Plastic Waste Management

Plastic creation and fate recap

To put everything into prespective, we will review the numbers for the total amount of plastic that has been created, and what has happend with all of it.

Using values from https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution, we have calculated the following:

Plastic created, fate, and % breakdown chart

Description	Weight	Percentage
Total plasic Created	9,130,000,000 tons	100%
Total plastic recycled	550,000,000 tons	6% *
Virgin plastic still in use	2,750,000,000 tons	30% *
Recycled then still in use	110,000,000 tons
TOTAL plastic still in use	2,860,000,000 tons	31% **
Virgin plastic to landfills	5,060,000,000 tons	55% *
Recycled then landfills	330,000,000 tons
TOTAL plastic to landfills	5,390,000,000 tons	59% **
Virgin plastic incinerated	7700,000,000 tons	8% *
Recycled then incinerated	110,000,000 tons
TOTAL plastic incinerated	880,000,000 tons	9% **
Plastic that has become waste	6,270,000,000 tons	69%
1 Asterik ( * ) Virgin plastic products
2 Asteriks (**) Virgin + recycled products

Chart summary

• As of 2015, we have created more than 9.1 billion tons of plastic.

• Only 6% of this plastic has been recycled!

  • Of the recycled plastic
    • 20% is still in use
    • 60% ended up in landfills
    • 20% was incinerated

• 31% of plastic is still in use in products around us

• 59% of plastic is in landfills
• 09% of plastic has been incinerated

Overall, 69% of plastic created has become waste!

• A grand total of 6,270,000,000 tons

All this plastic waste

• All this plastic is the equivalent weight of:
  • 858,904 Eiffel Towers
    • One eiffel tower = 7,300 tons
    • Eiffel tower is 984 ft tall
  • 107 Great Walls of China
    • GWC Weight = 58,095,000 tons
    • GWC Length = 13,170 miles long
      • The US is 2,800 miles wide.
      • The Earth is 24,860 miles (40,008 km) around
    • GWC height is an average of 30 ft
    • GWC width is an average of 14 ft
  • 209,000,000 coach busses full of people
    • A loaded coach bus weighs an average of 60,000 lbs : 30 tons.
    • There are 276 million vehicles on US roads today.

      FIND THE WEBSITE SOURCE

  • 31,350,000 blue whales
    • Blue whale is 200 tons
    • The IUCN estimates that there are probably between 10,000 and 25,000 blue whales worldwide today

Solutions to the plastic waste epidemic

Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling plastic are the fundamentals to prevent the ecological disaster that is upon us. Luckily, innovations like the following are heplping implement those fundamentals in creative and effective ways. Below is a list some great projects we are researching and connecting with in order to help create a synergistic effect by combining efforts.

DIY (Do it yourself)

• Eco bricks
• Precious plastics

Industrial solutions

• Plastic Asphalt
• By-Fusion bricks
• Conceptos Plasticos - Colombia
• Diesel fuel

Community driven

• 4 ocean
• Plastic bank
• Ecolones - Puerto Rico

Technology driven

• Ocean clean up
• Plastic Shift

Nature driven

• Bio plastics
• Worms eating plastic

Help grow our network of plastic solutions! Get in touch with us so we can feature them and connect.

#WVPunited
https://www.instagram.com/worldvsplastic/
https://www.facebook.com/WorldvsPlastic/
https://twitter.com/worldvsplastic/

More about these and more solutions in: Plastic Solutions LINK.