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? BBC News – What should be done about plastic bags?
Posted on July 11, 2012 by DrRossH in Plastic Limiting RegulationsBBC News – What should be done about plastic bags?.
Other issues for plastic bags is trash being disposed to landfill in plastic bags. In a non biodegrading bag the trash inside can be isolated from the landfill contents therefore impeding the action of the landfill. I understand that these small grocery store type bags are the number 1 item in a landfill. This is a flaw in the opponents to ban the bag. They claim if bags are banned people will buy garbage bags and the same number of plastic bags end up in a landfill. This does not happen and is verified by sales of plastic garbage bags vs the number of store bags not handed out in bag ban areas like Ireland.
Another problem with the bags is people putting their recycled material into plastic bags first then putting that into their kerbside recycle bin. All this is doing is contaminating the contents of the recycle bin with a non biodegradable item. Many people do not understand why they should not put their recycle waste in these ‘handy’ plastic grocery store bags.
For the general public, litter of the bags is their main observation. But if you get into the actual workings of our waste and recycle industry there are strong technical reasons other than litter why these bags are not good.
The argument that plastic bags have a lower carbon foot print in their manufacture that paper bags is not a factor that should be considered in their comparison. It is he only argument that plastic bag proponents can come up with, so it is always mentioned. What we are referring to is plastic waste and plastic bags last 100’s of years. Plastic bags are adding to the accumulation of plastic waste we have been making ever since the 1970’s. We can use renewable energy to make either type of bag, leaving no carbon foot print yet plasic bags still leave their plastic foot print for these 100’s of years.
Discussion · No Comments
There are no responses to "BBC News – What should be done about plastic bags?". Comments are closed for this post.Oops! Sorry, comments are closed at this time. Please try again later.