| Plastics are made from nonrenewable
natural resources such as crude oil,
gas and coal. Just 8.7 checkout bags
contain enough embodied petroleum
energy to drive a car 1km
1) Non-biodegradable plastics bags can
last in the environment for up to
1,000 years
2) Australians use 6.9 billion shopping
bags each year
3) If 6.9 billion plastic bags were
tied together, they would
circle the globe 42 ½ times
4) Plastic bags are lightweight and
moisture resistant which means they
float easily in air and water, often
travelling long distances
5) It is estimated that a total of between
50 and 80 million bags enter the
Australian environment as litter every
year
6) Each side of the plastic
sheet would be 4km long and it
would be big enough to cover the
Melbourne CBD
7) It has been estimated that it costs
governments, businesses and
community groups over $4 million
per annum to clean up littered plastic
shopping bags
8) Australians dump 4000 recyclable
plastic bags into landfills every minute,
or 230,000 every hour
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*There are approximately 46,000
pieces of plastic floating in each
square mile of our oceans.
*It is estimated that plastic kills up to
1 million sea birds, 100,000 sea
mammals and countless fish each
year.
*90% of Albatross chicks on
Midway Island (a remote Pacific atoll)
had plastic bag remnants in their
gullets, while turtles, dolphins and
killer whales choke or starve by
confusing plastic bags for jellyfish.
Effects on Landfills:
*An estimated, 6.67 billion or 36,700
tonnes of plastic bags are disposed of
in landfill sites throughout Australia
each year.
*Some plastic shopping bags are disposed
directly into the waste stream, while
many are reused as garbage bags, and
subsequently sent to landfill.
**source: clean up australia
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