10 plastic waste facts to curl your hair

Did you know:

• 32 million tons of plastic waste were generated in 2012 (EPA).
• Only 9 percent of the total plastic waste generated in 2012 was recovered for recycling(EPA).
• The U.S. uses over 2 MILLION plastic bottles every 5  minutes (Sierra Club).
• It takes 1,500,000 barrels of oil to make plastic water bottles used in the U.S. per year (U.S. Council of Mayors).
• The U.S. airline industry uses 9,000,000,000 (that’s BILLION) plastic cups annually–roughly 1,000,000 plastic cups every six hours–and they do not recycle (several sources)
• Americans use and dispose of 100 billion plastic shopping bags each year. At least 12 million barrels of oil are used each year to make those plastic grocery bags (The Wall Street Journal).
• 240,000 plastic bags are used throughout the world every 10 seconds (Popular Science).
• At least 267 different species either ingested or were entangled in plastic marine debris (WorldWatch Institute)
• Over 650,000 volunteers collected nearly 13,000,000 pounds of trash in the Ocean Conservancy’s 2013 International Coastal Cleanup (Ocean Conservancy).
• The majority of e-waste and plastics continue to be processed improperly in the developing world (Popular Science).