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? Everyone Wins with Market Based EPR Recycling Programs for Packaging USA
Posted on January 15, 2015 by DrRossH in Stewardship Waste ProgramsDuring the last few years, extended producer responsibility (EPR) has ignited the imagination of recycling professionals and advocates who have sought a policy solution that addresses unmet needs in the private and environmental sectors for packaging and printed paper waste. Recycling in the U.S. has not met its potential. National recycling rates have not exceeded 34 percent, while other industrialized countries recycle twice that percentage. U.S. recycling programs are inconsistent and vary in quality, allowing valuable resources to end up in landfills, be incinerated or blow away into water sources. Our current recycling system is not keeping pace with supply and demand. Additional public funds to enhance and expand recycling are in short supply.
EPR is the way forward with all parties being involved in the reclaiming of waste materials and reducing landfill waste and litter. Producers have to start to realise they are part of this solution too.
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