Plastic waste: Germany is the third largest polluter of the EU
Damn it! As a study of the Cologne Institute of German Economy showed, our plastic waste volume in Germany in the period from 2005 to 2015 increased by 29 percent. According to this, in 2015 every German disposed of an average of 37 kilos of plastic waste? this is about the weight of a full-grown shepherd dog. In Germany alone, we have caused a good 80 million shepherd dogs with plastic waste. These are a lot of shepherd dogs ...
Germany is the third largest plastic sinner in the EU
As far as plastic is concerned, we are the third largest polluter in the EU. Only Irish and Estonians manage to accumulate even more plastic waste than we do, barely 61 and 47 kilos. After all, the recycling rate in Germany is 49 percent above the EU average.
If we look at the global figures, we end up with values far beyond our imagination: in 2015, we produced 322 million tonnes of plastic waste in total? this is equivalent to the weight of around 54 million African elephants. That so many elephants could ever exist on our earth is absurd (it's more like 500,000)? but in the form of plastic, we have managed this mass easily in a year.
7 times as much plastic waste as in the 70s
The shocking thing is also: since the mid-70s, our worldwide plastic waste volume has increased sevenfold! At the same time we felt at least 7 times more environmentally aware than we were 40 years ago!
On the other hand, even if more and more people do without fruit bags, go shopping with jute bags and their tap water aufsprudeln itself? As long as big companies think they have to pack their own apples and bananas in plastic, we can hardly get away from our 37 kilos.
However, we have to, because otherwise we will soon no longer know where to go with all the plastic. A bottle takes up to 450 years to decompose. When you consider how many bottles you need for 54 million elephants living on our earth and in our seas for the next few hundred years, it becomes clear to everyone that we have to come up with something.
5-point plan of the European Commission
The European Commission sees the same? and has even come up with something. By 2025, 55 percent of European plastic waste is to be recycled. To succeed by the following 5 measures:
- Avoid plastic waste.
- Improve the recyclability of products.
- Strengthen the market for recycled plastic.
- Strengthen waste separation and sorting.
- Avoid creeping mating.
Hopefully, the EU will be able to use reforms to win over manufacturers in particular for more sustainable business. As a consumer, we can at least ever boycott bananas packed in plastic!
