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? ‘Plastics are not the problem’ – Philippines
Posted on May 15, 2012 by DrRossH in Plastic Limiting Regulations‘Plastics are not the problem’ | Inquirer Opinion.
A well crafted but manufacturer biased reply to the thankfully increasing plastic ban in the Philippines. Plastic bags are not the problem, users are is their emphasis. Sounds like guns are not the problem users are. Yet we know when guns are removed from society the number of deaths by shooting go down drastically. If plastic bags and other similar plastic items were not so prolifically produced by manufacturers wanting to exploit their product, and handed out for free, then we would not have all this plastic waste to deal with. There is no other way to say it, but the manufacturers are a big part of this problem along with consumer behaviour.
If the bags were not free but charged for, then based on evidence from other places that have done this, the consumption will go down substantially. What will the manufacturers then say? Perhaps “it is everyone’s natural right to be given free plastic and charging for them is not right”?
Plastic ought to be considered a hazardous product base on its non biodegradable properties and therefore have restrictions placed upon its use. We all have excise tax on our gasoline and no one complains, so why not place a disposal tax on plastic?
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