Fancy yourself as environmentally friendly? Rate your environmental credentials against this list of the six least green types of packaging from The Daily Green. Time to make some changes?
Garbage
Floating in the ocean: a rubbish pile the size of Texas
In the middle of the ocean, in areas of strong currents and little winds, exists giant whirlpools of swirling rubbish. The garbage patches are doubling in size every decade, with severe implications for marine life.
PHOTO GALLERY: The world’s dirtiest events
All public events tend to make a bit of a mess, but some are worse than others. Newsweek looks at some of the biggest garbage-generating events on the planet, including NASCAR, Glastonbury and the Olympics.
Life and death in the Pacific Garbage Patch
Plastic cigarette lighters, bottle tops, fishing lures, parts of shoes, plastic bags: just about anything we get rid of ends up in the guts of baby albatrosses in the mid-Pacific, says Bob Gosford — and he has the pictures to prove it. Hold on to your lunch.
VIDEO: The great pacific garbage patch
Deep in the North Pacific Ocean, there is a garbage patch twice the size of Texas, with 36-to-1 ratio of plastic to plankton. Mother Jones sets sail with the scientists studying the mess.
Garbage in a designer box? Sold!
Further proof of the ‘people will buy anything as long as it’s in pretty packaging’ theory, a NY artist has been selling actual rubbish in a classy clear cube. Over 1,200 have been sold.
Britain’s dirty little secret
The UK has been accused of dumping toxic household and industrial waste into developing countries, with syringes, condoms, nappies, bags of blood and electrical items found in waste that was supposed to be recyclable.
The history of plastic
As the most visible evidence of a disposable, trash-addled society, plastic has become the emblem of a world swimming in waste.
