The Plastics Problem
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Guy’s rant - the plastics problem. Are you perplexed by plastics?
Riverford founder Guy Singh-Watson pursues a 12 year obsession, calling on the Government to show sustained leadership to create a unified recycling system that will help us all do the right thing.
Also see “The Damning Facts” below, all about PLASTIC BOTTLES....
THE DAMNING FACTS ABOUT PLASTIC BOTTLES:
(Newspaper report, 24th October 2018.)
(ALL plastic bottles; also includes those for domestic use, cleaning, beauty, etc. etc.....)
38.5 million plastic bottles used in the UK alone EVERY DAY.
480 plastic bottles that a typical British household gets through EVERY YEAR.
15 million plastic bottles are dumped after just one use in the UK EVERY DAY.
700,000 plastic bottles end up on the UK streets EVERY DAY as litter.
3,400 plastic bottles are churned out EVERY SECOND somewhere in the world by Coca Cola.
583.8 BILLION plastic bottles will be used in China by 2021 if current trends continue.
It takes SEVEN litres of water to manufacture ONE single one-litre plastic bottle made of PET.
10 MILLION barrels of OIL are used each year to produce plastic water bottles just in the UK alone.
It takes at least 450 YEARS for a plastic bottle to degrade in a landfill dump.
Six-year-old Keely Reid threw a plastic bottle into the Moray Firth in 2006. It took the bottle 47 days to end up 20,000 miles later in New Zealand.
This only about PLASTIC BOTTLES but what about all the other uses for plastics?
Catering, agriculture, packaging, household items, cloth, toys, the list is endless................
How are they affecting the natural environment?
(Newspaper report 30th October 2018:)
90% of seabirds have plastic in their stomachs.
“The percentage of the world's seabirds with plastic in their stomach is estimated to have increased from 5% in 1960 to 90% today, and the world has already lost around half its shallow water corals in just 30 years.
Overall, populations of more than 4,000 species of mammals, reptiles, birds, fish and amphibians have declined by an average of 60% between 1970 and 2014, the most recent year for which data is available.
Tropical areas have seen the worst declines, with an 89% fall in populations monitored in Latin America and the Caribbean since 1970.
Species which live in fresh water habitats, such as frogs and river fish, have seen global population falls of 83%, according to the living planet index by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) which tracks the abundance of wildlife.
From hedgehogs and puffins to elephants, rhinos and polar bears, wildlife is in decline, due to the loss of habitats, poaching, pollution of land and seas and rising global temperatures, the Living Planet report warns.
Current action to protect nature is failing because it is not enough to match the scale of the threat facing the planet, the conservationists claim.
'This report sounds a warning shot across our bow,' said Carter Roberts, president and CEO of WWF-US.
Global wildlife populations have fallen by 60% since 1970 as humans overuse natural resources, drive climate change and pollute the planet, a chilling report has warned.
WWF has called for an ambitious 'global deal' for nature and people, similar to the international Paris Agreement to tackle climate change, as the conservation charity's new report spelled out the damage being done to the natural world.
Only a quarter of the world's land area is free from the impacts of human activity and by 2050 that will have fallen to just a tenth, the Living Planet Report 2018 says.”
Also see: “How does plastic kill wildlife” and “Drowning in plastic”,
and many more similar documentaries on BBC TV iPlayer.
