Million Plastic Bottles Per Minute – Scary Plastic Statistics

After the drinks are bottled, they are shipped to retailers throughout the country and all over the world. Between manufacture and transportation, about

63 billion gallons of oil

are used to supply the United States with plastic bottles each year. Studies estimate that bottles distributed only locally in California require 1.4 million joules of energy per liter to transport. This number can rise to up to

5.8 million joules of energy per liter

for beverages that are shipped across the ocean.

The majority of these bottles will be discarded after just one use. Disposable bottles have become incredibly prevalent in our society. In this year alone, every person on the planet will consume an average of 300 pounds of single-use plastic. It’s easy to dispose of trash, move on with our day, and forget about it. In reality, when we throw it away, it still has to go somewhere. The big problem is that

91% of plastic doesn’t actually end up getting recycled

. So, what really happens to it after we’re done?

Most of our waste ends up in landfills, where the huge piles of decomposing trash have been found to release

greenhouse gases

into the atmosphere as they break down. Chemicals in plastics can also leak into the soil and contaminate local water sources. With all of the recyclable waste that we send to landfills, the United States is quickly

running out of room

to store its trash.