A field trip to Knowplastic

I want to introduce you all to an excellent blog called Knowplastic written by Sunnye, a coworker of mine. She is saving all her plastic for one year in a spare bedroom in her house. I can't wait to see the outcome, and I'm happy it's not in my spare bedroom!

She just posted her Week 49-50 blog and I wanted to share some of the fun statistics she posted along with a picture of her plastic pile from last week. What really impressed me were the following stats:

-1995 was the highest year for recycling in the US (data from 1991-2006). So we are recycling LESS and not MORE. It should be the opposite.

-The ratio in pounds of plastic waste in the ocean to zooplankton is 6:1. So there's six times more pounds of plastic than animal plankton floating around. That's just scary.

-And finally Ireland charges an equivalent of US $0.15 for each plastic bag used in a store. It's reduced their plastic bag use by 90%. Another reason to remember your reusable shopping bags.

For a complete list of Sunnye's insightful, and unsettling, statistics check out her blog post at Week 40-50: Plastatistics!