Plastic Ignorance

A recent survey of Americans, polling their basic understanding of plastic, revealed that mostly, Americans are woefully ignorant of the world they live in. From the pollster press release:
  • 72% of respondents do not know that plastic is made out of oil/petroleum
  • On average, respondents estimated 38% of plastic is recycled (the reality is less than 6%, according to the EPA)
  • Nearly 40% (38.1%) of respondents said plastic will biodegrade underground, in home compost, in landfills, or in the ocean (plastic will not biodegrade in any of these environments).
  • After learning that plastic is made from oil and never biodegrades, half (50.1%) of respondents stated they would be likely or very likely to pay 5-10% more for a natural, biodegradable plastic. Only 24% were unlikely/very unlikely to pay this much more.
  • 62% of respondents rate their own level of environmental knowledge as fair or poor, with only 5.6% rating it as excellent.
These are the same folks I bet, who have a distrust of science, take religious dogma literally, and believe that climate change warnings are just hype.

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