It is hard to grasp the fact that in 1950, we made virtually no plastic, yet today, more than 300 million tons is manufactured every year, close to the weight of the entire human population. Now imagine all of the plastic you use throughout your whole life is lined up in front of you, stretching for miles. Then multiply that by billions. That is what new research published in the journal Anthropocene attempted to do – understand the current global state of plastic on our planet. The results were astonishing.

Researchers estimate that 5 billion tons of plastic have been produced since the Second World War. By the end of the century, the total will be 30 billion tons. The Anthropocene is a proposed epoch that begins when human activities started to have a significant global impact on Earth's geology and ecosystems. The researchers argue that as all this plastic which ends up as microscopic fragments found all over the globe from the ocean floor to the arctic is strong evidence for the kind of global change that signals a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene.

The Healthier Hospitals Less Waste Challenge focuses on how to reduce, reuse, and recycle the waste that is produced.

[Source: The Guardian]