August 2011 - Plastic Waste Solutions
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A rigged outcome?
Posted on August 16, 2011 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste NewsThe Boomerang Alliance in Australia has walked out of the Environmental Protection and Heritage Council (EPHC) hosted discussions about new national recycling measures, citing a ‘rigged’ outcome. The discussions began in June last year, when the then environment minister Peter...
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Lack of treatment options
Posted on August 16, 2011 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste NewsAnother example of the situation of composting being an poor example to handle plastic waste. In May this year, Inside Waste Weekly of Australia reported on the lack of treatment options for compostable organics, with around eight facilities...
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Habit of not using plastic bags
Posted on August 2, 2011 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste NewsAustralia’s NORTH TERRITORIANS have been urged to start getting into the habit of not using plastic bags. Environment Minister Karl Hampton said yesterday the ban on plastic bags would come into force on September 1. More
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Opting for eco-friendly “green gas”
Posted on August 1, 2011 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste NewsABOUT 20 per cent of Australian consumers are opting for eco-friendly "green gas" to offset their greenhouse gas emissions, a survey has found. More
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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?