How many plastic water bottles are used a minute?

Adria Holtzinger on Oct 11th 2018

Let’s break it down.

There are 20,000 plastic bottles used every second.

That’s more than a million bottles every minute being added to landfills around the world.

So, what does that mean in a year? In 2016, over 480 billion plastic drinking bottles were sold around the world. That is enough plastic to wrap around the earth’s equator more than twice. Every. Year.

Simply said, that is a lot of plastic. And according to estimates from Euromonitor International’s global packaging trends report, the number of plastic water bottles consumed in a year will increase to 583.3 billion by 2021.

So, where do all these plastic bottles end up?

Photo credit: © Caters News Agency 

Judging by that photo and so many like it, I think we all know the answer. Although plastic water bottles are recyclable, approximately 91% of plastic is not recycled . A majority of your plastic water bottles end up in landfills and in the ocean, where they will take over 450 years to degrade. That means the plastic water bottle you use today still be around when your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great- (take a breath) -great-great-grandkids are born. And check this out, it is currently estimated that plastic is set to outweigh all fish in the ocean by 2050.

One thing is clear, swimming with the fish (in the literal and possibly the mob sense?) will take on a whole new meaning if things do not change.

This is just one of the reasons that we developed the  LARQ Bottle. The LARQ Bottle is the world's first self-cleaning water bottle, aiming to put an end to our reliance on single-use plastic water bottles. Learn more

