Every second in the world are sold 20.000 plastic bottles. This phenomenon is driven by an apparently insatiable desire for bottled water and the spread of a western, urbanised “on the go” culture to China and the Asia Pacific region. Moreover, by 2021 the number of plastic bottles sold every minute (one million) will jump another 20%. More than 480bn plastic drinking bottles were sold in 2016 across the world, up from about 300bn a decade ago. Major drinks brands produce the greatest numbers of plastic bottles: Coca-Cola, for example, produces more than 100bn throwaway plastic bottles every year (3,400 a second), according to analysis carried out by Greenpeace.
Researchers at Gent University recently estimated that people who eat seafood ingest more than 10.000 tiny pieces of plastic every year. There has been growing interest about the impact of plastics pollution in oceans around the world. Last month scientists found nearly 18 tonnes of plastic on an uninhabited coral atoll in the South Pacific.
Plastic drinking bottles could be made out of 100% recycled plastic, known as RPet – and campaigners are pressing big drinks companies to radically increase the amount of recycled plastic in their bottles. But brands are hostile to using RPet for cosmetic reasons because they want their products in shiny, clear plastic, according to Steve Morgan, of Recoup in the UK.
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