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? Researcher: Biobased, biodegradable polymers may not be as eco-friendly as you think
Posted on October 16, 2019 by DrRossH in BioPlastics, Landfills and Disposal, Plastic Waste NewsSource: Researcher: Biobased, biodegradable polymers may not be as eco-friendly as you think
“Biobased” and “biodegradable” are terms that are bandied about universally when discussing solutions to the proliferation of polymer waste, according to Ramani Narayan, distinguished professor at Michigan State University.But both terms are useless unless people understand what they mean and how they work scientifically, Narayan told his audience in his keynote speech at the International Elastomer Conference in Cleveland Oct. 8.
“It is wrong, misleading and deceptive to use ‘biodegradable’ in an unqualified way,” Narayan said. In fact, careless use of the term in advertising is forbidden by the Federal Trade Commission and the State of California.
Australia has no such requirements and any one can claim biodegradability with out any substantiation.
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