Plastic has been a miracle material and has made many things in our world possible, but we have lost track, or perhaps have never fully understood, of the implications, for ourselves and our ecosystems, of its production and disposal. This lack of understanding, combined with the plastics industry pushing its product into every realm, has sent us down a dangerous path. Some plastics are necessary, but at Weavers Way, we are concerned with those that are not: those that are used only briefly to hold products.

Here are a few statistics to put our plastic problem in perspective:

• Annual production of plastic exceeds 800 hundred billion pounds, much of it ends up as microplastics, spreading across the ocean and throughout our communities, and our food system, and is increasingly found in our bodies with detrimental health consequences, often after having absorbed toxic chemicals.
• 2% of plastic waste produced since the 1950s has been recycled, less than 6% incinerated, and the majority, 92%, has been landfilled or disposed of in the natural environment.
• Approximately 4.8 to 12.7 million tonnes of plastic ends up in oceans each year. Wildlife can become tangled in discarded nets, ropes, and packaging. Many animals become sick, injured, or starve to death from ingesting plastic.
• 1 billion single-use plastic bags are used each year in the US. They are among the top 10 beach litter items. The average lifespan of a plastic bag is 1000 years. The average time a bag is used is 12 minutes.
• Microplastics are now found in every corner of the earth, from our bloodstreams to the depths of the ocean to the highest mountains, whether mankind has been there or not.

We cannot recycle our way out of this problem.

‘When the plastic industry began pushing more and more single-use plastics on us unwitting consumers, they also pushed the idea of recycling, knowing that much the of plastic they produced would never actually be recycled because they wanted to placate our fears about all the waste. It is now clear that we will not be able to recycle our way out of this problem. The answer is to reduce the number of single-use plastic items we use in the first place before we turn our planet into one large plastic waste receptacle.’ Delger Erdenesanaa for the New York Times, August 7, 2023

<aside> <img src="/icons/bookmark_green.svg" alt="/icons/bookmark_green.svg" width="40px" /> MORE ARTICLES IN THE SERIES

Why it’s important to limit/eliminate single-use plastic

The impacts of single-use plastic

A Practical Guide to Reducing Plastic

Plastic-Free Lifestyle Tips

Plastic-Free Household and Personal Products

How to Shop Bulk: A Guide to Efficient and Eco-Friendly Grocery Shopping

Eliminate Single-Use Plastic with Our Container Refund Program (CRP)

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