30 kg plastic garbage per person

Vindenes,Norway.Researchers found 30 plastic bags in the stomach of beaked whale.Photo: Christoph Noever / UiB / NTB scanpix

Households in the Stavanger region shed 30 kg plastic per person in a year. 70 percent of the plastics will be unsorted.

Ten municipalities in the region are collaborating on water, sewage and sanitation through the inter-municipal company IVAR.

The company has looked at what the nearly 320,000 residents throw in the trash, writes Stavanger Aftenblad.

They found 9,500 tons of plastic, and also waste from businesses which were not been included. This corresponds to approximately 30 kg plastic per person, young and old. Only 30 percent of plastic waste is sorted.

– We carefully check the residual waste, then we sort the waste into categories and weigh it and finally we find out how much plastic that end up there.

People are not making enough effort to recycle plastic, says Tord Tjelflaat, who is assistant manager for recycling at IVAR.

But recently, he has received many inquiries from sports clubs, kindergartens, schools and others who will assist with collecting plastic.

– It has taken off. The whale that was found with a plastic stomach makes a lot of activity, says Tjelflaat. He was referring to the whale which recently had to be euthanized at Sotra in the neighboring county of Hordaland.