Plastic Pollution Texas

The following is some information on materials we waste. There's cash in the trash!

Plastic Bottles

• The USA produces 50 billion plastic bottles each year.

• North Carolina banned water bottles from landfills in October 2009.

• Texas recycles only 14%  of plastic bottles sold in the state.

Plastic Bags

• Every year 500 billion plastic bags are distributed, less than 35 billion are recycled.  It can take up to 1000 years for them to biodegrade in a landfill, and they emit greenhouse gases.

• Every year we make enough plastic film to shrink-wrap Texas.

• 26 recycled PET bottles equal a polyester suit. 6 recycled PET bottles equals enough fiber-fil to stuff a ski jacket.

• CHINA has banned plastic bags and Australia, Bangladesh, Ireland, Italy, South Africa, Taiwan, Toronto, San Francisco, and Mumbai, India have banned or discouraged their use by raising taxes.  Montreal is in the process of enacting a ban as well.

Aluminum

• 36 billion aluminum cans were placed in landfills last year and had a scrap value of more than $600 million.  One day we may mine our landfills for resources we buried.

• More than 50% of aluminum cans are made of recycled aluminum.

Styrofoam #6

• It is unrecycleable.  It cannot be made into ANYTHING else.  Don't buy it. Each year Americans throw away 25 billion Styrofoam cups...enough to circle the earth 435 times.

(sources:  Time.com; Oberlin College Recycling Program; Kdhek.gov; Earth911.com)