How many people today grab a takeaway coffee cup from the local cafe to drink on the go? We don’t know, but the number must be enormous.. Most every one of the above have a plastic top that will last 100s of years. Some cafes still use plastic cups that last a similar time. Is 10 minutes of coffee worth 100s of years of trash?
These items can be seen littering our gutters and on our streets all over the place. If they were all cardboard, they would still be littered, but they would, at least, be gone in a short time.
They do not need to be made of plastic.
On the way home from the gym last week, a distance of about 1 km (1/2 mile), I counted the items of plastic litter on the curb as I walked. In that short distance I counted 63 pieces of plastic litter. Plastic drink bottles, bottle tops, candy wrappers, plastic film, polystyrene fragments etc. That seemed to be a lot to me. I guess it is a generational thing. Our parents would have been horrified to see that amount, whereas it seems to go unnoticed by our youth of today. In another 20 years how many pieces will there be on this stretch, -- 200? What will today’s youth think of that new amount then when they are older? Will their children be so readily accepting of a higher amount of litter? 
As Efforts on a Global Treaty Stall, Cities and States Are on the Front Lines of the Battle Over Plastic Pollution – USA
Posted on January 16, 2025 by DrRossH in Plastic Recycling, Plastic Waste NewsEnvironmental advocates working on plastics policy expect to be on offense and defense in 2025 while closely monitoring the Trump administration’s fossil fuel and deregulatory agenda.
U.N. officials have said plastics are part of a triple planetary threat of pollution, biodiversity loss and climate change. Plastics, nearly all of which are made by fossil fuels, are inexorably linked with climate change. Under a business-as-usual scenario, the plastics lifecycle could be responsible for as much as 19 percent of global greenhouse emissions by 2040, according to the U.N.
“We have tested the resilience of this planet to its limit,” said Jyoti Mathur-Filipp, executive secretary of the Intergovernmental Negotiation Committee Secretariat, the administrative body assisting with the talks, in written comments after the South Korea meeting concluded. “Now is the time for us to push our own limits and honour the trust placed in us. We have no choice but to succeed.”
Trump’s “America first” agenda, his support for the oil and gas industry that fuels plastic manufacturing and his disdain for the U.N. Paris climate agreement, give environmental advocates little hope that his administration will fight for a strong plastics treaty.
Populist polticians will always wreck havoc on the country and its economy. By definition that has to be the result. It is ignorance to think otherwise.
Discussion · No Comments
There are no responses to "As Efforts on a Global Treaty Stall, Cities and States Are on the Front Lines of the Battle Over Plastic Pollution – USA". Comments are closed for this post.Oops! Sorry, comments are closed at this time. Please try again later.