Plastic apocalypse: 22 photos about the horrific consequences of our stupidity❗ ❗

It sounds paradoxical, but over the past 20 years, man has produced more kilograms of plastic than the entire twentieth century. About 50% of plastic products are used only once, yet some part of the plastic is burned, and only a small percentage is recycled. All the plastic that has ever been produced still exists in one form or another.

These 22 terrifying, but at the same time sobering photos eloquently warn each of us: it's time to stop!

It is estimated that only 10% of all the plastic that we throw away is recyclable. Before you are a plant for the processing of plastic waste in Japan. If we recycle only 10% of plastic, imagine the extent of the remaining 90%!

On average, every American throws out 85 kilograms of plastic a year.

"Plastic Monster" - installation of the Slovenian artist Miha Artnalka. The purpose of this work was to raise our awareness about the harmful effects of plastic.

In addition, most of us throw garbage in plastic bags.

Thus, every minute our world is buried in more than 1 million plastic bags.

The world consumes more than one million bags per minute.

Before you get into the trash, most plastic bags are used only once. Statistical data makes us wonder: on average, each of us consumes about 500 plastic bags per year.

And that's not all: only 35 billion plastic bottles a year are thrown out in the US. That's about 1,500 bottles per second!

More than 90% of all debris floating in the ocean, it is just plastic.

This amount is enough to cover 40% of the ocean surface.

Under the influence of the sun and water, the plastic gradually decomposes, and its particles spread hundreds of kilometers.

The concentration of plastic is so high that even in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean compact accumulations of floating debris, called "garbage islands," have formed.

About a million birds and more than 100,000 marine mammals die each year due to plastic. 44% of the dead birds and 22% of the stranded whales in the stomach were found pieces of plastic.

We are talking about the world scale, but in fact, the welfare of the planet Earth depends on each of us.

Just answer a few questions: do you collect garbage after a picnic in the bosom of nature, throw a candy wrapper from a candy into an urn, do you support the garbage sorting initiative? After the horrific figures, it is worthwhile to finally think about your actions.