Archive for plastic
10 Disturbing Facts On How Much We Waste
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I’m reminded of just how wasteful we are as I’m at a local mall noticing what’s in the full garbage bin. Lots of plastic bottles, aluminum cans, cardboard – all recyclable, but carelessly tossed and headed to the landfill. People discard things in the garbage without any consideration or respect for the environment. How wasteful are we? Let me count the ways with 10 alarming facts about how we impact waste:
- Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour. They take 400 to 1000 years to degrade.
- About 80% of what Americans throw away is recyclable, yet the recycling rate is just 33%.
- $1 out of every $10 spent on food goes into packaging and in the US, over 400 billion plastic bags are tossed into the garbage. Plastic bags can take 1000 years to degrade.
- The average student lunch accounts for 67 pounds of packaging and waste per year (that’s 4.6 trillion pounds in the US alone)
- 5 billion drink boxes are thrown away each year in North America
- 2/3 of our household waste can be composted
- 8 out of 10 water bottles end up in a landfill
- The state of Texas could be shrink-wrapped with the amount of plastic film that Americans throw out
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New Eco-friendly Hospitals Are Doing The Time Warp
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“It’s astounding, time is fleeting
Madness takes its toll
But listen closely, not for very much longer
I’ve got to keep control
It’s just a Styrofoam cup to the left
And then a plastic lid to the right
Look all around there is no recycling bin in sight,
Let’s do the Time Warp again!”
The first decade of the new millennium is coming to a close and yet when it comes to environmental policy and practices today’s hospitals seems to be stuck in the early 50’s. Although they have redone their lobbies and concourses to have modern food courts and it is quite impressive with many new eco-friendly sectioned recycling bins for plastic, paper, glass and Styrofoam. However, that impressive showing of the latest in new eco-friendly products does not reach beyond the lobby.
As a recent patient in hospital, everything I was given was either plastic or Styrofoam. Not to mention that everything from a sandwich to a tart was wrapped at least 3 times over in shrink-wrap. On top of this is the 8-9 times a day someone brings you ice water in a Styrofoam cup with a plastic lid and straw, and you never even asked of for the drink to begin with. It would seem that new eco-friendly products like paper cups are beyond their comprehension.
Tags: cling wrap, Eco Friendly, eco-friendly climate, eco-friendly hospital, eco-friendly products, Green Cleaning, green movement, hospitals, new eco-friendly, planet forward, plastic, Purell, Purell dispensers, PVC, Recycling, recycling bins, shrink-wrap, Styrofoam, sustainable choices
