- Did you know that according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) recyclable post-consumer packing with an estimated value of $11.4 billion is land-filled in the United States each year instead of being recycled?
- Did you also know that 80% of that trash that is in our landfills is recyclable?
- Many people think that after a few years the trash that has made its way to the ocean, either intentionally or unintentionally, will break down and decompose. Unfortunately, this is not the case for almost all ocean debris.
- According to the Mote Marine Lab in Sarasota, Florida, it is estimated that one glass bottle alone takes 1 million years to decompose. However, it is undetermined the exact time it takes glass to break down due to its significantly long decomposition rate.
What is the most common trash collected during cleanups?
- Ranked from most common to least common based off of the findings from the International Coastal Cleanup hosted by the Ocean Conservancy:
- Cigarettes/Cigarette Filters – 1-5 years to biodegrade
- Plastic Food Wrapper/Containers – 20-30 years
- Plastic water bottles – 450 years
- Plastic bags – 10-20 years
- Plastic caps and lids – 450-1,000 years
- Plastic utensils – 450 years
- Plastic straws and stirrers – up to 200 years
- Glass bottles – 1 million years (estimated, exact time unknown)
- Aluminum cans – 80-200 years
- Paper bags – 1 month
- Plastic water bottles were first created and commercially used in 1947.
- That means if a plastic water bottle was dropped into the ocean the very first year that plastic bottles were created, it is still floating somewhere and will not be “completely gone” until the year 2397.
- Even then, plastics do not completely decompose, they become micro-plastics. Because of the many carbon-carbon bonds that are used in processing plastics to be as sturdy as they are, the organisms responsible for breaking down organic compounds do not recognize these unnatural strong carbon-carbon bonds and therefore cannot break these compounds down.
