One million plastic bottles are bought every minute worldwide, bringing new environmental crisis
Every minute, people purchase one million plastic bottles – around 20,000 a second, consuming 500 billion a year. Although many of them can be recycled, keeping up with the volume of the plastic bottles is getting increasingly hard and most of them end up polluting our oceans.
According to the Guardian, the number of plastic bottles purchased right now might grow by 20%, bringing along an environmental crisis that could be as serious as climate change. The demand is driven by people’s desire to consume bottled water. Furthermore, the spread of the western “on the go” culture to China and the Asia Pacific region also contributed to this problem. Although plastic was first popularized in the 1940’s, a large amount of the material manufactued back then is still around today, given the hundreds of years break-down period that plastic requires.
In 2016, people bought 480 billion plastic water bottles – and only a half got to be recycled. Out of that half, 7% found a second life as new bottles, while the rest found their way into the ocean, as Inhabitat reports. From there, the plastic is ingested by sea birds, fish and other organisms. At this rate, the ocean will contain more plastic by weight than fish, according to research by Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
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Furthermore, some of the plastic is already finding its way into the food eaten by humans, according to scientists at Belgium’s Ghent University. Seafood lovers ingest up to 11,000 tiny pieces of plastic each year. “The plastic pollution crisis rivals the threat of climate change,” Hugo Tagholm, chief executive of Surfers Against Sewage told the Guardian. “Current science shows that plastics cannot be usefully assimilated into the food chain. Where they are ingested they carry toxins that work their way on to our dinner plates.”
Meanwhile, most brands do not use recycled plastic, because they prefer the shiny look of traditional plastic. Many companies also fought against the possibility of a tax on single-use bottles. Greenpeace said the big six drinks companies need to do more to increase the recycled content of their plastic bottles. “During Greenpeace’s recent expedition exploring plastic pollution on remote Scottish coastlines, we found plastic bottles nearly everywhere we went,” said Louisa Casson, oceans campaigner for Greenpeace. “It’s clear that the soft drinks industry needs to reduce its plastic footprint.”
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