Death by plastic

In a day and age when going green is in the top three pointers of what warrants a `political agenda', should we still be swimming in optical luxuries like pigs in shit? on a walk round Brooklyn today plastic seemed to be hot topic in an visual form. Check out this amazing wall made from a web of plastic capsules. Housed behind this wall were a set of fans that when activated, gently breath on the bags so they bellow in silence. Such a simple installation that looked so striking!

Who needs glass when we can have plastic vases right? at $7 a pop i can see your crush from here ladies. But just to install a little guilt into the situation here are some silly facts about one aspect of recycling plastics. Todays discoveries might be desirable, but when are we gonna listen up?

In 2006, Americans drank about 167 bottles of water each but only recycled an average of 23 percent. That leaves 38 billion water bottles in landfills.
Bottled water costs between $1 and $4 per gallon, and 90 percent of the cost is in the bottle, lid and label.
According to the Beverage Marketing Corp, the average American consumed 1.6 gallons of bottled water in 1976. In 2006 that number jumped to 28.3 gallons.
It takes over 1.5 million barrels of oil to manufacture a year’s supply of bottled water. That’s enough oil to fuel 100,000 cars.
Eight out of 10 plastic water bottles become landfill waste.
In 2007 we spent $16 billion on bottled water. That’s more than we spent on iPods or movie tickets.
Plastic bottles take 700 years before they begin to decompose in a landfill.
If everyone in NYC gave up water bottles for one week, they would save 24 million bottles from being landfilled. One month on the same plan would save 112 million bottles, and one year would save 1.328 billion bottles from going into the landfill.