LIVING MORE SUSTAINABLE
Enough plastic is thrown away each
year to circle the earth
8.3
4 TIMES
BILLION TONS
An estimated 8.3 billion tons of
plastic have been produced since
the 1950s — equivalent to the
weight of more than 800,000
Eiffel Towers.
90%
90 percent of all trash is plastic
floating on the ocean's surface,
with 46,000 pieces of plastic
per square mile.
1.1
73%
MILLION
Of beach litter worldwide
is made of plastic.
PLANET OR
PLASTIC?
Plastic is killing more than
1.1 MILLION seabirds and
animals every year.
By: Laura Parker
While plastic has many valuable uses, we have become addicted to single-use or disposable plastic
— with severe environmental consequences. Around the world, one million plastic drinking bottles
are purchased every minute, while up to 5 trillion single-use plastic bags are used worldwide every
year. In total, half of all plastic produced is designed to be used only once — and then thrown away.
Plastic waste is now so ubiquitous in the natural environment that scientists have even suggested it
could serve as a geological indicator of the Anthropocentric era. So how did we get here?
ALTERNATIVES FOR
DISPOSABLE PLASTIC
WATER BOTTLES
Today, there are an estimated 46,000 pieces of plastic floating
in the ocean and what is not recycled takes over 1000 years to
decompose. This makes a good case for expanding water bottle
material options and looking into alternatives.
12 WORTHWHILE | SPRING 2019
Hydroflask
hydroflask.com
Starting at $50
Swell
swellbottle.com
Starting at $25
Klean Kanteen
kleankanteen.com
Starting at $19
Yeti
yeti.com
Starting at $40