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? Ours will be remembered as the era of plastics
Posted on April 19, 2016 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste NewsUnless recycling increases dramatically, our overuse of plastics will leave an indelible scar on the face of the Earth, affecting how we’ll be remembered by future generations.
via Ours will be remembered as the era of plastics.
Some plastics are recycled, but most go into landfills or become litter. Recently, scientists have come to realise that much of the plastic in the environment is in the form of invisible particles. Some of these come from the breakdown of bags and other floating trash in the oceans, some from toothpaste and cosmetics, and much of it from clothes, which are mostly made from synthetic materials and give off plastic fibres every time they go through a wash. These “microplastics” can be measured in sand from beaches around the world, and in the guts of many fish.
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