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? Ghana: Plastic Waste Is Destroying Marine and Land Species – Says VP Mahama – Tim Hinchliffe
Posted on May 25, 2012 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste News“Plastic waste is a serious issue facing this country. Walk down any street in any town, city, or village, and you can see the plastic floating in rivers, clogging drains, hanging on trees, or being strung upon power lines. By trading in their trash for cash, Ghanaians have been given a unique opportunity to make some extra money while cleaning up their environment, creating thousands of jobs, and reducing the risks of floods and outbreaks of illness.”
Since plastic is not biodegradable, it takes many years for it to decompose. When people throw plastic into the street, it almost always ends up in sewer drains, which is a major cause for flooding.
“When it rains, the roads flood, and why do they flood? Because plastics have found their way down into the underground drains and choked them,” the Vice President explained. This still holds true for covered sewer drains. Plastic is still finding its way through the cracks, and clogging the sewers where nobody can access them.
“With open drains, at least, when they get choked, you can get people to go into the drains and take the plastic material out. With the sealed drains, we’re not going to be able to take out the plastic,” said Mahama. There is a definite health concern when plastic is the cause of flooding. Flooding creates an environment of dirty and sickness-infested waters.”
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