Remember that huge Island of garbage in the Pacific Ocean? Well one company is actually doing something about it by taking the adrift plastic and turning it into something usable by consumers.
Enter: the Electrolux Vac from the Sea
Just when you thought we had it right, this post from Eric Johnson (director of Atlantic Consulting, a Swiss-based strategic consulting company) claims that, in certain circumstances, landfilling plastic water bottles may have a lower carbon-footprint than recycling.
I'm not too sure if I buy into this just yet. I wonder if Thomas Friedman has anything to say about this claim... -JA
I'm not even going to rewrite this (thanks to the Huffington Post):
There is no doubt that plastics are notoriously bad. Americans dispose of 10.5 million tons of plastic garbage every year, and about 8% of the world's annual oil production is used toward the creation of plastic products. A single plastic bottle can spend anywhere from 100 to 1000 years in a landfill, and while recycling plastics helps save up to 60% of the energy used to make new products, they are often "downcycled" which doesn't curb the demand for more plastic to be produced, and it does little to prevent plastics leeching cancer-causing chemicals. Thanks to our wasteful habits, we've created huge islands of plastics in both the Pacific and Atlantic, and we not only kill up to a million sea creatures every year with plastic, but also ingest toxins that have made their way up the food chain from this waste.
Imagine the wonderful impact on the environment if you stopped using those 190 pounds of plastic each year. Say NO to plastics, and make your commitment by pledging with others at the Plastic Pollution Coalition.
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