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? Plastic credits can help scale recovery and recycling efforts
Posted on December 18, 2024 by DrRossH in Plastic RecyclingThere is a big discussion happening right now regarding the plastic waste crisis and the emerging plastic credit market.
Source: Plastic credits can help scale recovery and recycling efforts | Sustainable Plastics
There is a big discussion happening right now regarding the plastic waste crisis and the emerging plastic credit market. It has become clear that the current efforts and funding from government and philanthropy cannot match the scale of the World’s plastic waste problem.
A plastic credit is an environmental commodity that represents the collection or recycling of one tonne of plastic material, which can be transferred between organizations. Credits are created when one entity, often referred to as the project developer, voluntarily implements practices that collect or recycle plastic waste. The recoveries generated can then be claimed by another entity. Without these projects, this plastic would not be removed from the environment, nor would it re-enter a production stream that uses recycled plastic.
There are different types of projects that can generate plastic credits. Some examples are:
- Coastal and waterway debris removal by hand,
- Open ocean collection by boat,
- Debris traps set in rivers,
- Microplastic filtration collection, and
- Recycling materials collected from the natural environment, post-consumer & industrial waste, urban dumping, and unmanaged landfills.
There are a lot of factors that determine the pricing of plastic credits. For instance, higher costs in the recovery of plastic from the ocean compared to the picking of plastic waste from landfills will be reflected in the pricing of those credits. To some buyers, credits from a specific geography, polymer, or source that aligns with a company’s operations are worth a premium. Meanwhile, projects that support more social progress in health, equality, employment, and environmental justice should have these attributes valued in the price of the credit. Likewise, projects that pay workers a higher standard wage or provide healthcare benefits should reflect that added value.
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