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? 
Victoria to ban single-use plastics including straws, cutlery and plates by 2023 – ABC News
Posted on February 28, 2021 by DrRossH in General, Plastic Limiting RegulationsSource: Victoria to ban single-use plastics including straws, cutlery and plates by 2023 – ABC News
Plastic straws, cutlery, plates, drink stirrers, polystyrene food and drink containers, and plastic cotton bud sticks are the specific items getting phased out, the state government announced today.
“We believe that these are the easiest items that have substitutes available right now.”
This is very good news for the oceans and marine life. Extensive data collecting by BeachPatrol over the last 5 years however, on the types of plastic in the Port Phillip Bay, show the above items (except for straws) have the lowest count out of 28 different plastic items found. There are more common littered items that could be banned. Balloons, bottle tops, bottle labels, fast food containers, pre production pallets – Nurdles for example. The upcoming container refund scheme in 2023 has a good chance of drastically reducing bottle label litter and bottle tops
AS for the comments by Mr Lambert from the Restaurant association, about it being hard to find repalcement items due to Covid. What has covid got to do with supply of these type items? Nothing. It would appear he is not familiar with purchasing.
Then the comment about it would ‘make meals more expensive by up to $1’. Probably no where near that in reality. They industry has not been paying the real cost of these items for the last 40 years, so to complain now about having to use a more responsible material other than single use plastic is simply ignorant of what damage that industry is doing in the world all this time.
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