Plastic pollution rivals climate change

Experts issue shocking warning as they reveal ONE MILLION plastic bottles are sold every minute.

The number of plastic bottles sold every minute will climb by 20 per cent by 2021, with more than half a trillion bottles sold every year in just three years.
Fewer than half of these bottles are recycled and most plastics end up in the world’s oceans and are ingested by marine wildlife.

Our addiction to plastic packaging could be as harmful to the environment as climate change, experts have warned. Experts said the increased demand is largely being driven by the popularity of bottled water in China and the Asia Pacific region. More than 480 billion plastic bottles were sold last year, while 300 billion were sold annually a decade ago.

Scientists said if each bottle was placed end to end, the resulting plastic tower would reach halfway to the sun.

Hugo Tagholm, from the marine conservation and campaigning group Surfers Against Sewage, told The Guardian that the statistics were ‘devastating’.‘The plastic pollution crisis rivals the threat of climate change as it pollutes every natural system and an increasing number of organisms on planet Earth,’ he said.