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? Single-use plastics still being distributed at markets years after Darwin city council ban – Australia
Posted on October 31, 2022 by DrRossH in Plastic Limiting RegulationsIntroduced to stop plastic from Darwin’s popular markets being used for a few minutes before harming the environment for centuries, the 2019 ban required retailers to turn to biodegradable or compostable alternatives instead.
He said many affordable solutions simply melt in Darwin’s intense heat.
“We bought … PLA [polylactic acid lids] – the appropriate lids – in from overseas, and we lost probably 120,000 of them …they were thrown away, a few thousand dollars,” Mr Hancock said.
Others fear a blind eye is being turned as conventional plastics slowly return, setting a concerning precedent for when the Northern Territory follows other jurisdictions and phases out the products altogether by 2025.
‘Standard plastics have come back’
And in Darwin, there is no commercial composting facility to provide conditions suitable to break down materials from polyactic acid.
The Darwin council said four years ago that it planned to construct one, however it is still undertaking a business case.
It said it planned to have a facility operational within the next few years.
“If [PLA-based materials] go back to landfill, it’s not clear what is going to happen with these products,” Ms Paganetto said.
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