January 2013 - Plastic Waste Solutions
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Can we recycle a plastic drink bottle?
Posted on January 25, 2013 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste NewsThis is an interesting question that came up recently. We all push to get plastic bottles out of landfills or from litter back to recycling centres to be reused. But who is reusing them? Can the big drink companies take...
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Ethiopia’s 50MW Waste to Energy Plant Could be First of Many
Posted on January 22, 2013 by DrRossH in Landfills and DisposalEthiopia's 50MW Waste to Energy Plant Could be First of Many - Waste Management World. "Instead of suffering the stench of the waste disposal site sitting at our home, we can sit with added electricity in the grid, that gives...
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Biodegradable Plastics: True or False? Good or Bad? | Sustainable Plastics?
Posted on January 14, 2013 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste NewsBiodegradable Plastics: True or False? Good or Bad? | Sustainable Plastics?.
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Unilever to phase out plastic microbeads from facial scrubs
Posted on January 14, 2013 by DrRossH in Plastic & Wildlife, Plastic Waste NewsUnilever to phase out plastic microbeads from facial scrubs | Environment | guardian.co.uk. UK marine conservation groups are claiming victory after Unilever agreed to phase out miniscule plastic...
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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?