Coast KZN

State of the Coast: KZN
State of the Coast: KZN

State of the Coast: KwaZulu-Natal Chapter 1: Introduction & Background Chapter 2: Overarching Drivers Chapter 3: Climate Variability
Chapter 4: Coastal Environment Chapter 5: Estuarine Environment Chapter 6: Marine Environment Chapter 7: Human Environment Chapter 8: Economic Environment
Chapter 9: Governance Environment Chapter 10: Conclusions
The Profile of the KZN Coast
The Profile of the KZN Coast

Ugu Lwethu- Our Coast Defining the Coastal Zone The Physical and Coastal Environment Coastal and Marine Ecosystems
Coastal and Marine Species Migrations The Human Dimension Socio-Economic Uses of the Coast Commercial Resource Uses
Pressures and Threats Management of the Coastal and Marine Environments Understanding our Coast
Coastal access
Coastal access

Access RoutesBoat Launch SitesThe Human DimensionCoastal Access: Stats & Facts
Estuaries
Estuaries

What is an Estuary? Know your Estuaries Estuary Health and Conservation KZN Estuary Observer Programme
Historical Time Series Estuary Mouth Status Sand Mining
Recreation
Recreation

Fish TaggingAccess RoutesBlue Flag Beaches
Coastal risk and vulnerability
Coastal risk and vulnerability

Coastal Risk LinesExtreme EventsCoastal ErosionKZN Coastal Vulnerability IndexPollution
Coastal issues
Coastal issues

PollutionSand MiningCoastal ErosionNurdlesUPL Chemical Spill
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09 Apr 2019

More than a million plastic bags are used every minute

Caxton Central (South Coast Sun)

More than 8 million tons of plastic are dumped in our oceans every year and the facts are overwhelming.

The proliferation of plastic products in the last 70 years or so has been extraordinary. It seems that we cannot live without them. Over the last ten years we have produced more plastic than during the whole of the last century.

Facts about plastic usage

We are now producing nearly 300 million tons of plastic every year, half of which is for single use.

More than 8 million tons of plastic is dumped into our oceans every year.

We have developed a “disposable” lifestyle and estimates are that around 50 percent of plastic is used just once and then discarded.

A plastic bag has an average “working life” of 15 minutes.

Annually approximately 500 billion plastic bags are used worldwide. More than one million bags are used every minute.

Packaging is the largest end use market segment accounting for just over 40 percent of total plastic usage.

Plastic is cheap and incredibly versatile with properties that make it ideal for many applications. However, these qualities have also resulted in it becoming an environmental issue.

Plastic is a valuable resource and plastic pollution is an unnecessary and unsustainable waste of that resource.

Beverage bottles alone

According to the Container Recycling Institute, 100.7 billion plastic beverage bottles were sold in the U.S. in 2014, or 315 bottles per person.

57 percent of those units were plastic water bottles: 57.3 billion sold in 2014. This is up from 3.8 billion plastic water bottles sold in 1996, the earliest year for available data.

The process of producing bottled water requires around six times as much water per bottle as there is in the container.

14 percent of all litter comes from beverage containers. When caps and labels are considered, the number is higher.

 

Video: see Online Article

 

Online Article