What's the big f*cking deal?

I live in a household of 2, and we are throwing out an entire bad of garbage a day. That's a lot of garbage! That's also a whole lot of plastic that isn't being recycled. After paying attention to the massive amount of garbage produced by only 2 people, it makes me think about all plastic being tossed by families of 3, 4, 5, or more. No wonder that the earth is literally covered in micro-plastic.

Every year, humans produce nearly 280 million tons of plastic. 280 MILLION TONS!! Its an impossible number for me to wrap my head around. But why stop using plastic you use ask? Well, its not just a question of waste apparently. I did a little research because I had to know just what the risks were. After combing the internet here's what I found...

• Chemicals added to plastics are absorbed by human bodies and have been found to alter hormones or have other potential human health effects.
         • These plastics have also been linked to infertility, diabetes, and even cancer!
• Only 1 to 2% of plastic bags in the USA end up getting recycled, leaving a whollllle lot of plastic free to float around the planet.
• Plastic buried deep in landfills can leach harmful chemicals that spread into groundwater. 
• The average American uses about 500 plastic grocery bags per year.
• Plastic bags are often mistakenly ingested by animals, clogging their intestines which results in death by starvation. Thousands of marine animals and more than 1 million birds die each year as a result of plastic pollution.

These were only a few of the laundry list of reasons why to give plastic the big FU! I highly recommend watching the award-winning film Trashed to really understand the dangers of our high plastic, high waste society.