07.10.2008
S.C. NATURPLAST X S.R.L.
Some unpleasant facts about packaging plastics
- Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That comes out to over one million per minute
- Plastics can take up to 400 years to break down. Almost all the plastics ever made can still be found somewhere
- Windblown plastic bags are so prevalent in Africa that a cottage industry has sprung up
harvesting bags and using them to weave hats, and even bags. According to BBC, one group harvests 30,000 per month
- Plastic constitutes 90% of all trash floating in the world's oceans1
- As part of Clean Up Australia Day, in one day nearly 500,000 plastic bags were collected2
- More than a million seabirds and more than 100,000 marine mammals such as whales, dolphins and seals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food3
- According to David Barnes, a marine scientist with the British Antarctic Survey, plastic bags have gone "from being rare in the late 80s and early 90s to being almost everywhere from Spitsbergen 78° North to Falklands 51° South
- Increasingly frequent floods caused by climate change are aggravated by plastic packaging materials blocking sewerage systems, drains and land drainage arrangements
Market drivers
- Increasing public awareness of environmental issues;
- Increasing commercial interest amongst brand-owners, retailers in particular, in the crucial importance of being environmental-friendly oriented;
- Increasing legal responsibility placed on producers for the environmental impact their production processes and products cause;
- Increasing costs in the waste management chain for producers, distributors, retailers and end consumers
- E.g. landfill ban in the EU and EEA from January 1 2009;
- Increasing raw material costs
Background
- Nor-X Industry AS (”Nor-X”) is a Norwegian company providing unique technologies addressing the rapidly growing global problem of disposal of plastic packaging materials
- Plastics come from nature. Nor-X’ patented technologies enable plastic packaging materials which, unfortunately, end up in nature to degrade biologically and ......
