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Friday, November 30, 2007
Visualizing Really Big Numbers
 Detail of Plastic Bottles by Chris Jordan Reproduced with permission |
200,000 Americans die from cigarrette smoking every six months. 8 million trees are harvested in the US every month to make the paper for mail order catalogs. Two million plastic beverage bottles are used in the US every five minutes. 426,000 cell phones are retired in the US every day. 1.14 million brown paper supermarket bags are used in the US every hour. 106,000 aluminum cans are used in the US every thirty seconds. 60,000 plastic bags are used in the US every five seconds.
These are staggering numbers. So gargantuan that they are completely incomprehensible to us, and therefore lose their impact.
That’s why everyone needs to take a look at Chris Jordan’s online exhibit, Running the Numbers. It’s updated regularly, so be sure to check back on it every so often.
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