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? Should we ditch the resin identification codes? – USA
Posted on August 11, 2012 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste NewsShould we ditch the resin identification codes? – PlasticsNews.
“essential that we move plastic recycling beyond the numbers because, in my opinion, the RIC [resin identification code] is holding back recycling.”
Recyclers say the code adds an unnecessary layer of confusion and prevents more plastics from being recycled.
Putting the code on a container implies to some consumers that their community will accept them in the recycling stream.
But the reality is the code doesn’t have a lot of meaning for most recyclers.
In regards to the last sentance then, if the recyclers have moved on to different criteria to sort the recyclate, then there are much better ways to get plastic recycling up at the consumer level.
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