I’ve seen our strawless future. And it’s just fine
Posted on June 24, 2019 by DrRossH in Plastic StrawsSource: I’ve seen our strawless future. And it’s just fine
A conversation the day before about single use plastics with Andy Lu, a smart machinery marketing expert from the Taiwan External Trade Development Council, had sent me on this chase.
Plastic straws will largely be phased out. And guess what? It’s OK. They’ll be replaced by recyclable PP lids. And the industry and environment will be better for it.
Still that lid is going to be a big littered problem. Anything take away has a high degree of littering. Just look at coffee cup lid littering. Massive amount of littering.

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?
Discussion · No Comments
There are no responses to "I’ve seen our strawless future. And it’s just fine". Comments are closed for this post.Oops! Sorry, comments are closed at this time. Please try again later.