic shopping bag waste statistics. Microplastic pollution in table salts from China. Microplastic litter composition of the Turkish territorial waters of the Mediterranean Sea, and its occurrence in the gastrointestinal tract of fish.