PLASTIC BAG FACTS
Bristol City Council estimates that shops across the city issue about 1.5 million plastic carrier bags to customers every week.
In the UK, over 13 billion bags are issued every year to shoppers. This means that each person receives, on average, roughly 220 bags a year.
A person uses a plastic carrier bag, on average, for between 12 - 20 minutes, they take up to 1,000 years to break down, and even then the plastic pieces never disappear they just get smaller!
Only one in 200 of UK carrier bags are recycled, meaning that billions are sent to landfill every year or become litter.
In the UK, at least 200 million plastic bags end up as rubbish on our beaches, streets and parks, annually.
Most of the rubbish in the world’s oceans is made out of plastic (80%) and most of this has come from the land - not from boats (80%).
Algalita Marine Research Foundation
Plastic waste kills up to 1 million sea birds, 100,000 sea mammals and turtles and countless fish each year.
Over 46,000 pieces of plastic litter are floating on every square mile of ocean today.
In 1999, the weight of plastic was six times greater than that of plankton on the ocean surface. In 2007 estimates were 30 to 1.
The estimated weight of plastic floating in the North Pacific is 15 million tons.
It takes 430,000 gallons of oil to produce 100 million plastic bags.
It is estimated that reducing the number of plastic bags in the UK by just 25% will eliminate 58,500 tonnes of CO2 a year - the equivalent of taking 18,000 cars off the road.
Lots of countries have already banned the disposable plastic carrier bag or discouraged their use by charging taxes, or making shoppers pay shops for them.
EUROPE: Belgium, Denmark, France (Banned 2010), Ireland, Italy (B 2010), Malta, Sweden, Switzerland
AFRICA: Botswana(B), Eritrea (B), Ethioia (B), Kenya (B), Rwanda (B), South Africa (B), Tanzania (B), Uganda (B), Zanzibar (B)
ASIA: Bangladesh (B), Bhutan (B), China, India (B in areas including Mumbai), Japan, Pakistan (B), Philippines (B coming soon), South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, West Bengal (B)
ALSO: Australia, (B supermarkets 2008), Papua New Guinea (B), Samoa (B), Turkey
For more facts see Modbury’s excellent website: www.plasticbagfree.com
Modbury was Britain’s first town to go plastic bag free.