A NSW Government website

NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environment

*These milestones are based on data from the ABS and may not accurately reflect your own life milestones.

Enter your birth year to find out which items will outlive you if they were littered that year.

Cigarette butt Coffee cup Plastic bottle Plastic bag Takeaway container Food wrapper 2000 2010 2020 2050 2080 2300 2400 2600 1,000,000 1993 - 0 years You are born 1994 - 1 year Fruit peel begins to break apart Tap to view 1998 - 5 years Start primary school 2003 - 10 years Cigarette butt begins to break apart Tap to view 2006 - 13 years Start high school 2010 - 17 years Own your first car 2013 - 20 years First full time job 2023 - 30 years Buy your first home 2024 - 31 years Takeaway coffee cup begins to break apart Tap to view 2025 - 32 years First child > 2030 - 37 years Confectionery wrapper begins to break apart > Tap to view 2060 - 67 years Takeaway container begins to break apart Tap to view 2078 - 85 years Your average life span 2400 - 407 years Plastic bag begins to break apart Tap to view 2493 - 500 years Plastic bottle begins to break apart Tap to view Cigarette butt Coffee cup Plastic bottle Plastic bag Takeaway container Food wrapper 2000 2010 2020 2050 2080 2300 2400 2600 1,000,000 1980 - 0 years You are born 1994 - 1 year Fruit peel begins to break apart Tap to view 1998 - 5 years Start primary school 2003 - 10 years Cigarette butt begins to break apart Tap to view 2006 - 13 years Start high school 2010 - 17 years Own your first car 2013 - 20 years First full time job 2023 - 30 years Buy your first home 2024 - 31 years Takeaway coffee cup begins to break apart Tap to view 2025 - 32 years First child > 2030 - 37 years Confectionery wrapper begins to break apart > Tap to view 2060 - 67 years Takeaway container begins to break apart Tap to view 2078 - 85 years Your average life span 2400 - 407 years Plastic bag begins to break apart Tap to view 2493 - 500 years Plastic bottle begins to break apart Tap to view

By age 20, you’ve used 2,600kg of plastic. That’s about the same weight as the tongue of a blue whale.

In the year <<Year of birth+ 94>>, batteries from <<Year of birth>> begin to break apart

Batteries contain chemicals that are extremely toxic when leaching out into the soil and marine environments.41

In <<Year of birth + 397>>, the nappies you wore as a baby begin to break apart

A baby can go through an average of 2,220 nappies in the first year. That’s a whopping 2 billion disposable nappies that go into landfill in Australia each year.

In <<Year of birth + 450>>, the masks worn by the doctors who delivered you begin to break apart

Small animals can become entangled in the elastic within the masks or within gloves as they begin to break apart.43

In <<Year of birth + 700>> fishing nets begin to break apart

A seemingly harmless discarded fishing net left to drift in the ocean can strangle animals like sea turtles travelling to their nesting ground.32

A million years later, glass from <<Year of birth>> will begin to break apart

Aussies consume 1.36 million tonnes of glass packaging per year. If you don’t recycle your glass bottle but dump it instead, it can take up to one million years for that glass to completely disintegrate. The good news: glass is 100% recyclable!36

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