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? Mass. advocates see momentum for plastic bag ban – Boston
Posted on November 18, 2012 by DrRossH in Plastic Limiting RegulationsMass. advocates see momentum for plastic bag ban – News – Boston.com.
More than 20 years have passed between when Nantucket became the first Massachusetts community to ban plastic shopping bags and Brookline became the second this week. Now, advocates are hoping there’s enough energy to extend the ban statewide.
Ban advocates, including the Massachusetts Sierra Club, say the bags are an eyesore, take centuries to break down and inevitably blow out of the garbage bins and landfills that are supposed to contain them. The bags contaminate woodlands, waterways and storm drains, where animals from birds to whales eat them and are weakened or die, they say.
Resident Clint Richmond, who helped push for the ban, said the bags’ environmental costs aren’t worth the benefits, especially with good alternatives such as paper and reusable bags.
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