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? European Commission discussion problem of plastic waste.
Posted on October 2, 2013 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste NewsFrom the European commission conference today “Plastic waste: The role of plastic and plastic waste in a circular economy”
The Commission’s Green Paper on plastic waste in the environment, published on 7 March 2013, has attracted great interest with over 270 replies from public authorities, NGOs, industry and other stakeholders. Plastic waste has started to attract increased public attention, notably due to a growing number of reports about marine litter. An estimated amount of more than 100.000 t, mostly so-called microplastics, is floating in the world’s oceans. This is a great concern in particular since plastic and POPs concentrated on the surface of micro-plastics could enter the food chain. The potential environmental effects of this phenomenon are only beginning to be fully understood. Despite these concerns, apart from the general provisions in the EU Waste Framework Directive, no specific EU legislation addresses plastic waste in a strategic way. In the light of the EU’s policy objective of achieving a resource efficient recycling society it is hard to accept that in Europe we still landfill nearly 50% of plastic waste. On average nearly 80% of plastic in the marine environment is estimated to be coming from land. Stepping up plastic waste prevention, preparation for re-use, recycling and separate plastic waste collection, as well as improving plastic design and plastic product design are all essential contributors to help achieve ‘zero plastic to landfill’ and move to a circular economy. Plastic products and plastic waste are two sides of the same coin and recycling already starts in the product design phase. Designers need to be involved in the reflection on the entire life cycle of products including the waste phase. All actors designing, producing, using and disposing of plastic products and handling plastic waste will have to contribute to a less wasteful economy. The conference brings together high-level experts from very different angles who will help to get a more complete picture on how to adjust the present resource inefficient management of plastic waste and advance towards a more circular economy. The conference will be a platform for lively debates and the sharing of insights into the best possible way forward to address plastic and plastic waste in the future.
This is good progress to get this very large problem discussed at this high level and raising international awareness of this problem.
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