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
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