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? Unilever calls for UN treaty to tackle plastic problem
Posted on January 20, 2022 by DrRossH in Plastic Limiting RegulationsMany governments and organisations are working hard to deal with plastic waste and pollution, but Unilever believes that overall, the problem’s getting worse and efforts aren’t keeping pace. Unilever says we need a UN treaty to truly tackle the issue.
“This trajectory will be accelerated by new commitments that are set to see virgin plastic use fall by almost 20 per cent in absolute terms by 2025 compared to 2018,” Unilever said.
“But while things are moving in the right direction and gaining momentum, these types of commitments alone aren’t enough. We need to go much further and much faster.
“Without changes to how nations use, recycle and ultimately reduce plastic usage, we will not fix the problem. We need tough, global action that gets to the root cause. And in some cases, that means moving from voluntary to mandatory measures.”
This is why, alongside more than 70 other businesses, Unilever is calling for an ambitious and legally binding UN treaty – based on a circular economy approach – to tackle plastic pollution on a global scale, similar to how the Paris Agreement put us on a path to tackle the climate crisis.
The plastic waste problem is as large a problem for the planet as it climate change, hence setting a new agreement akin to the Paris agreement is necessary. But will it gain enough momentum to make this happen?
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