Chapter 49: Garbage
10% of the world's oil supply is used to make and transport disposable plastic items (utensils, bags, etc).
In just the US alone, almost 700 water bottles are trashed each minute.
A baby will go through around 8,000 disposable diapers before they are potty trained.
Motor oil can be recycled, refined, and reused.
It takes 100 years for an aluminum can to decompose.
The huge wastage of materials is one reason 15 billion trees are cut down each year. 25 million trees could be saved if Americans recycled just 1/10 of their newspapers.
We generate 14 million tons of food waste each year.
The large amount of coffins can build up to be a big problem and quite a wastage of materials. Burying coffins also means that 90,272 tons of steel, 2,700 tons of copper and bronze, and over 30 million feet of hard wood covered in toxic laminates are also buried per year.
Americans generated more than 250 million tons of garbage. Canada produces 31 million tons of garbage per year.
Bones were often recycled into common household items such as buttons, glue, and paper.
Only 4% of the world's children live in the US, but Americans buy (and throw away) 40% of the world's toys.
An average American uses 500 plastic bags per year. Some countries have already banned plastic bags or implemented counter measures (India, Kenya, Chile, UK, Australia, China, ...).
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