Plastic Bags: Sacking the Environment

• A million plastic bags are used every minute, worldwide, and the number is rising.
• In the United States, less than 5 percent of plastic bags are recycled.
• Roughly 60–80% of all marine debris, and 90% of floating debris is plastic.
• Plastic resin polymers are so durable that it can take hundreds of years for plastics to break down at sea, and some may never truly biodegrade in the marine environment.
• Marine debris is ubiquitous and can be found from remote arctic regions to highly populated urban beaches.
• Plastic bags (which resemble jellyfish or sponges) are mistaken for food or prey by seabirds, marine mammals, fish, and sea turtles.
• More than 1 million seabirds, 100,000 marine mammals, and countless fish die annually through ingestion of and entanglement in marine debris, including plastic bags.

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