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? If San Mateo County supervisors approve plastic bags ban Tuesday, 24 cities may follow – California
Posted on October 19, 2012 by DrRossH in Plastic Limiting Regulations“I love those bags, but too many times these bags end up in our oceans,” Taggart said. “My feeling is no matter how convenient they are, we as human beings have a responsibility to this earth not to destroy it or not to destroy other animals.”
Let this momentum roll on for more plastic bag bans. Yes they may be convenient at that time, but so is using a reusable cloth shopping bag.
Using them for waste bin liners or doggy poop bags is no licence to use a plastic bag that will last 100’s of years. Yes plastic is good as it is water proof but it is also very bad for many consumer applications for the same reason. Before any one cries foul they need to go to a landfill and have a look around at the 1000’s of plastic bags visible and blowing around. If the landfill is near the ocean or a waterway, guess where these bags go? We just don’t need to do that. In the 40 odd years of using plastic bags we have made a huge mess and killed so much wildlife it is embarrassing. Go buy a landfill biodegradable bag (not a degradable bag as those are worse for the environment) and use that for you bin liner and doggy poop. They are cheap. They will biodegrade away in a few years when they are discarded to a landfill. That is a much better solution than complaining about keeping non biodegradable bags around.
Discussion · No Comments
There are no responses to "If San Mateo County supervisors approve plastic bags ban Tuesday, 24 cities may follow – California". Comments are closed for this post.Oops! Sorry, comments are closed at this time. Please try again later.