Statistics Research

Over the past few days, we have been doing quite a bit of research into the statistics revolving around plastic bottle waste and the impact this has on our environment etc. It was insane to see all of these statistics, and it was a real eye-opener to see just how extreme the waste caused by plastic water bottles was. We feel like we could include some statistics similar to these, although possibly in relation to Wellington or New Zealand instead, as it would be an effective way of alerting the viewers to just how bad this problem is, and emphasize the effects that it could have on our environment for years to come.

- In 2006, Americans averaged purchasing one bottle of water every two days, only recycling 23%. That leaves 38 billion water bottles to waste in the landfill.

- Bottled water costs between $1 and $4 per gallon, and 90 percent of the cost is in the bottle, lid and label.

- It takes over 1.5 million barrels of oil to make a year's supply of bottled water.That's enough oil to fuel 100,00 cars for a year.

- Plastic bottles can take over 1000 years to biodegrade once buried.

- If everyone in New York City gave up buying bottled water for one week, they would save 24 million bottles from being thrown in the landfill. One month would save 112 million bottles, while one year would save 1.328 billion bottles from going into the landfill.

- Up to 24% of bottled water comes directly from the tap!

- An average of 3 to 5 litres of water is used to bottle 1 litre of bottle water.

- Approximately 78% of plastic bottles aren't recycled in New Zealand.

- Approximately 1500 plastic water bottles end up in the ocean or landfill every second!
Breaking down statistics on New Zealand...

Each New Zealander consumes approximately 31kg of plastic each year, while throwing roughly 25kg in the waste.

Population of 4.471 million:

Plastic in general:

- 111,775,000kg of plastic waste per year
- 9,314,583kg of plastic waste per month
- 306,232kg of plastic waste per day
- 12,759kg of plastic waste per hour
- 213kg of plastic waste per minute

- 3.5kg of plastic waste per second
Plastic Water Bottles:

- 168 plastic bottles per year (each)
- 751,128,000 plastic bottles per year
- 62,594,000 plastic bottles per month
- 2,057,885 plastic bottles per day
- 85,745 plastic bottles an hour
- 1,429 plastic bottles a minute

NZ: 24 plastic bottles a second (78% not recycled)

In New Zealand, based on statistics gathered from safebottles.co.nz, approximately 18 bottles per second are wasted, with roughly only 6 per second being recycled.
We could possibly use a breakdown like this within our video, as it is relational to New Zealand, and hopefully it shocks everyone when they realise that for such a small country, we waste roughly 18 plastic bottles per second.

- Blake