STARTLING!

Consumption & Resource Stats

• 60,000! The number of plastic bags used in the U.S. every five seconds.
• Planet Green reports that each year, approximately 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That’s over one million bags per minute. Billions of them end up as litter each year.
• According to MSN, the production of plastic bags creates enough solid waste per year to fill the Empire State Building two and a half times.
• The Worldwatch Institute estimates that in the U.S. alone, an estimated 12,000,000 barrels of non-renewable petroleum oil are required to produce the 100 billion bags consumed annually. That’s over $500,000,000 the country could be saving to put towards clean, green energy.
• Plastic bags can take from 400 to 1,000 years to decompose but their chemical residues remain for years after that. The petroleum used to make only 14 plastic bags could drive a car 1 mile.
• Over 100,000 marine animals, including highly intelligent and adorable sea turtles, whales and dolphins, die every year because of plastic bags. In some parts of the ocean there are six pounds of plastic for every pound of plankton.