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? Packaging & The Environment: Shoppers Say, “Please Help Me!”
Posted on March 21, 2012 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste NewsPackaging & The Environment: Shoppers Say, “Please Help Me!” | Solid Waste & Recycling Magazine.
One of PWS’s main issues is that packaging manufacturers make a lot of green claims by changing their design as in lightweighting bottles, using plant based plastics, etc while all along they are just serving their own needs for better costs and material supply and it has little to do with the environment.
Here are two good statements from this article.
‘Shoppers are becoming more skeptical of manufacturers behaviors and motives in this area, as more state that companies are increasingly self-serving (enhance reputation; realize profit gains) and show less concern for the environment.’
‘In addition, it is becoming apparent that the days of disguising cost reductions (e.g., smaller, thinner packages) as being driven by environmental concerns may be coming to an end, and continuing to do so may test shoppers’ good will,” he continued.
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