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? Europe surpasses plastic recycling goals
Posted on November 10, 2012 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste NewsPlastics News – Europe surpasses plastic recycling goals.
European countries recycled 33.6 percent of all its plastics packaging waste in 2011, surpassing the EU’s minimum requirement of 22.5 percent, according to a new report.
The report, “Plastics — The Facts 2012,” says European Union members, as well as Norway and Sweden, recovered 66.8 percent of plastic packaging waste last year. Some 5.246 million metric tons (33.6 percent) was recycled and 33.2 percent went to energy recovery processes.
EPRO, which was one of the partners on the report, says Europe’s recycling rate has improve, rising from 32.6 percent in 2010, demonstrating that “national recycling schemes in Europe, based on extended producer responsibility, manage well.”
All countries except for Malta and Cyprus exceeded the EU’s minimum targets and 18 achieved rates of more than 30 percent. Netherlands came top, with a rate of 48.4 percent, followed by Czech Republic, Sweden, Estonia and Germany.
There was also a marked difference in terms of sending waste to landfill. Nine countries sent only 10 percent of waste to landfill but nine countries, including the United Kingdom, sent more than 50 percent.
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