Nowadays most of our household waste is plastic. Every year, we get through five million tonnes of plastic in this country alone. Recycling plastic bags in Bangladesh © Zed Nelson/Panos Pictures As well as all the packaging in our supermarkets and shops, plastic carrier bags are a BIG problem - 8 billion of them are given away every year in the UK, enough to cover the whole of London in plastic!

	Imagine you are a plastic carrier bag! Find out what might happen to you if you lived in different places. Click on the bags on the map to find out more: How big is your bag mountain at home? Do you and your family use them again?

	Here, somebody is making something else out of old plastic bags - what do you think she is making? Weaving plastic © Mary Young Some supermarkets are doing something about the plastic problem. Co-op and Sainsburys now make bags out of plant materials that are biodegradable. Instead of taking hundreds of years to break down, these bags are a tasty meal for bacteria that eat them away in just a few weeks! You could come up with your own idea to cut down on plastic bags. You could start a SNUB campaign - Say No to Unwanted Bags! Or go to the competition page and try our technology challenge!

	We are running out of space for all our waste. Now, we are shipping some of it to other countries like China and India. China is becoming a dumping ground for a new type of waste known as 'E-Waste'. Go to the next page to find out more.