Laurence Dollimore
SPAIN consumes more plastic straws than any other country in Europe.
The holiday favourite throws away 4.745 BILLION plastic straws every year – around 13 million each day – and it is the fifth most common waste found on its beaches.
Greenpeace is now calling on Spain to introduce laws to ban plastic straws and other disposable products.
Plastic products like straws take up to 500 years to decompose.
“Spain -remember- is the country in Europe in which most straws are used: 13 million a day”, Greenpeace said, and each person uses 110 of these plastic single-use items annually, or one every three days.
Cigarette butts, food wrappers, plastic bottles and plastic bottle caps are the top four most found waste products on Spain’s beaches.
Julio Barea, responsible for the waste campaign at Greenpeace, said: “Plastic straws have become one of the most frequent elements in our seas, beaches and rivers, despite being the most unnecessary plastic utensil, in the Mediterranean they already account for 6% plastic pollution.”
It is estimated that between 40 and 60% of the turtles in Europe’s seas ingest plastics, while more than one million birds and about 100,000 marine mammals die every year as a result of plastic pollution.
