RECYCLING

Plastics, like diamonds... ARE FOREVER!

Only 3.5% of plastics are recycled in any way
63 pounds of plastic packaging goes into landfills in the U.S. per person per year.
Broken, degraded plastic pieces outweigh surface zooplankton in the Central North Pacific by 6 to 1.

The magnitude of our plastic problem is enormous.

The American people weigh approximately 50 billion pounds, but 100 billion pounds of plastic resin pellets (the raw materials for consumer plastics) are produced in the U.S. annually.
63 pounds of plastic packaging goes to landfills in the U.S. per person per year.
Only 3.5 % of plastic is recycled in any way. Reheating plastic gives it a "heat history" which reduces its flexibility. Reheating temperatures are too low to burn off contaminents; therefore, very few plastics are recycled into the same type of container or product that they were originally. Usually, recycled merely means collected, not reprocessed into useful products

The majority of the plastic that ends up in the Central Pacific Gyre (an area the size of Texas) has been shown to circulate there for at least twelve years. Debris lost in the Bering Sea or the western portion of the Subarctic Gyre will end up there in 3 to 6 years.

Plastic pollution is bad for the millions of animals that inhabit our ocean waters and for the people who fish, swim and recreate there.

Plastic does not biodegrade. When something biodegrades, naturally occurring organisms break down natural materials into their simple chemical components. Paper, when it breaks down, becomes carbon dioxide and water. But plastic, a synthetic material, never biodegrades. Instead, plastic goes through a process called photodegradation, where it is broken down by sunlight into smaller and smaller pieces, all of which are still plastic polymers. Even this degradation process can take a very long time. Estimates of 500 years for a disposable diaper, 400 years for a plastic six-pack ring and 450 years for a plastic bottle have been made. The more plastic we produce, the more we have to live with...forever!

Often these animals cannot distinguish plastic from food. Plastic, because of its high molecular weight and the nature of its chemical bonds, can never be digested. It provides no nutrients. Eating plastic can cause animals to feel full and not hungry even though they are not actually consuming food. In birds, it has been shown that ingestion of plastics can prevent migration and reproduction, and can eventually cause starvation and death. In turtles, plastic has been shown to block intestines and make the animals float so that they cannot dive for food.
Toxic chemicals in plastics can make marine birds and animals sick. Over 80 species of seabirds have been found to ingest plastic. Sea bird chicks are especially vulnerable as they receive high levels of pollution from the yolk sac and, after hatching, from food brought by their parents.
Ninety percent of Laysan Albatross chick carcasses and regurgitated food boluses contain plastic.
Marine birds and animals can become entangled in plastic nets and fishing line. An estimated 100,000 marine mammal deaths occur this way each year in the North Pacific.
Chemicals used to make plastics can escape into the atmosphere during the manufacturing process. Fourteen percent of the toxic airborne chemicals nationally are from "plastics sector" releases. These chemicals can be toxic or carcinogenic, harming both people and animals.

EPA has mandated that California communities reduce and ultimately eliminate the flow of trash, particularly non-degradable plastic trash, into the marine environment. Yet on Coastal Cleanup Day in 2004, in Marin County alone a thousand volunteers picked up 10,579 pounds of trash from bay, creek, and ocean shorelines. The majority of this trash is plastic: plastic fishing line, plastic bags, plastic toys, plastic containers, plastic bottles, plastic bits.