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? 
Britain is frantic now that China won’t take plastic waste
Posted on January 7, 2018 by DrRossH in Plastic Limiting Regulations
For 20 years, China has essentially been the UK’s plastic dump. Now that door is closed and nobody knows what to do.
Source: Britain is frantic now that China won’t take plastic waste
This change has come as a huge blow to the UK, in particular, which used to ship two-thirds of its waste plastic to China. Since 2012 the UK has sent more than 2.7 million tonnes of plastic to China.
Recoup, a UK-based charity working to promote recycling levels in the UK, blames the government for not taking action when it should have. An article in the Guardian says there were indications in 2008 and 2012 that the Chinese market may eventually be restricted, but the UK never did anything about it. Indeed, it’s acting as if it were blindsided by the announcement. Environment minister Michael Gove admits he doesn’t “know what impact it will have” and hasn’t “given it sufficient thought.”
What is the most likely scenario is that our western consumption habits won’t change we will just find another poor country to take our plastic waste. Which is just exacerbating the problem of how do we deal with plastic waste.
Discussion · No Comments
There are no responses to "Britain is frantic now that China won’t take plastic waste". Comments are closed for this post.Oops! Sorry, comments are closed at this time. Please try again later.