amount of plastic being produced worldwide annually
- Worldwide plastics production rose to 280 million tonnes in 2011, according to first rough estimates published by Plastics Europe. - This represents around 4% increase from 2010, when 270 million tonnes of plastics were produced. It also confirms the return of long term growth after the economic crisis. Use of Plastic Bags in Australia. Plastic bags have been around for 30 years now. It is estimated world wide that 1 trillion bags are used and discarded every year. Australians use 3.92 billion plastic bags a year, that's over 10 million new bags being used every day. An estimated 3.76 billion bags or 20,700 tonnes of plastic are disposed of in landfill sites throughout Australia every year. In addition, significant advances. are also being made in the environmental performance. of plastics in their production and end-of-life phases, hence contributing to the sustainability of European. indsutries and societies. Plastics are a source of jobs, growth, innovation and sustainability.  This year, more than 250 billion pounds of plastic will be created with very little of that production. ever being recycled – that’s about 37 pounds of new plastic created for every single person on the. planet.  The number of disposable plastic water bottles consumed in the US in 2010 could fill 849,941 school. buses (double the number of school buses on the road today)  The U.S is the largest consumer of plastic bottled water in the world.  Annually, Americans consume more 8.6 billion gallons of bottled water each year. Plastics – the material. for the 21st century. 4. For the last 150 years, plastics. materials have been key enablers for. innovation and have contributed to the. development and progress of society. Discover how plastics.  15 billion pounds of plastic are produced in the U.S. every year & only 1 billion pounds are recycled.  Every year at least 1 million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals & sea turtles die when they. entangle themselves in plastic pollution or ingest plastics. Therefore, 369/4,899 = 7.5% maximum post-consumer recycled content for food and beverage containers 2013 in the U.S. NAPCOR notes that end-use data “reflected rPET consumption by converters in both the US. and Canada,” so the actual recycled content number is lower than 7.5% to an unknown extent. Persistence in the environment. Most plastic is not biodegradable and. will persist in the environment for. hundreds of years. For example, plastic film containers last for 20-30. years while plastic bottles can last. indefinitely.3 Plastic is also lightweight. and moisture resistant which means it. The European plastics industry. has a multiplier effect. of 2.4 in GDP. and almost 3 in jobs. The plastics sector is part of the. in the EU representing 1 in. 25 patents submitted by the. industr y between 2003 and 2012. About 85% of those bottles are used for food and beverages, or 4,899 million pounds. NAPCOR reported that 369 million pounds of recycled PET bottles were used in 2013 to make new food and beverage bottles. 369 million pounds of recycled PET (rPET) content was reused for food and beverage containers in 2013.
280 million tonnes