ANTEC

Plastics are everywhere. From grocery store bags and most shopping carts to single-use cups and food packaging, you just can't get away from it. According to the non-profit, Plastic Oceans, the world manufactures 300 million tons of plastic each year. When you think about 300 million tons of something, it is difficult to picture the reality of what that means.

To put it into perspective and add a visual element, here are some things that weigh approximately just one ton. Picture them in your mind as you read this list: fully grown brown bears, adult polar bears, a small car, or a shipping container. The thought of the size of these things when multiplying by 300 million is overwhelming. Yet, that's the amount of plastic the world creates every single year. What makes this figure even more overwhelming is that over half of these plastics are for single use only.

Where Does the Plastic Go?

As our use of plastics increases so does our need for places to discard the waste. Consider this. Worldwide, approximately one million plastic bottles are bought each minute. It's a staggering figure!

This is where the importance and value of recycling come into play. Recycling the plastic we're using keeps it out of the landfills and helps save the environment from chemical contamination as plastics break down, aids in beautification with less litter, and saves ocean wildlife all while enabling consumers to continue using plastic.

It's estimated that the annual world consumption of plastic bottles in 2021 will be over half a trillion!

What is the Plastics Loop?

The idea of the Plastics Loop