One of the things that’s worrying me more and more as each day goes by is plastic. It’s everywhere and there are more and more reports on TV (and everywhere) about the huge problems disposed plastic is causing for the world. So, I keep wondering why the world can’t just ban new plastic. That might sound extreme, but it makes plenty of sense to me and it would definitely work.
I’m not talking about banning plastic completely, which would be impossible. But what if, from today onwards, all the plastic used by corporations had to be recycled?
Plastic is a huge problem
I was astonished when I read this article on The Economist – Only 9% of the world’s plastic is recycled. For me, the key details in this article are;
- (obviously!) only 9% of the world’s plastic is recycled
- Since the 1950’s, we have created 4.9 billions tonnes of plastic that is still in circulation (that is, not recycled or burned)
- Our seas hold as many as 51 trillion microplastic particles
This graph from the article created some alarm for me;
