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? Does Promoting Green Environment Include You?
Posted on June 7, 2013 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste NewsDaily Times – Leading News Resource of Pakistan – Does promoting green environment include you?.
This author is correct on all the problems with plastic but wrong on how to deal with it. Her promotion of Oxo degradable plastics is flawed.
The above article was many errors in it. When talks about biodegradable plastic are made there has to be clear distinction made between how and where the biodegradation will occur. Oxo or photodegradable plastics are degradable, not biodegradable. Degradable is the breakdown by a chemical reaction into small plastic fragments. Biodegradable is a biological process whereby naturally occurring microorganisms digest the plastic. Two very different process and often confused by people who do not understand. Oxo degradable is nothing to do with biodegradable. Oxo degradation will only occur for a littered item on the ground in sunlight over a couple of years. No one should encourage leaving litter around for a couple of years. Oxo degradable is not mainstream recyclable either. To dispose of an oxodegradable product requires for it to be incinerated in reality. Then if it is to be collected and burned then why put an additive in it in the first place. Sadly the salesmen of the oxo additives are greenwashing their products to mislead those who do not understand the process.
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