___Quick Plastic Facts

• A plastic milk jug is estimated to take 1 million years to decompose;
• Americans use 2.5 million plastic bottles every HOUR; Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1 million sea creatures every year; Today, Americans generate 10.5 million tons of plastic waste a year but recycle only 1 or 2 % of it; An estimated 14 billion pounds of trash, much of it plastic is dumped in the world's oceans every year; Every year we make enough plastic film to shrink-wrap the state of Texas;
• Nearly every piece of plastic EVER made still exists today;

• Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute. Billions end up as litter each year; Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade—breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest them; Plastic bags are among the 12 items of debris most often found in coastal cleanups, according to the nonprofit Center for Marine Conservation;
• Most plastics are made from petroleum, a non-renewable resource extracted and processed using energy-intensive techniques that destroy fragile ecosystems;

The artwork to the left is by an artist by the name of Chris Jordan. He has recently done a series called Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait. It is a unique and stunning look at the rate of American consumption today. This piece, Cans Seurat, 2007 depicts 106,000 aluminum cans, the number used in the US every 30 seconds. Each photograph shows a closer look at the art piece.

Look for more of his work here: http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php