Facts about disposable bag use:
- Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags
are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute.
Billions end up as litter each year.
- According to the EPA, over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed in the U.S. each year.
- According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. goes through 100
billion plastic shopping bags annually. (Estimated cost to retailers is
$4 billion) According to the industry publication Modern Plastics,
Taiwan consumes 20 billion bags a year—900 per person.
- According to Australia’s Department of Environment,
Australians consume 6.9 billion plastic bags each year—326 per
person. An estimated .7% or 49,600,000 end up as litter each year.
Top Facts - Environmental Impact
- Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other
marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags
mistaken for food.
- Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they
photodegrade—breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits
contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals
accidentally ingest.
- As part of Clean Up Australia Day, in one day nearly 500,000 plastic bags were collected.
- Windblown plastic bags are so prevalent in Africa that a
cottage industry has sprung up harvesting bags and using them to weave
hats, and even bags. According to the BBC, one group harvests 30,000
per month.
- According to David Barnes, a marine scientist with the
British Antarctic Survey, plastic bags have gone "from being rare in
the late 80s and early 90s to being almost everywhere from Spitsbergen
78° North [latitude] to Falklands 51° South [latitude].
- #Plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris most often found
in coastal cleanups, according to the nonprofit Center for Marine
Conservation.
Top Facts - Solutions
- In 2001, Ireland consumed 1.2 billion plastic bags, or 316
per person. An extremely successful plastic bag consumption tax, or
PlasTax, introduced in 2002 reduced consumption by 90%. Approximately
18,000,000 liters of oil have been saved due to this reduced
production. Governments around the world are considering implementing
similar measures.