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? Re-fuse Efficiency In a Circular Economy -Europe
Posted on July 11, 2015 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste NewsRe-fuse Efficiency In a Circular Economy – Waste Management World.
Jonas Byström, senior sector specialist, water & waste management division, European Investment Bank (EIB) explains that in order to progress to a circular economy we need to stop calling waste a waste and instead consider the term re-fuse…
With a growing global population and increasing consumption, it is becoming more and more evident that we live beyond the means of the earth’s finite resources and environmental carrying capacity. This is manifested not only by the often alarming effects of a disturbed environment and stressed climate, but also by the last decade’s rising resource prices that followed a century of falling prices. Together, these factors provide a strong case for steering away from the current linear take-make-use-dispose society towards a more circular economy, where, the utility and value of materials are maximised, their wastage throughout the value chain is minimised, and any waste generated is considered an asset rather than a liability.
In the waste sector, the development towards a circular economy presents both challenges and opportunities. Waste managers should consider how best to adapt to and benefit from this new reality and contribute to its further realisation. A key challenge is to find ways to more firmly establish the view that our post-consumption discards are resources, whose management should fully reflect their inherent resource and energy value, also considering that this value will continue to increase in parallel to resource depletion.
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