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? Coalition forms for extended producer responsibility
Posted on April 28, 2012 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste NewsPlastics News – Coalition forms for extended producer responsibility.
Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is the way to go for future management of plastic waste, especially for disposable plastic items.
For too long manufactures have had free reign to produce whatever and whenever they like irregardless of the consequences to our health and the environment. This would be considered irresponsible by them and irresponsible by the economy to let this go on. Now look at the level of plastic waste solution we have around the world and still spiralling down. The only way to lessen this is to bring in EPR in various forms that financially encourage manufacturers to;
1) Produce less plastic, use a biodegradable alternative, go back to paper and cardboard which is more than adequate for many products.
2) Be financially involved in getting the plastic waste caused by their products back to a recycling facility, such as a container deposit scheme for example which works extremely well for plastic bottles. A CDS will take plastic bottle recycling from under 10% to over 80% in a few months.
3) Use recycled plastic in their products rather than new plastic all the time.
4) Help incentivise the public to recycle rather than trash their waste. For example a CDS again.
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