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? England building large waste-to-energy plant
Posted on August 11, 2012 by DrRossH in Landfills and DisposalPlastics News – England building large waste-to-energy plant.
Air Products and Chemicals Inc., which is based in Allentown, Pa., plans to start construction in the next few weeks, with the intention of converting the first of 350,000 metric tons of residual waste a year – capable of powering 50,000 homes – by 2014.
The plant, a U.K. first, will use AlterNRG advanced gasification technology to create up to 50 megawatts annually. Air Products hopes it will also have the potential to generate renewable hydrogen, with fuelling public transport a possible end-use.
Matthew Aylott of the National Non-Food Crops Centre (NNFCC), which advised the government on the energy-from-waste market, said he expected a “high proportion of plastics” to be included in the 350,000 metric ton figure.
The British Plastics Federation welcomed the development, with its public and corporate affairs director Philip Law commenting: ‘‘Used plastics are too valuable a resource to consign to landfill. For fractions unfeasible to recycle this is a great initiative.’’
Renelle says:
Post Author September 3, 2012 at 2:05 pmJust learned that caerel box plastic liners are usually made of HDPE’s (high density polyethylene) which is the #2 for plastic recycling. Check if they can be added to your curbside recyclables but this is good news for caerel enthusiasts/recycling enthusiast like me!Got the info from the .