Like thousands of other people, we took part in The Big Plastic Count recently and have just been sent the results.* This is an edited version from the organisers.
- Almost 250,000 people took part and together they counted a shocking 6.4 million pieces of plastic.
- On average each household threw away 66 pieces of plastic packaging, which is 3,432 pieces over a year.
- Applied to the UK as a whole, UK households throw away an unbelievable 1.85 billion pieces of plastic a week or 96.6 billion pieces of plastic a year.
These numbers are shocking – and they don’t even include the plastic waste from offices, shops and industry! With plastic production set to double over the next 20 years, the government needs to take urgent action to stem the flow of plastic waste.
*Source: Greenpeace 2022
Our take on this is relying on government to make changes with legislation will only happen very slowly and even then, might not be very effective.
We as consumers must use less plastic by finding alternative packaging options to the food, drink and household items we buy.
Just a small shift in consumer habits could make a huge difference. For example, based on the Greenpeace numbers if people on average used just 5 less items of plastic per week that would work out at 7.24 billion less pieces of plastic a year. Still a very long way to go but it would be a start.
Small change, big difference.