Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by masonic 1371 days ago
>“plastic bags” (which includes trash bags, grocery bags, retail bags and dry cleaning bags) make up a very small portion of litter, usually less than 1%

By mass (weight), not volume, area, visibility, or impact on wildlife.

1 comments

No, by number of pieces.

> Stein analyzed 20 years of scientifically-designed, statistically based litter surveys in the U.S. and Canada and concluded that total plastic bag litter was less than 1% (by number of pieces). Combining these data with the estimated annual production of PRBs of 100 billion bags (U. S. International Trade Commission, 2009), and assuming that all of the plastic bag litter resulted from only one year’s production and use of PRBs, leads to the conclusion that less than 0.5% of PRBs end their life as litter