Plastic pollution is an huge problem. Plastic is so problematic as a pollutant because of the longevity of it's life span - it never fully breaks down, i.e it's not bio-degradable. Plastic just fragments into smaller and smaller pieces which can never be absorbed by the environment, which makes it totally unsustainable as a material. Once a piece of plastic is used, it will take hundreds if not thousands of years to break down which is why we need to act now, to prevent our oceans, beaches, parks, towns being suffocated with plastic waste.

I've put together a few facts that actually inspired me to start this website - keep on reading to find out more... 

• 1. We’ve produced a whopping total 8.3 billion tons of plastics. That’s enough plastic to cover every inch of the UK ankle-deep more than ten times over..

• 2. ..and 6.3 billion tonnes of plastic WASTE has been generated. 

• 3. Virtually every piece of plastic that was ever made still exists in some shape or form (with the exception of the small amount that has been incinerated).

• 4. 79% of plastic waste has ended up in landfills or the natural environment, including our oceans. 9% has been recycled and 12% had been incinerated. 

• 5. We are now producing nearly 300 million tons of plastic every year, half of which is for single use.

• 6. If current production and waste management trends continue approximately 12 billion tonnes (that's 12,000,000,000 tonnes) will be in landfills or the natural environment by 2050. 

• 7. Plastic pollution can now be found on every beach in the world, from busy tourist beaches to uninhabited, tropical islands nowhere is safe.

• 8. 100,000 marine mammals and turtles and 1 million sea birds are killed by marine plastic pollution annually.

• 9. It takes 500-1,000 years for plastic to degrade.

• 10. More than 8 million tons of plastic is dumped into our oceans every year.

• 11. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is floating mass of plastic in the Pacific Ocean. It's twice the size of Texas, with plastic pieces outnumbering sea life six to one.

• 12. Plastic chemicals can be absorbed by the body—93 percent of Americans age six or older test positive for BPA (a plastic chemical). Some of these compounds found in plastic have been found to alter hormones or have other potential human health effects.

• 13. 44 percent of all seabird species, 22 percent of cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises), all sea turtle species and a growing list of fish species have been documented with plastic in or around their bodies.
  
• 14. Some plastic fragments are being recorded with a thickness of human hair - although these particles are small, some small enough that they can't be seen by human eye. They're all still there, just floating around (as they have no way of being absorbed into the environment) where eventually they will be eaten by plankton or small marine animals. No one knows what effect this will have on the food chain..
  

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