Filters and topicsAllImagesVideosNewsShoppingMoreToolsIn the environmentIn the oceanIn SingaporeSafeSearchAbout 382,000,000 results (0.69 seconds) Search ResultsFeatured snippet from the webOnly 9% of that waste plastic is recycled and 12% is incinerated. The remaining 79% ends up in landfills or in the environment, where they will stay forever in one form or another, as plastic does not decompose.

The world population is living, working, vacationing, increasingly conglomerating along the coasts, and standing on the front row of the greatest, most unprecedented, plastic waste tide ever faced. Washed out on our coasts in obvious and clearly visible form, the plastic pollution spectacle blatantly unveiling on our beaches is only the prelude of the greater story that unfolded further away in the world’s oceans, yet mostly originating from where we stand: the land. For more than 50 years, global production and consumption of plastics have continued to rise. An estimated 299 million tons of plastics were produced in 2013, representing a 4 percent increase over 2012, and confirming an upward trend over the past years. In 2008, our global plastic consumption worldwide has been estimated at 260 million tons, and, according to a 2012 report by Global Industry Analysts, plastic consumption is to reach 297.5 million tons by the end of 2015. Plastic is versatile, lightweight, flexible, moisture resistant, strong, and relatively inexpensive. Those are the attractive qualities that lead us, around the world, to such a voracious appetite and over-consumption of plastic goods. However, durable and very slow to degrade, plastic materials that are used in the production of so many products all, ultimately, become waste with staying power. Our tremendous attraction to plastic, coupled with an undeniable behavioural propensity of increasingly over-consuming, discarding, littering and thus polluting, has become a combination of lethal nature. A simple walk on any beach, anywhere, and the plastic waste spectacle is present. All over the world, the statistics are ever growing, staggeringly. Tons of plastic debris (which by definition are waste that can vary in size from large containers, fishing nets to microscopic plastic pellets or even particles) is discarded every year, everywhere, polluting lands, rivers, coasts, beaches, and oceans. Published in the journal Science in February 2015, a study conducted by a scientific working group at UC Santa Barbara’s National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), quantified the input of plastic waste from land into the ocean. The results: every year, 8 million metric tons of plastic end up in our oceans. It’s equivalent to five grocery bags filled with plastic for every foot of coastline in the world. In 2025, the annual input is estimated to be about twice greater, or 10 bags full of plastic per foot of coastline. So the cumulative input for 2025 would be nearly 20 times the 8 million metric tons estimate – 100 bags of plastic per foot of coastline in the world!Q.17 :-As per the passage, which of the following statements are true? Most of the plastic present in the ocean today has originated from the land and plastic pollution is present on almost every beach.Most of the plastic present in the ocean today has originated from the land. In recent years, the production of plastics has declined and plastic pollution is present on almost every beach.Plastic is cheaply available and that lead to the overconsumption and it  does not degrade easily thus it ended up being a pollutant. Most of the plastic present in the ocean today has originated from the land.In recent years, the production of plastics has declined. PreviousNext

Recycling of plastic bottles leads toa.Industrial wasteb.Habit erosionc.Resource depletiond.Reduced ocean waste

What percentage of plastic is typically recycled globally? A) 25% B) 50% C) 75% D) 90%

Most marine debris is composed of plastic whose industrial production and commercial use are projected to increase exponentially over coming decades.Which of the following initiatives would have the greatest impact on reducing plastic waste in the marine environment?AImplementing responsible disposal policies for existing types of plastic in order to prevent end-of-life materials from entering the marine environmentBPreventing the production and consumption of environmentally persistent types of plastic such as PET via purposeful legislation and regulationCIncreasing awareness and promoting population behavioral change, as well as giving consumers incentives to recycle persistent materialsDImplementing all of the above strategiesEI'm not sure

Read the following passage from the article:According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the amount of plastic waste generated annually is about 300 million tons. That's almost equal to the combined weight of all the people on the planet. Less than 10 percent of plastic waste gets recycled.Why did the author include this information? A.To reassure the reader that waste generation is manageableB.To persuade the reader that recycling is pointlessC.To highlight the business practices of the plastics industryD.To emphasize the extent of the plastic waste problem