After a friendly picnic, a flowery meadow has every chance to turn into a landfill. In a welcoming green forest, plastic garbage will remain for hundreds of years - or will fall into the nearest water body together with rain and wind.

Cigarette butts are the most common type of plastic litter on the planet, with more than 4.5 trillion of them. A cigarette butt takes about 10 years to decompose, releasing persistent toxins such as arsenic and lead.

Plastic utensils are the seventh most common item of litter found on coastlines, killing more than a million marine animals and birds a year. In the European Union, disposable tableware has been banned from sale since 2021. Even "paper" disposable tableware most often has a plastic layer (lamination).

There are many "eco-friendly" and "biodegradable" disposable tableware in stores. Most often it is oxo-degradable plastic - ordinary plastic with an additive that accelerates its disintegration into small particles under the influence of UV rays and oxygen. And corn plastic is still the same plastic that doesn't decompose for hundreds of years, just made from plant material.

12.5 thousand railroad tank cars, or 1.5 million tons of cleaning products are produced a year in Russia alone. Most of them are not worth using near bodies of water because of petroleum products and aggressive surfactants. Only a few cities have full-fledged modern wastewater treatment systems.

It would seem that our cottages and gardens are precious corners of all things natural and natural. But look closely! Everything is made of plastic, from labels, signs and covering material to fencing and equipment. We buy seeds in plastic bags and grow seedlings in plastic pots that will then sit in a landfill for about 500 years. We choose short-lived plastic tools and refuse "grandma's" compost, while all developed countries, on the contrary, are re-learning the art of composting and favoring compostable materials.

Have you ever seen old plastic bags and films crumble? Alas, this is not biodegradation, but the breakdown into microparticles of the same plastic, which then permeate everywhere. Plants absorb the plastic nanoparticles by their roots - that's how they are incorporated into the food chain.

In an average week, we eat enough microplastics to fill a credit card.

Especially a lot of plastic labeled 3 - PVC - is found on our dacha plots, and it is this plastic that is especially dangerous to health and the environment. PVC is used to make water pipes and most of the equipment. PVC often contains phthalates - substances that give the material flexibility, but are easily washed out of it and accumulate in the body, causing endocrine disruption.PVC products are not recyclable and are destined for landfills or incinerators.

Every two weeks, rivers in China, Indonesia and Bangladesh are dyed with the colors of new fashion collections. To make the clothes super-cheap, manufacturers economize on everything from workers' wages and textile quality - to sewage treatment. This is the only way "fast fashion," or "fast fashion," works.

Every year the world produces 400 billion m2 of textiles - mostly of poor quality. 15% of it becomes waste while still in the factory. 10% ends up in landfills as unsold leftovers. We buy twice as much clothing as we did 20 years ago, and wear half as much. In a second, enough clothes go to landfill to fill a truck.

63% of all clothing today is made from synthetic fibers such as polyester, nylon and acrylic. Washing alone releases half a million tons of plastic into the ocean each year - the equivalent of nearly 50 billion plastic bottles.

But natural materials don't solve the problem either. It was cotton production that turned the Aral Sea into a desert over half a century: one cotton T-shirt requires 2,700 liters of water. In addition, cotton fields use 16% of all pesticides in agriculture. If we trace the path of a T-shirt from the cotton fields of India to a Russian store, it may well pass through fabric production in China and tailoring in Bangladesh. Greenhouse gas emissions associated with clothing production account for 8% of global anthropogenic emissions.

Ah, the holidays! Balloons and streamers, ribbons, glitter and confetti, shiny gift wrapping and other "tinsel".... And most of the holiday décor is not recyclable. Almost everything you see on the shelves, quite quickly will turn into garbage and will lie in landfills for centuries.

Helium-inflated holiday balloons often fly away to end their lives in forests and bodies of water, where they take a long time to decompose or end up in the stomachs of animals that mistake them for food. Especially dangerous are foil balloons, which do not decompose for hundreds of years. Do you still find the tradition of releasing balloons into the sky charming?

57% of Russians consider New Year souvenirs and symbols of the year as useless gifts that do not bring joy. 52% do not need gifts such as soft toys, and 48% each need gifts such as a calendar, soap or a razor. In 2021, 31% of Russians would like to turn in their New Year gifts back to the store.

During the winter holiday season, we throw 25% more trash into landfills than usual. Every year, more than 60,000 kilometers of packaging tape ends up in landfills in the U.S. alone - enough to cover our planet one and a half times around the equator.

The food industry is responsible for 80% of the world's deforestation: increasingly, forests are being replaced by fields, pastures and agro-industries. When it comes to climate change, livestock production has a greater impact than all modes of transportation combined, from private cars to jet planes.

One and a half billion cows emit 14.5% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gases on our planet If nothing changes, by 2050, emissions from agriculture will account for more than half of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Agriculture accounts for 70% of global water consumption. It takes 15,000 liters of water to produce just 1 kg of beef, 1 kg of pork 6,000 liters, 1 kg of chicken meat 4,300 liters. It takes 140 liters of water to make just 1 cup of coffee.

But do we save the products that cost our planet so much? No: we throw away about a third of all food produced!

Every year in Russia alone, about 17 million tons of food ends up in landfills - enough to feed 30 million people.

Globally, food waste is approximately 1.3 billion tons of food per year - enough to feed 3 billion people.

In 2018, 2 billion people worldwide suffered moderate to severe food insecurity, including 47 million children under 5 years old.

Mother's milk is not only the most convenient and affordable, but also the most environmentally friendly food choice for your baby. However, "old school" pediatricians - followed by commercial companies - recommend that from 4 months of age, babies should be introduced to complementary foods in the form of purees, milk products (often with sugar in them) and formula. All this is often advised even to moms who have no problems with breastfeeding and their babies with weight gain!

This ignores the recommendations of the World Health Organization: breast milk can make up to 100% of the nutrition of the child up to 1 year, and complementary foods are introduced from 6 months, and it can be done from the common table of the family.

From 2,000 to 6,000 disposable diapers will have time to go to the landfill before a little person learns to "do their own thing" on the potty. There they will sit for about 500 years. Add to this wet wipes, absorbent diapers, baby food packaging, quickly boring brightly colored toys and other "disposable" entertainment.... A whole mountain of garbage that will "outlive" not only your children, but also your grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Children's goods - this is a huge industry, speculating on the dreams and anxieties of parents, and most importantly - on their great desire to give their child all the best. Clothes, strollers, furniture and decorations for the nursery, all sorts of gadgets and toys - most of it is either not needed by the child at all, or may well be not new, but used. It is not things that make children happy, but our love, care and precious time together!

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed perceptions of hygiene and safety for a long time: never before have we consumed so many disposable masks, gloves, shoe covers and antibacterial wipes. So why do experts call them an "environmental time bomb"?
The global market of disposable masks has grown more than 200 times in 2020. In Russia alone, about 10 million disposable masks per day end up in landfills! In total, since the beginning of the pandemic, mankind has produced more than a trillion such masks.
A three-layer disposable mask takes about 500 years to decompose. They are already being found high in the Altai Mountains and at the bottom of the ocean.

In March-April 2020, we used so many disposable masks, gloves and individual packaging that the country generated an average of 20-30% more waste.
Personal protective equipment is Class B medical waste. They cannot be mixed with household waste, but it happens all the time.
In fact, we are dealing with a new type of waste, and operators don't know what to do with it. There is no official system for collecting medical waste from citizens in Russia.