This overconsumption of plastic has led to excessive waste caused by littering, poor recycling programs, and landfill spillover which some scientists predict will become as serious a problem as climate change. Though plastic bottles are convenient and sometimes necessary for clean water in rural areas, lack of government oversight has lead to the proliferation of plastic disposables and it has become an industry that has produced over 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic in the last 6 decades, of which 6.3 billion tons has become plastic waste.ĭespite the fact that water bottles often ring in at two or three dollars a piece – a high upcharge for something most can get for free – bottled water is still perceived as the ‘cleanest’ way to drink water. Microplastics (tiny plastic particles) breakdown and embed themselves in our food chain as they are ingested by marine life-threatening larger ecosystems and consequently, human health. It can take over 400 years for plastic water bottles to biodegrade. In the US alone, we go through 50 billion plastic bottles per year or 100 million plastic water bottles per day. Approximately only 9% of all plastic gets recycled, while the remaining 91% ends up in landfills or leaches into our oceans. In 2016, we consumed 400 billion plastic water bottles around the globe, equivalent to 1 million plastic water bottles per minute, or 20,000 bottles per second. It should come as no surprise that one of the most pressing environmental issues we face is plastic pollution. This article breaks down everything you need to know about one of the most popular disposable plastic items worldwide and the impact it has on our planet. With alarming statistics and new studies surfacing every day, we’ve decided to spotlight the issue with a comprehensive write-up about the environmental impact of plastic water bottles. There’s a lot of information circulating about the plastic pollution epidemic, specifically, disposable single-use plastics.
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