say no to plasic

• About 1 million plastic bags are used every minute.
• Plastic bags on average are used for 5 minutes, but take more than 1,000 years to decompose in landfills
• When plastics break down, they don't biodegrade; they photodegrade. They break down to smaller fragments which readily soak up toxins, contaminating soil and waterways.
• 12 million barrels of oil are used to produce 30 billion plastic bags in the U.S. alone.
• Plastic bags are a danger to birds and marine mammals that often mistake them for food and choke or die after swallowing. (Every square mile of ocean has about 46,000 pieces of plastic floating in it.)
• Retailers also pay for plastic bags, ($4 billion a year) which that cost is passed on to you as a consumer.
• Whether you’re replacing paper or plastic bags choosing a high-quality reusable bag helps you to avoid using thousands of disposable bags each year. Easy tip: Keep a cloth bag, backpack or gym bag in the trunk of your car so you always have a bag with you.
  

Harmful Plastic bag facts
*Approx. 380 billion plastic bags are used in the United States every year. That’s more than 1,200 bags per US resident, per year.

* Approx. 100 billion of the 380 billion are plastic shopping bags.

* An estimated 12 million barrels of oil is required to make that many plastic bags.

* Only 1 to 2% of plastic bags in the USA end up getting recycled.

* Thousands of marine animals and more than 1 million birds die each year as a result of plastic pollution.

* The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that there are 46,000 pieces of plastic litter floating in every square mile of ocean.

* Plastic bags are often mistakenly ingested by animals, clogging their intestines which results in death by starvation. Other animals or birds become entangled in plastic bags and drown or can’t fly as a result.

* Even when they photo-degrade in landfill, the plastic from single-use bags never goes away, and toxic particles can enter the food chain when they are ingested by unsuspecting animals.

* Greenpeace says that at least 267 marine species are known to have suffered from getting entangled in or ingesting marine debris. Nearly 90% of that debris is plastic.

* Americans consume more than 10 billion paper bags per year. Approximately 14 million trees are cut down every year for paper bag production.

* Most of the pulp used for paper shopping bags is virgin pulp, as it is considered stronger.

* Paper production requires hundreds of thousands of gallons of water as well as toxic chemicals like sulphurous acid,which can lead to acid rain and water pollution. -