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Ways to recycle in the UK.

These nifty little things are a great way to reduce the amount of packaging you use for your sandwiches AND they give you a lovely place mat to enjoy while you eat.

• UK consumers use an estimated 10 billion plastic bags a year – that’s 167 per person - accounting for 3.5 - 5.3% of total plastic packaging used in the UK.
• September 12th 2009 was the first International Plastic Bag Free Day
• Plastic bag use falls by 26 per cent in two years, but 10 billion plastic bags still being distributed each year by (not so) supermarkets.
• Ban the Plastic Bag is a handy book on the perils of plastic 
• Our alternative to plastic bags the "I'm not a plastic bag" shopper was desgned by Anya Hindmarsh and cost just £5. Her bags normally cost around £500. 
• Kylie Minogue, Mischa Barton, Sienna Miller, Kierra Knightly, Lily Allen, and models Erin O Connor and Lily Cole were amongst the celebs that loved and used our "I'm NOT a Plastic bag" shopper 
• People paid up to £400 on eBay for an I'm NOT a plastic bag shopper 
• People queued for up to 5 hours in the snow outside Sainsbury's to get their own I'm NOT a plastic bag. 
• The I'm NOT a plastic bag shopper sold out in just 2 hours from Anya Hindmarsh's store. Customers were limited to just 2 bags per person. The We Are What We Do website crashed as it recieved more than 12,000 hits in one go.
• US Vanity Fair magazine gave I'm NOT a plastic bag shoppers away as their Oscar party goodie bag
• We've only had plastic since the 1950's and it is anticipated that it lasts for at least 400 years, a lot of scientists now estimate that age at more like 1000.(MCS) New Scientist) (UNEP) 
• Plastic production uses 8% of all the world's oil production. At the current rate the world produces 200 million tons of plastic a year. Less the 3.5% is recycled. (Algalita) (Greenpeace Ocean defenders) 
• 96% of all the worlds plastic is not recycled. (Greenpace ocean defenders) (Algalita) 
• The world plastic production is increasing at 3.5% per year. This means every twenty years the amount of plastic we produce doubles.
• The world produces over 200 million tonnes plastic annually. Around half of this is used for disposable items of packaging that are discarded within a year. This debris is accumulating in landfill and the problem is growing. (Thompson). 
• Excess packaging is not just bad for the environment its bad for your pocket, In studies carried out in 2007 it has been established that excess packaging costs the average UK family about GBP470 a year.
• The UK 2.8 million tonnes of plastic waste in the UK each year, this figure is rising by 2% each year.
• The dawn of the plastic era was in 1950s. This was when we first started to use plastic for consumer goods on a mass scale. What a lot of people don't know is plastics do not biodegrade, they photo degrade, breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil, waterways, oceans and entering the food web when ingested by animals. Scientists estimate each plastic item could last in the environment anywhere between 400 to 1000 years.(New Scientist) (UNEP) 
• Almost every piece of plastic that we have ever made, used and thrown away since the 1950's is still here on this planet in one form or another, whether its in our homes, in landfill or in the environment; and it will be here for centuries to come. 
• Plasticizers are a group of chemicals that are added to plastic resins during the manufacturing process. As a general rule plasticizers soften the final plastic product increasing its flexibility. However because these plasticizers are an additive and not actually part of the plastics molecular structure its been established that traces of these chemicals can leach out when they come into contact with a product - for example food or drink. It has also been established that some of these plasticizers are now known to be carcinogens and endocrine disruptorsPVC is commonly used to package foods and liquids, ubiquitous in children's toys and teethers.
• The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has recognized the chemical used to make PVC, vinyl chloride, is a known human carcinogen. However the European Union has only banned the use of DEHP (di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate) in PVC, the most widely used plasticizer in PVC children's toys. (Mindfully) (Environmental Research Foundation) Other plasticizers such bisphenol A (BPA) - a known hormone disrupter that when released into food and liquid acts like oestrogen - are still in use, but now being fazed out in the UK. Find out more.