{"id":187606,"date":"2022-09-22T17:29:22","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T16:29:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/backup.tappwater.com\/en\/infographic-where-does-all-the-plastic-end-up\/"},"modified":"2022-09-22T17:29:25","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T16:29:25","slug":"infographic-where-does-all-the-plastic-end-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/backup.tappwater.com\/en\/infographic-where-does-all-the-plastic-end-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Infographic: Where does all the plastic end up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever wondered where all the plastic ends up after we\u2019ve consumed it? Maybe you think that the bottles you recycle every week become new plastic bottles? Or that all the plastic found in the oceans were thrown in there by someone?<\/p>\n

We went on a mission to find out the truth.<\/p>\n

What we found was worse than we could have ever imagined.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an\u00a0overview of the Top 10 Facts of where all the plastic ends up<\/strong>. We hope it helps you and others wake up to the reality and help so something about it.<\/p>\n

$\"Infographic:$ <\/a><\/p>\n

Source: This is image is copyright protected. To use it please always link to the original source or this page\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Text for infographic including source links<\/h2>\n1. Plastic bottles produced<\/h3>\n
Approx 500bn plastic drinking bottles were sold in 2017 across the world
\nSource: Euromonitor International\u2019s global packaging trends report 2018
\n. \u201c1 Million plastic bottles bought every minute, that\u2019s nearly 20,000 every second.\u201d
\nSource: EcoWatch, Lorraine Chow<\/a> (June 29, 2017)<\/p>\n
Americans used about 50 billion plastic water bottles last year. However, the U.S.’s recycling rate for plastic is only 23 percent, which means 38 billion water bottles \u2013 more than $1 billion worth of plastic \u2013 are wasted each year.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.banthebottle.net\/bottled-water-facts\/<\/a><\/p>\n
2. Plastic collected for recycling<\/h3>\n
Fewer than half of the bottles bought in 2016 were collected for recycling and just 9% of those collected were turned into new bottles.
\nSource: Laville, S., and Taylor, M. (June 28, 2017). \u201cA million bottles a minute: world\u2019s plastic binge \u2018as dangeours as climate change.\u201d The Guardian<\/a><\/p>\n
Only 9% of bottles get recycled:
\nSource link: https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/trevornace\/2017\/07\/26\/million-plastic-bottles-minute-91-not-recycled\/#3199f23a292c<\/a><\/p>\n
Source link 2:
\n https:\/\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/2017\/07\/plastic-produced-recycling-waste-ocean-trash-debris-environment\/<\/a><\/p>\n
3. Plastic ending up on landfills<\/h3>\n
The vast majority\u201479 percent\u2014is accumulating in landfills or sloughing off in the natural environment as litter. Meaning: at some point, much of it ends up in the oceans, the final sink.
\n https:\/\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/2017\/07\/plastic-produced-recycling-waste-ocean-trash-debris-environment\/<\/a><\/p>\n
4. Plastic burned<\/h3>\n
In a \u201cgreen country\u201d such as Sweden up to 75% of collected plastic waste gets incinerated for energy rather than recycled.
\nSource: Sopor.nu (Swedish only)<\/a><\/p>\n
Plastics burned in incinerators set up to generate only electricity create heat at 25% efficiency.
\nSource: The consultancy Eunomia<\/p>\n
5. Plastic ending up in the oceans<\/h3>\n
Between 5m and 13m tonnes of plastic leaks into the world\u2019s oceans each year to be ingested by sea birds, fish and other organisms
\nSource: Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2018<\/a><\/p>\n
6. Plastic exported to other countries (US stats)<\/h3>\n
USA exported over 1000 million lbs of plastic waste to countries without proper waste management such as India, Philippines and Thailand and then blaming them for polluting the oceans.<\/p>\n
Source: https:\/\/resource-recycling.com\/recycling\/2018\/11\/06\/third-quarter-brings-plastic-strife-but-occ-movement\/<\/a><\/p>\n
7. Plastic found in fish and other sea animals<\/h3>\n
A study by Plymouth University found that one-third of all fish caught in the UK contained tiny pieces of plastic.<\/p>\n
8. Plastic found in humans<\/h3>\n
A recent study by Ghent University in Belgium, for example, found that people who regularly eat seafood ingest up to 11,000 tiny pieces of plastic each year. More than 50% of the world population might have microplastics in their stools with 200 particles of microplastic found in each 100g of excreta.
\nSource: Environment Agency Austria conducted the tests using a new procedure in 2018<\/a><\/p>\n
9. Plastic ending up in tap water and bottles<\/h3>\n
93% of tap water and 94% of bottled water tested contains microplastics
\nSource: OrbMedia research 2017-2018<\/a><\/p>\n
10. Plastic recycled for bottle production<\/h3>\n
Coca Cola sources only 7% of its plastic from recycled material, while Nestle uses just 6% recycled content.<\/p>\n
Source: Tapp Water research 2018
\n https:\/\/backup.tappwater.com\/us\/how-many-people-consume-bottled-water-globally\/<\/a><\/p>\n
Learn more<\/h2>\n
Want to learn more about plastic pollution, tap water around the world and what we can do to make the world a better place? Sign up for our newsletter below.<\/p>\n
More content<\/h2>\n
How many people worldwide consume bottled water<\/a>?<\/p>\n
Learn more about how TAPP is helping people give up bottled water and save money<\/a>.<\/p>\n
How to remove microplastics from tap water<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Read about bottled water vs tap water<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Have you ever wondered where all the plastic ends up after we\u2019ve consumed it? Maybe you think that the bottles you recycle every week become new plastic bottles? Or that all the plastic found in the oceans were thrown in there by someone? We went on a mission to find out the truth. What we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,4003],"tags":[4084,4085,4086],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/backup.tappwater.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187606"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/backup.tappwater.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/backup.tappwater.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backup.tappwater.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backup.tappwater.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/backup.tappwater.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187606\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/backup.tappwater.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backup.tappwater.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backup.tappwater.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}