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? The dark side of the balloon boom – is it time they were banned? |- UK
Posted on April 7, 2026 by DrRossH in BalloonsSource: The dark side of the balloon boom – is it time they were banned? | Environment | The Guardian
Our State of Our Beaches 2025 data found that nearly 40% of surveyed UK beaches had discarded balloons,”
In 2020, researchers found that balloons advertised as “100% biodegradable” did not meaningfully degrade after 16 weeks in industrial compost – remaining recognisable in shape, colour, and consistency – and so continued to pose a threat to wildlife. “Because the balloons did not break down, marketing latex balloons as ‘biodegradable’ amounts to greenwashing,”
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