Plastic Bags Usage Statistics

To introduce a charge for single use plastic bags.

Plastic bags usage statistics.

This is our main data entry on plastics with a particular focus on its pollution of the environment. Plastic resins are also used in a variety of container and packaging products such as pet beverage bottles hdpe bottles for milk and water and a wide variety of other resin types used in other plastic containers bags sacks wraps and lids. Wales was the first to do so in 2011 followed by northern ireland in 2013 and scotland in 2014. Every year americans.

One of the noteworthy plastic bags waste statistics every aussie should know is that the world would have 253 million fewer bags to worry about each year if every household in the country would use one less each week. The average american family takes home almost 1 500 plastic shopping bags a year. It is now 22 cents. 10 facts about single use plastic bags.

A slide deck summary of global plastics is available here. Every year one trillion plastic bags single use are used equating to 2 million per minute. The floods in bangladesh in 1988 1998 were made more severe because plastic bags clogged drains. Americans use 100 billion plastic bags a year which require 12 million barrels of oil to manufacture.

Environmental damage from plastic bags. If you must use plastic try to choose 1 pete or 2 hdpe which are the most commonly recycled plastics. We have also produced an faqs on plastics page which attempts to answer additional common questions on the topic. The average american family takes home almost 1 500 plastic shopping bags a year nrdc according to the worldwatch institute around 4 5 trillion plastic bags was created in 2002.

About 500 billion single use plastic bags are used worldwide every year. The 1 man made thing that sailors see in our ocean are plastic bags. England was the last country in the u k. This web page is a brief summary of plastic materials specific data.

According to waste management only 1 percent of plastic bags are returned. Avoid plastic bags and polystyrene foam as both typically have very low recycling rates. Volunteer at a beach cleanup. According to a report in 2004 roughly 80 percent of those bags were used in north america and western europe.

The first synthetic plastic bakelite was produced in 1907 marking the beginning of the global plastics industry. The government has now banned plastic bags. Roughly 80 percent of those bags were used in north america and western europe. It only takes about 14 plastic bags for the equivalent of the gas required to drive one mile.

Different countries have different usage levels but the entire world has to commit to reducing this usage. Keiren last updated on june 6 2019 10 comments.