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? US Cities Face “Moment Of Reckoning” As China Halts Trash Imports
Posted on February 25, 2019 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste NewsSource: US Cities Face “Moment Of Reckoning” As China Halts Trash Imports
Contrary to the common wisdom that recycling will save the sea turtles, the reality is that most of the recyclables collected in the US are incinerated or thrown in a landfill (sorry, turtles).
, while China has a reputation for being inundated with pollution and smog according to the American popular perception, now that the Chinese aren’t taking our trash, we have no idea what to do with it.
“The unfortunate thing in the United States is that when people recycle they think it’s taken care of, when it was largely taken care of by China,” said Gilman. “When that stopped, it became clear we just aren’t able to deal with it.”
Governments have had years to look at this problem but did nothing. They all that waste was a huge problem and non one wanted to admit that it has to be dealt with and there is a real cost to do this. Exporting our rubbish was a very bad idea. Now we are all in trouble as this mountain of waste is going to grow so fast and all its associated problems will now start appearing. The human health issue will be huge. The pollution factor will be enormous. But we have to start paying the full price of products to get this under control.
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