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Shocking images of unsustainability 20 Mar, 2008

We know we consume. We know others consume. But, it is nearly impossible to visualize what that joint consumption looks like as a whole or what kind of an impact it has on our environment.

An artist in Seattle, Chris Jordan, has found a shocking way to depict the sheer immensity of our consumption. The pictures are somehow pleasing, even beautiful, but the devil is in the details.A closer look reveals horrific sights and what a disaster we are creating. The figures are mind-bending:

• 1,000,000 plastic cups on airline flights in the US every 6 hours
• 410,000 paper cups in the US every 15 minutes
• 2,000,000 plastic beverage bottles in the US every 5 minutes
• 8,000,000 harvested trees in the US every month to make mail order catalogues
• 11,000 jet trails for commercial flights in the US every 8 hours
• 426,000 cell phones retired in the US every day
• 1,140,000 brown paper supermarket bags the US every hour
• 3,600,000 new SUVs in the US in 2004
• 60,000 plastic bags in the US every 5 seconds
• 170,000 disposable Energizer batteries produced every 15 minutes
• 15,000,000 million sheets, used in the US every 5 minutes
• 106,000 aluminum cans in the US every 30 seconds.

Now, see what it looks like. It’s scary.

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