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? Budget 2012: Disappointment for plastics industry | Packaging News | Manufacture | Jobs | Design | Materials | Equipment
Posted on April 9, 2012 by DrRossH in Plastic Limiting RegulationsThe plastics industry is all over the map when it comes to doing anything to make them recycle more. If a container deposit scheme is discussed they always come out with ‘that is the wrong thing to do’ and they argue that they should be allowed to manage the recycling of containers themselves as they can do it for less cost. Yet years on they have done little to improve container recycling.
Now we have here a government setting modest recycling standards, only 57%, and again industry comes out saying that is too aggressive and other solutions should be considered such as incineration.
What it comes down to it industry does not want to have to handle the recycled plastic. It is far easier for them to buy in nice clean raw plastic material and use that all the time. This is not a sustainable model at all and the plastics industry has to be made responsible for the recovery of the plastic waste its products make. Extended Producer Responsibility is what it is called. The industry needs to actively be contributing to recovery schemes, public education of recycling and the infrastructure need to make recycling efficient.
Up till now one could argue that the plastics industry has been using plastic irresponsibly with their only concern of how to make a sell a product and not care about the follow on consequences. To make a product that has just a few minutes of useful life then to last 100’s of years after disposal is irresponsible. We need very high recycling targets and each industry has to comply and contribute towards achieving those targets.
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