Giving Hands

I have just decided yesterday that I should write to a monthly theme and I thought perhaps I should start with something simple and something that is close to my heart. So let's talk about plastic bags this month.

A year ago, in How much plastic bags do you use? I wrote about the worldwide consumption of plastic bags, the reasons environmentalists are so against the use of plastic bags, what we, as consumers can do to reduce the use of plastic bags and some of the solutions that we have, to date.

Worldwide consumption of plastic bags:

• Do you know that each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide?? That comes out to over one million per minute. And billions end up as litter each year.
• According to the EPA, over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed in the United States (alone) each year.
• The Wall Street Journal documented that the United States goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually.
• Taiwanese consumes 20 billion bags a year, and that's 900 per person.
• Australians consume 6.9 billion plastic bags each year and that's 326 per person and an estimated 0.7% or 49,600,000 end up as litter each year.

But did you also know that plastic production uses 8% of all the world's oil production? And at the current rate, the world produces 200 million tonnes of plastic a year but less then 3.5% is recycled? In simpler terms, 96% of all the world's plastic is not recycled.

Around half of the 200 million tonnes of plastic produced annually is used for disposable packaging items that are discarded within a year. This debris is accumulating in landfills and the problem is growing. Plus, excess packaging is not just bad for the environment, it is also bad for your pocket. Studies carried out in 2007 established that excess packaging costs the average UK family about GBP 470 a year. How much is THAT in your own currency??

In the following weeks, I've got the following lined up:

• the effects of plastic bags to the environment and wildlife,
• examples of artwork/craftwork made from plastic bags,
• some alternatives/solutions to plastic bags, and
• links to some interesting reads about plastic bags.

But before that, here's a poll that I'd like you to participate in (which will take only 5 seconds).