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Surprising Facts about Waste:
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Plastic Bag Consumption:
Estimated number of all types of plastic bags used each year, world-wide: 4,000,000,000,000
Number of plastic shopping bags used each year, in the US alone: 14,000,000,000
Percentage of plastic bags returned for recycling: 1
Annual cost to US retailers for giving away "free" bags: $4,000,000,000
Barrels of oil required for US annual plastic bag consumption: 12,000,000
Number of marine animals killed each year due to plastic bags: 100,000
Average number of pieces of plastic in each square mile of ocean: 46,000
Plastic Bag Tax in Ireland
Charging for shopping bags dramatically reduces bag consumption.
Percentage drop in plastic bag consumption in Ireland,
after a 15-cent bag tax was introduced: 90
Annual revenue generated by Irish bag tax: €10,000,000
Number of plastic bags prevented by the Irish bag tax, annually: 1,000,000,000
Facts provided by  (buy reusable bags, learn about plastic bag waste & more)
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Producing one bottle of Terre della Baronia created more than a pound of waste and released 16 grams of sulfur dioxide into the air. Producing the 2004 vintage of 100,000 bottles created 22,000 pounds of plastic waste, 11,000 pounds of paper waste. and more wastewater than anyone had predicted. (about.com)
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Plastic bottles litter the water ways below these
Bocas del Toro houses, Panama |
CALIFORNIA WASTE...
Californians use more than 19 billion plastic grocery bags and merchandise bags each year, roughly 552 bags per person. This usage generates 147,038 tons of unnecessary waste — enough to stretch around the globe over 250 times.
• Californians throw away over 600 plastic bags per second.
• California taxpayers spend $25 million to collect and landfill plastic bag waste each year. That figure does not include external costs, e.g., resource extraction and depletion, quality of life issues, economic loss due to plastic bag litter and human health expenses.
• U.S. consumers use 100 billion plastic bags annually, which is the energy equivalent of 12 million barrels of oil.
• Southern California cities have spent in excess of $1.7 billion in meeting Total Maximum Daily Loads for trashed in impaired waterways. (Heal the Bay)
•Approximately 150,000 tons of plastic bags are disposed by Los Angeles County residents each year.
•Disposable bags cost our cities up to 17 cents per bag for disposal.
•Plastic bags are made from petroleum. Americans use over 380 billion bags every year, throwing away millions of barrels of oil.
•100,000 marine animals are killed annually by entanglement in marine debris such as plastic bags.
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Southern California - A plastic bag gets caught in Lemonade Berry Bush in the fragile Coastal Sage Scrub environment.
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A sign in the San Jose Zoo, Costa Rica displaying the affects of plastic waste contamination on rivers
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