it takes 1,000 years for a plastic bag to degrade in a landfill. this doesn't mean that they go away. instead, they become microplastics (sometimes also called nanoplastics) which absorb toxins and continue to pollute the environment.

almost all plastic produced in the u.s. ends up in landfills or the ocean - more than 1,500,000 tons per year. 

this is because many kinds of plastic cannot be recycled. and even when a plastic can be recycled, it is much less expensive to produce new plastic than it is to recycle old plastic.

the companies that produce plastic have always known this, but they deliberately lie about it.

in sweden, only 1% of all garbage ends up in a landfill.

spiders recycle their webs by eating them.

it takes 1 ton of gold ore to extract 1 gram of gold - the same amount that you extract by recycling 41 cell phones.

the u.s. uses 50 billion plastic water bottles per year, filled with expensive tap water. 1 in 4 are recycled. the rest end up shredded, in landfills and in the sea.

side note: if you're interested, it's possible to make edible water bottles: http://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/how-make-edible-water-bottleshttp://www.iflscience.com/chemistry/how-make-edible-water-bottles