• Over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wrappers are used in the U.S. each year.

• The U.S. goes through 100 billion plastic shopping bags annually.

• Between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are used per year worldwide.

• Plastic bags take over 300 years to degrade and they don’t biodegrade, they photo degrade—which means they break down into toxins which contaminates the soil and water.

• A floating plastic bag can look like a jellyfish to many endangered sea turtles.

• Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food.

• During coastal clean ups, plastic bags are among the 12 most found items.

• Paper bags generate 70% more air and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags.

• In 1999, 14 million trees were cut to produce the 10 billion paper grocery bags used by Americans that year alone.

• Paper mills use a process of heating wood chips under pressure at high temperatures in a chemical solution. These toxic chemicals contribute to both air pollution, (such as acid rain) and water pollution.

• Millions of gallons of these chemicals pour into our waterways each year.

• Nothing completely degrades in landfills because of the lack of water, light, oxygen and other important elements that are needed for the degradation process to be completed.

• Every reusable bag that you use has the potential to eliminate hundreds, if not thousands of plastic bags over its lifetime!

Sources:EPA, Wall Street Journal, Center for Marine Conservation and Federal Office of the Environment, David Barnes; Marine Scientist with the British Antarctic Survey.

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