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? The birds on Lord Howe Island are now so full of plastic, they crunch – Australia
Posted on May 18, 2025 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste NewsIt’s an exclusive tourist destination and one of the most pristine places on the planet. It’s the last place you would expect to find birds with bellies so full of plastic that they crunch if you squeeze them.
Source: The birds on Lord Howe Island are now so full of plastic, they crunch – ABC News
Then he watched the stomach contents spill into a tray: a syringe cap, a cigarette butt, a screw cap from a piece of furniture, and larger bits of plastic that were harder to dislodge.
“The tub was full,” he said.
“It was horrible to see. It was very sad. I felt a real range of emotions, from anger and sadness through to shame, and I don’t know, just frustration.”
The next day, the team dissected birds that had been found dead on the beach, and what was inside was worse.
Since Dr Lavers’s first visit in 2008, she has witnessed an increase from about three quarters of birds carrying about five to 10 pieces of plastic, to every single bird having 50 or more pieces.
Until last month, the most they had ever found was 403 pieces in 2024.
“I’m sad to say just yesterday we blew [the record] out of the water, and our new record holder is 778 pieces of plastic in an 80-day-old seabird chick, in one of the most pristine corners of our planet.”
THis is so awful
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