Conservation
Total amount of plastic on Earth now tops 5BILLION tonnes - enough to wrap the entire planet in clingfilm
No part of the planet is free from the growing man-made scourge of plastic waste, a study has revealed. From the Arctic to the remotest Pacific islands and the deepest oceans, plastic is being deposited in significant quantities. The total amount of plastic produced since the Second World War is around five billion tonnes and the equivalent of wrapping the planet Earth in clingfilm.
The scientific paper, The Geological Cycle of Plastics and Their Use as a Stratigraphic Indicator of the Anthropocene, shows how the scale of the problem is growing annually. Around 300 million tonnes is currently produced annually and by the end of the century the 'impact will be colossal'.
As the report concludes: 'Plastics are already present in sufficient numbers to be considered as one of the most important types of 'technofossil' that will form a permanent record of human presence on Earth.'
Source: Daily Mail
Mon 25 Jan 2016 at 09:11
