Zero Plastic week
Upcycle joined Green Peace Johannesburg to show, Soweto residents and their kids, how to make shopping bags from old t-shirts. Zero Plastic Weeks is an important week because it highlights the need to reduce our use of plastic and where possible, to eliminate the manufacture of plastic altogether. Plastic remains one of the most harmful elements to our environment and we strive to rather re-use plastic than toss it away.
Almost every hour, nearly 250,000 plastic bottles are dumped.
It is not surprising that plastic bottles constitute close to 50% of recyclable waste in the
dumpsites.The average time taken by plastic bottles to decompose in a landfill is close to 700 years.
Plastic not only adds to landfill space and takes forever to decompose. Used plastic dumped into the sea kills and destroys sea life at an estimated 1,000,000 sea creatures per year!