Plastic is everywhere and yet as the Carbon Almanac taught us that only 9% of plastic is recycled. The majority remaining ends up in landfills. With the long length of time it takes to decompose, it will be in our landfills or our oceans for centuries to come.
Yet plastic waste is only one part of the whole story.
To understand the full impact of plastic we have to start at the beginning.
To manufacture plastic, fossil fuels must be extracted from the earth which causes various levels of damage. Once extracted, the fossil fuels need to be transported through miles and miles of pipelines to a refinery before it can be processed into the foundations to make plastic.
That is a lot of impact for something that we might only use once, for a minute or two.
When we have an option, let's choose an alternative to plastic.