In 2006 in the UK, only 20% of household plastic bottles get recycled and 13 billion plastic bottles are disposed of each year.  Now, I had to research this a bit, because I had heard that “billion” in the UK is different from “billion” in the US.  However, accordingto Wikipedia, since 1974 the UK government abandoned the “long scale” definition of billion, which was a million million, for the “short scale” (“American”) definition of 1,000 million. That means that in the UK 2,600,000,000 bottles are not recycled each year. (Sourse: Recoup, Recycle-more.co.uk)

Worldwide, 60 billion tons of plastic are produced each year, and less than 5% is recycled.  (Source: Project Kaisei)  Where does it all go?  Seemingly everywhere, given how hard it is to get away from plastic litter, which takes forever to break down. Obviously a fair amount goes into landfills. A fair amount gets eaten by animals, too.  

What really made me reconsider my plastic use was hearing about the Plastic Vortex in the Pacific Ocean, which is supposedly twice the size of Texas and, with an estimated 4,000,000 tons of plastic, contains six times more particles of plastic than plankton.

What really amazes me is that a group of people have gotten together to start filtering the ocean. Seriously.  I’m so impressed by someone who can wake up one day and say to her or himself, “I think I’ll tackle the biggest area of litter in the world.”  Project Kaisei: Capturing the Plastic Vortex will be filmed and documented by National Geographic.

Update Sept-09:  Scientists have returned from exploring the “Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch.” More here. Project Kaisei Flickr Stream is here.

Photo by Von Floto.