Each day, people in the U.S. throw away more than 60 million plastic water bottles, most of which end up in landfills or as litter in America’s streets, parks and waterways. Americans throw away
35 billion
empty water bottles a year.
How much plastic is littered per year?
More than 300,000 tons
of plastic are estimated to be littered or inadequately disposed each year.
How many water bottles are polluted each year?
According to the Container Recycling Institute, 86% of disposable water bottles used in the United States become garbage or litter, adding 38 billion disposable water bottles in U.S. landfills. The water bottling process releases
2.5 million tons
of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually.
How many plastic water bottles are used each year 2020?
Plastic Bottle Facts
481.6 BILLION plastic bottles were used worldwide in a single year. That’s 40 billion per month and
1.3 billion
per year.
How many glass bottles are thrown away each year?
More than 28 billion
glass bottles and jars end up in landfills every year — that is the equivalent of filling up two Empire State Buildings every three weeks.
What percentage of plastic waste is water bottles?
Today, plastic bottles and jars represent about
75 percent
of all plastic containers, by weight, in the United States, according to the Plastics Industry Association.
How many plastic water bottles are not recycled each year?
60 million plastic water bottles are thrown away each day in America.
35 billion
empty water bottles are thrown away in the US each year, with only 12% being recycled.
How many plastics are produced each year?
We produce
300 million tons
of plastic each year worldwide, half of which is for single-use items. That’s nearly equivalent to the weight of the entire human population. Reducing plastic use is the most effective means of avoiding this waste (and the impacts linked to plastic production and use).
How much litter is produced each year?
The world generates at least 3.5 million tons of plastic and other solid waste a day, 10 times the amount a century ago, according to World Bank researchers. The U.S. is the king of trash, producing a world-leading
250 million tons a year
—roughly 4.4 pounds of trash per person per day.
How much do plastic bottles contribute to plastic waste?
The recycling rate of PET bottles and jars was
29.1 percent
in 2018, and the rate for HDPE natural bottles was 29.3 percent in 2018. The total amount of plastics combusted in MSW in 2018 was 5.6 million tons. This was 16.3 percent of all MSW combusted with energy recovery that year.
How many plastic water bottles are used daily?
Studies show that people around the world buy a total of one million plastic bottles per minute. That’s almost
1.5 billion
plastic bottles per day!
How much plastic is actually recycled?
The truth is that only a fraction of plastic is actually recycled. According to the most recent data estimates available from the Environmental Protection Agency, just
8.7 percent
of the plastic that was discarded in the U.S. in 2018 was recycled.
How much plastic is in the environment?
Of the 8.3 billion metric tons that has been produced,
6.3 billion metric tons
has become plastic waste. Of that, only nine percent has been recycled. The vast majority—79 percent—is accumulating in landfills or sloughing off in the natural environment as litter.
How much plastic is produced annually worldwide 2020?
Global plastics production fell by 0.3 per cent in 2020 as compared to the production in 2019 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Worldwide plastics production reached about
367 million tonnes
from 368 million in 2019, PlasticsEurope said in a statement.
