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? Q&A: What’s happening in the UK Trash Management?
Posted on May 13, 2012 by DrRossH in Landfills and DisposalQ&A: What’s happening in the UK? | News | Main.
“WMAA: The UK landfilled around 80% of its municipal waste in the year 2000 – this has reduced to 43% in 2010 and is estimated to continue reducing to ~25% by 2020. What are the major drivers pushing this reduction?
Frith: The main drivers to initiating change are statutory and economic. The landfill tax, has ramped up significantly in the last five years and is a key driver. It was generally felt that this mechanism incentivised alternative waste treatment approaches. An EU Directive on Landfill set targets to reduce biodegradable waste from landfill, and the associated national legislation provided a framework for establishing alternative waste treatments. The national framework, [however], has recently been scrapped, as it is felt that other drivers are sufficient to drive delivery of the Directive requirements.”
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