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? 
Why Compostable Bags Aren’t Compostable in San Diego – USA
Posted on August 21, 2024 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste News
It takes a lot of digging to verify whether a compostable or biodegradable product is what it says it is. Take this San Diego example.
Source: Why Compostable Bags Aren’t Compostable in San Diego
Then there’s the brave new world of plant-based, otherwise dubbed, compostable plastics.
“That gets really messy because some are 100 percent plant-based, made of corn or seaweed, and they should be biodegradable,” Brandon said. “Some are only 50 percent plant and 50 percent petroleum-based plastic. A part of it will never break down.”
Kelly Terry, a spokesperson for the city’s Environmental Services Department, wrote in an email that products labeled “compostable” do not all break down the same way, so the Miramar Greenery composting facility cannot accept these items.
When they do end up at the Miramar Greenery, a part of the Miramar landfill repurposed for composting the city’s food waste, they “cause contamination and diminish the quality of the finished compost,” she wrote.
“All plastic bags labeled compostable or biodegradable should be placed in the trash bin,” Terry wrote.
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