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? Cash for Cans Support – Tasmania
Posted on June 20, 2011 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste NewsThere is overwhelming support in Tasmania for container deposit legislation, a survey has found.
An EMRS poll of 1000 Tasmanians has found 91 per cent agreed with the introduction of such a scheme.
Only 6 per cent of respondents were opposed, and 3 per cent were unsure.
South Australia has long had deposit laws for bottles and cans and the Northern Territory is to follow suit this year.
Pro-recycling group The Boomerang Alliance said a cash-for-containers scheme would increase Tasmania’s woeful recycling rates, which at 14 per cent of all waste are the worst in Australia.
The group favours a 10c deposit on every canned and bottled alcoholic and non-alcoholic drink sold, which would be refunded to customers when taken to recycling depots or “reverse vending machines”.
It would also create about 300 new jobs, said Alliance spokesman Rob Kelman.
“The establishment of a container deposit system in Tasmania would not cost the government anything, as the private sector would invest between $9 million and $15 million in new infrastructure to collect and recycle containers,” he said.
“Unfortunately the national process to introduce a scheme is in the slow lane and unlikely to result in anything but more delay.
“The time for Parliament to act is now as our landfills pile to overflowing with rubbish.
“There really is no excuse with the community overwhelmingly demanding action”.
Of the state’s three major political parties, only the Greens support the state acting unilaterally on container-deposit laws.
The Government is pursuing a national agreement but will examine going it alone if that fails.
In March, the Greens tabled in State Parliament a two-step plan to speed up the establishment of container-deposit legislation. The scheme would require that a deposit be paid on soft drink, juice, milk, water or alcoholic beverage containers.
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