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
[...] number of plastic bags being used globally each year is mind boggling and they are having an enormous impact on the natural environment. I [...]
April 4th, 2008 at 7:44 am
[...] the sheer number of plastic bags being used around the world each year and their impact on the environment, it’s great to see a major store like IKEA setting an [...]
October 11th, 2008 at 4:14 am
[...] we’ll need to figure out how to get rid of the other 999,999,991,000,000,000 plastic bags that we use each year!Wal-Mart to Reduce Plastic Bag Waste by 33 [...]
December 5th, 2008 at 8:28 am
i think going green is importent very importent