Think before you buy this Black Friday, warns environmentalist
It's thought as much as 80 percent of everything bought in the UK's Black Friday sales last year was thrown away after one use
We're being urged not to buy things this Black Friday unless we genuinely need it.
The message comes as figures show in the UK alone last year the shopping event caused 429-thousand metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions.
That's the equivalent of 435 return flights from London to New York.
Not only that but research by Forbes suggests 80 percent of items bought last year were either thrown away immediately or only used once.
To raise awareness we have spoken to the co-founder and chief executive of South West based company Bower Collective.
Nick Torday set up the firm to cut down on plastic pollution by offering customers reusable household items.
"Black Friday in recent years has really accelerated exponentially and I think it's now clear from some of the data, the negative environmental impact that's having," he said.
"People are buying an enormous amount of stuff that they just don't need and chucking it away, so it's generating an awful lot of unnecessary waste and also generating a huge amount of carbon impact."
Of the plastic waste that the UK does produce, last year 1.8 million kilograms of it was exported to other countries every day.
Statistics suggest only nine percent of all plastic waste ever produced has been recycled.
Twelve percent has been incinerated, while a huge 79 percent has either ended up in landfill or been dumped in the natural environment.
"Plastic is such a problem because unlike glass and metal, it can only be recycled a couple of times, sometimes not at all," a press release from Bower Collective reads.
"Recycling plastic decreases polymer length, which determines the strength, flexibility and weight of plastic. The shorter they are, the lower their quality.
"This common misconception that plastic can be indefinitely recycled has been exploited to justify the continuous overproduction of plastic."
"I have to say I was surprised by that data point that so much of it (things bought on Black Friday) was thrown away," Nick said.
"I think it speaks to this idea that, some of the discounting is so heavy and aggressive that people just think, 'why not? I'll buy it and if I don't need it then so be it'.
"But it's not very encouraging that it is that wasteful.
"Our message as a sustainable business is, be more mindful."
Microplastic waste has been found all across the globe, including at the summit of Mount Everest and at the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean.
"It's fair to say there isn't a square inch of the planet that hasn't in some way been impacted by this proliferation of single use, disposable plastic," Nick said.
On Bower Collective's website you can calculate how much plastic waste your household produces.
Just follow this link here.
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