Sadly, plastic waste statistics show that we have polluted every beach in the world, from busy tourist beaches to uninhabited islands. The environmental impact of plastic straws plays a small yet significant role in this mess. 26.03.2018. EPA measures the generation, recycling, composting, combustion with energy recovery and landfilling of plastic materials in municipal solid waste. Worldwide, this year. David Attenborough and the Blue Planet II team really brought the issue home — and now, brilliantly, we hear about it all the time. Some of The Key Stats From ABC's War On Waste. 3 We know Australia's waste challenges can't be solved in one day - we need to change our attitudes and behaviour when it comes to waste. Paul-Georg Meister, pixelio.de. Australians are among the highest users of new technology in the world. Clean Up Australia inspires and works with communities to clean up, fix up and conserve our environment. Single-use items like plastic cutlery, straws, bottle caps, take-away containers and plastic bags are just some of the many items that get eaten by animals. Coming in second for plastic use, Australia’s coffee addiction has taken us around the globe a staggering seven times — with more than 2.6 billion coffee cups thrown into waste each year. However, the majority of Australia’s landfills are small, receiving less than 20,000 tonnes of waste per year. Less than 12% is recycled, which leaves a staggering amount to be disposed of - in landfills or incinerated. news.com.au November 8, 2019 4:45pm Video Once ingested, sharp plastic pieces can cause internal injuries, or the plastic builds up in their stomach until they can’t digest food. Recycling facts Australia: We all know (or at least the vast majority of us do) that recycling is a good thing for the environment Recycling has certainly got some bad press in recent years.. We’re uniting over a million people around the world calling on corporations to cut plastic waste. Most of Australia’s waste goes to a small number of large sites. Australia's Richest . refusing plastic shopping bags, avoiding pre-packed produce and avoiding bottled water) is practiced (‘always’ … Clearing and Conserving Landfill Spaces By July 2018, which is when the most recent data was available, plastic waste exports from Australia to China and Hong Kong reduced by 90 percent. Each household spends $1,266 on goods purchased but were never used. How we’re tackling plastic pollution. Moreover, here are some of the reasons why we should act now on the climbing waste statistics of Australia 2020. A 2016 report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation stated that unless things changed now, by 2050 the ocean would contain a greater mass of plastic waste than fish. The bulk of recyclable waste is sent from Australia to other countries for processing at a huge cost, but not for much longer. This infographic can be shared with friends so that they can also learn about the worrying state of rubbish in Australia. The proportion of households recycling organic waste (e.g. The primary data source on the generation of plastics is the American Chemistry Council. The prime minister, Scott Morrison, recently announced a fund of $20m to grow Australia’s recycling industry and a commitment to ban the export of plastic, paper, glass and tyres. Global plastic waste disposal has changed over time: there was virtually no recycling of plastics prior to 1980, while in 2015, an estimated 20% was recycled. Australians are now collectively spending around $11 billion a year on Christmas gifts. The fact that scientists have recently found microplastics embedded deep in the Arctic ice is very sad indeed. in Australia. 4,436,339,255,176. On the positive side we have grown our recycling rate from 7 per cent in 1996 to 58 per cent in 2016/17. Before the ban, nearly 1 billion of these bags We used to rely on countries like China, Myanmar and Cambodia to handle our waste plastic. From unwanted gifts to uneaten food, Australia’s Christmas waste facts are hard to swallow. garden waste and kitchen or food waste) has also increased over time. How will you Step Up? Things like plastic-lined paper, tissues and glassware often don't make the cut. Number of plastic bags produced. Australia has a mixed record on waste and recycling. In 2017, Europe exported one-sixth of its plastic waste, largely to Asia (The Economist 2018) . Recycling passed 40%, total recovery reached almost 80%. Sadly, the animals will slowly starve and die. Less than 10% (293,000 tonnes) were recycled in 2016-17. Between now and 2040, humans will consume as much as we have since we first stood on two legs. More than 3.5 million tonnes of plastic were consumed in Australia in 2016-17. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of households recycled garden waste in 2009, up from 60% in 2000. Every year, about 8 million tons of plastic waste escapes into the oceans from coastal nations. Of the almost 3 million tonnes of plastic that Australia produces each year, 95% is discarded after a single use. Taiwan's Richest ... dire global situation associated with the world's plastic use. The same study, published in the journal Science in 2015, surveyed 192 coastal countries contributing to ocean plastic waste, and found that Asian nations were 13 of the 20 biggest contributors. Read more about the harmful effects of plastic waste to our environment and to our health at The World Counts: Stories. But, according to a 2011 government report, Australia generates roughly 50 million tonnes of waste a year, around 50-60% of which is recycled. We’ve pushed for plastic bag bans in all states (and won in most of them). Plastic waste litters beaches all over the world. Instead of dumping waste on the kerbside, some rubbish is still recyclable, can be donated, or just simply use plastic bags alternatives to lessen the waste. Research published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances calculated that if our plastic production continues on this level, there will be 12 million kilograms, of waste in landfills or in the natural environment by 2050. Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources (Australia), Volume of exported plastic waste for recycling from Australia to China from financial year 2009 to … If we continue on this path, the amount of plastic waste littering our earth will almost be unimaginable. The ban on the supply of lightweight single-use plastic bags on 1 July 2018 is helping reduce plastic pollution in our environment. Two statistics jump out immediately. Since then, Southeast Asia has become the new destination for Australia’s recycled plastics, with 80-87 percent going to Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. with plastic waste (i.e. With increasing amounts of plastic waste polluting waterways, an Australian-designed ‘rubbish bin for the ocean’ has made a splash on the global scene. According to The Australian Bureau of Statistics, the average Australian creates just over 2,000kgs of waste each year. Photo Credit: AMISON Public Information on Flickr, Omar Abdisalan. 2; Aussies receive over 20 million unwanted gifts at Christmastime. In 2018, plastics generation was 35.7 million tons in the United States, which was 12.2 percent of MSW generation. We need to end plastic at the source: the corporations that create single-use plastic waste. Our compilation of statistcs we collected from the ABC's War On Waste series got a lot of attention, so we decided to put an infographic together to make some of the more important stats stand out a bit more. Plastic Additives Markets in China : May 2020 $ 4000 Plastic Compounding Markets in China : February 2020 $ 4000 Plastic Adhesives Market by Resin Type, By Substrate, By Application And Region - Global Forecast to 2025 : November 2020 $ 4950 Plastic Caps and Closures Market by Product Type, Technology, Raw Material, End-use, Region - Global Forecast to 2025 3; 86% of Aussies find Christmas puts a strain on their finances, with buying Christmas gifts reported as the major cause (66%) of this pressure. We just need to have all the facts and do what needs to be done. In the UK the Great British Beach Clean cleaned 339 beaches of plastic waste in 2017. That’s equivalent to 1.8 billion African elephants! Plastic has been the most common item collected on Clean Up Australia day for 20 years. Even when plastic waste is collected, many countries lack capacity to process the waste. Plastic is terrible for the environment. EU 28+2 recycled 6.8m tonnes, 40.9%, of its 16.7m tonnes plastic packaging waste in 2016, easily surpassing the EU’s minimum target of 22.5%. the impacts on oceans, litter, wildlife, recycling and landfill) • Taking responsibility for avoiding the consumption of plastics (e.g. There are many ways to curb plastic waste—by producing less, consuming less, and better managing the waste that already exists to prevent contamination or leakage. Plastic waste facts show that every day almost 8 million pieces of plastic pollute our oceans. We can still do something. 2017–18 also marked some historic achievements in reducing waste in Queensland and its impacts on our environment, our communities and our economy. 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