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? California report says plastics recycling well below EPR targets -USA
Posted on January 9, 2026 by DrRossH in Plastic RecyclingSource: California report says plastics recycling well below EPR targets – Plastics News
The CalRecycle report said multimaterial aseptic and gable-top cartons, for example, have less than a 1 percent rate. A Los Angeles Times story said milk cartons face not being allowed to carry the chasing arrows recycling symbol in the state.
For more commonly recycled types of plastics packaging, the rates were higher but still short of 65 percent.
For clear PET bottles, jars and jugs that are not in the state’s bottle bill program, the recycling rate was 16 percent, while for high density polyethylene containers like detergent bottles, it was 19 percent.
“Expect to see a tsunami of class action lawsuits against the product companies for false advertising, especially now that plaintiffs’ attorneys have CalRecycle data to prove that the items are not actually recycled,” Dell said.
Dell pointed to low recycling rates for PP containers and PET thermoforms as problematic, and said the report likely inflates recycling rates because it counts exported waste without closely verifying recycling overseas.
A related law in California, SB-343, requires that packaging meet similar recycling targets to carry the chasing arrows symbol indicating recyclability.
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