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? Refundable containers in Quebec: $20 million not Redeemed
Posted on April 4, 2012 by DrRossH in Plastic Limiting RegulationsRefundable containers in Quebec: $20 million lost | Solid Waste & Recycling Magazine.
Yet another example of how well these schemes work. Yes we know that not every bottle and can is not redeemed and it is in part those funds that are not paid out to the returners, that make the surplus funds used to fund the system. In every location where a container deposit scheme has been put in place the recycling rate goes from the 20% numbers to near 8o% numbers.
If partisan politics could be put aside and politicians actually made decisions for the good of the country not for themselves, we would see a lot more of these type schemes in place.
The container dealing industry like Coke fight hard to not get these schemes put in place. This makes little sense. Their biggest cost is relabelling the bottles which costs, hmmm about 0.1 cents. Coke and other like executives must see their bottles littered everywhere and every littered bottle is a bad advertisement for them. So why do they let this go on and on and spend a lot of money to keep this going on and on? If they had 80% of their bottles returned they would have to reuse them perhaps that is what they are scared of. It may be easier to buy new material all the time to make new bottles rather than reuse bottles. That is not a sustainable attitude at all and is simply irresponsible manufacturing.
The bottling industry have always said a CDS is not the best way to go and we should let them take care of the recycling to bring the numbers up. This has been going on for over 20 years now and with little change so why do our politicians keep believing them. The bottling industry must be quietly smirking at being able to get away with this for all these years.
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