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? How many drink containers is NSW really tossing every year? The answer is ugly
Posted on April 6, 2016 by DrRossH in Plastic Limiting RegulationsOfficial figures say NSW litters 4 per cent of all beverage containers every year. That’s 168 million bottles and cans, 17,700 tonnes. But is that really all?
via How many drink containers is NSW really tossing every year? The answer is ugly.
Domestic and international recycling companies have estimated there would be an investment of up to $160 million in a world’s best practice container deposit scheme.
Companies such as Remondis, Envirobank Recycling, TOMRA and Revive Recycling have pitched their support for a scheme that includes 600-800 automated redemption points, automated and manual depots in lower population areas and hubs to service the commercial and industrial sector.
“A CDS in NSW using world’s best practice will reclaim around 1 billion containers every year…and will upgrade the recycling of a further 2 billion or so. Together this is conservatively estimated to be worth around $35 million annually,” said Markus Fraval, CEO of Revive Recycling.
This article only mentions the 4% that are littered or 168 million bottles and cans in NSW alone. 168 million!
But what about the other 70% that end up in landfills and are lost resources for Australia. That is a much bigger problem.
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