Our mission at Bower is crystal clear - to help rid the world of plastic waste. That’s what we do every single day along with you, our fantastic community of refill heroes.
Did you know that every year the world produces 370 million tons of plastic packaging, 50% of which is designed to be used once and thrown away! It’s crazy.
And now a new report by the Minderoo Foundation, called the Plastic Waste Makers Index 2023, tells us the concerning news that there is more single use plastic waste than ever before.
Here are the top 3 headlines that we’ve pulled out of the report for you:
- An extra 6 million tons of plastic waste were generated in 2022 than in 2019
- The carbon emissions generated by single use plastics in 2021 were the equivalent to the total carbon emissions of the entire UK! (450 million tons of CO2)
- Recycling just isn’t working and is way behind the single use plastic industry - virgin plastic production grew 15 times quicker than that of recycled plastics
The bottom line is that the big petrochemical companies are making an absolute killing by producing all this single use plastic, and nobody is holding them to account for the waste.
Here at Bower we are leading the fight back with our BowerPack™ reusable packaging system, and there are many others out there too finding solutions and innovations that can stem the tide of all this unnecessary waste.
So what can you do today to make a difference? Well just pause for a moment before you make that next purchase, do you need the plastic-wrapped veg or can you buy them loose? That last minute purchase of a plastic Fairy Liquid bottle, can it wait so you can refill instead?
If we all vote with our wallets and make different small choices every day, the big manufacturers and retailers will have to sit up and pay attention!
As we never get tired of saying at Bower HQ, small steps create big change.