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? Could Plastic Pollution Worsen Post-COVID?
Posted on July 2, 2020 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste NewsSource: Could Plastic Pollution Worsen Post-COVID? Pollution Solutions Online
The coronavirus pandemic has created a situation that most people in the western world will have no frame of reference to deal with. For perhaps the first time in our lives, human health has been definitively placed above all else, including economic prosperity. But while this has had the unforeseen silver lining of reducing air pollution, it could ultimately exacerbate other kinds of contamination.
One such potential problem is that of plastic pollution. With governments around the world placing an emphasis on the need to acquire and wear personal protective equipment (PPE) when interacting in areas where social distancing is more difficult, there has been a surge in demand for single-use items. Although PPE is undoubtedly important in restricting the spread of the disease, it could eventually create an avalanche of plastic pollution that will only worsen an already sizable issue.
While governments were hastening to take steps that were unimaginable just few months ago to conatin covid, they have been dragging their feet to do anything about a plastic pandemic for decades. All the while the plastic industry garners their profits at the expense of the planet.
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