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? Palm Desert City to Discuss the Banning of Plastic Bags
Posted on December 30, 2011 by DrRossH in Plastic Limiting RegulationsPWS was surprised at most of the comments entered on this article. It is very short sighted thinking of many people. Plastic bags are an item that have a life time of just a few minutes and then discarded. In a landfill they will last for hundreds of years. They are light weight and prone to blow around if they get loose. Most of the plastic in the ocean comes from plastic that started on land and as become blown or washed out to sea. Once in the ocean it causes all sorts of havoc with wildlife. Similar on land. Do these people not care about preserving wildlife. Are they so short sighted that anything beyond their life is inconsequential? We would hope not.
People say they reuse them then discard then, but that is a minor factor. The bags still go to a landfill after a very short time. People should be using landfill biodegradable bags for their trash. These are bags that will biodegrade in a landfill. There are several claims of biodegradable out there and it is confusing, yes. But look for ASTM D5511 certification on plastic to show it will biodegrade in a landfill. If it does not have that then it will not biodegrade and the biodegradable claim is more than likely being made by green washing manufacturers.
Some people say they shouldn’t have to pay for them. Why is that? Nothing is for free, why do they expect free bags? They used to be free at the store yes, but that is what has made this plastic waste problem we all have now. San Francisco pay about 17 cents per plastic bag to clean them up. That is the citizen’s money so no they are not free and never have been. We see people getting take away coffees all the time yet are ready to complain they can’t afford 10 cents a plastic bag. They can afford it but they are just not used to paying for something that to them was free but to us all it has a cost. Ireland plastic bag usage dropped 95% in a few months after a small fee per bag was introduced. The people quickly got used to it and didn’t complain about it anymore. How hard is it to take a few reusable cotton bags into a store and use those? It means you have to spend 30 seconds organising yourself but let’s be real.
The world uses a trillion of these bags a year. It would be a lot better off if we did not use them at all. They are a blight on the planet. Congratulations to the people of Palm Desert for having the courage to take these steps that will lead us into a cleaner future for our descendents.
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