How Many Plastic Bags do we Use Each Year?
I was quite amazed to read the figures about how many plastic bags are used around the world each year. Actual numbers can only be estimates, but either way you look at it, we’re using a hell of a lot of plastic bags these days. One can only wonder about the damage this is doing to the natural environment.
Also, the figures vary depending on the source, but here are some figures I’ve seen from various sources.
A common estimate is that global consumption of plastic bags is over 500 billion plastic bags annually. Yes that’s 500,000,000,000 plastic bags used per year. In other words, that’s almost 1 million plastic bags used per minute.
As if that’s not enough, some environmental groups have estimated that up to 1 trillion plastic bags are used worldwide each year. Now, depending on your definition of the word “trillion”, that would be either 1,000,000,000,000 plastic bags or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 plastic bags each year!
For arguments sake, let’s say it’s somewhere between 5 billion and a trillion plastic bags per year.
That’s a lot of plastic bags.
Tags: environment, plastic bags
January 25th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
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April 4th, 2008 at 7:44 am
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October 11th, 2008 at 4:14 am
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December 5th, 2008 at 8:28 am
i think going green is importent very importent
June 15th, 2009 at 2:39 am
OMG! how many do we use a year?!?!
that stupid we are very silly people
shame on the world!
humph made me mardy now.
June 18th, 2009 at 5:09 am
is this information about world wide orjust in Australia??
:S
June 19th, 2009 at 4:57 am
This is world wide.
July 13th, 2009 at 7:18 am
Trillion is 1,000,000,000,000
Trillian is 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 aka quintillion
They’re not the same word, so it’s not depending on one’s definition.
If we can have manufacturers that keep up with 1,000,000 bags per minute usage, then how big are those plants anyway? And why aren’t we running out of resources more quickly? And these are estimates.
Most of you people here are probably too young (or too forgetful) to remember a time when the people shoving green down your throats were the same people that said we needed to begin using plastic bags nearly 30 years ago, because it would save the trees and would be “green.”
Effing bunch of hypocrites.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
Actually, the word “trillion” does depend on one’s definition - depending on where you live.
According to the dictionary, a trillion is:
“a cardinal number represented in the U.S. by 1 followed by 12 zeros, and in Great Britain by 1 followed by 18 zeros.”
October 1st, 2009 at 1:35 pm
That’s horrific! I have a website, http://www.freewebs.com/igetgreen about going green and saving the envirnoment. Please check it out and save the earth!
February 1st, 2010 at 8:30 am
we are horrible to this world
May 2nd, 2010 at 2:26 pm
would love to see some references on this.
June 9th, 2010 at 9:11 pm
good article
June 24th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
I think this is a good theme article .
In fact , wo should do our best to make out environment better.
June 30th, 2010 at 2:26 am
There is one world , we should do our best to protect it !
July 19th, 2010 at 5:42 am
I bookmarked your blog, thanks for sharing this very interesting post