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 final link in the chain – Australia
Posted on April 22, 2026 by DrRossH in Plastic RecyclingRecycled plastic shows why markets matter, writes Suzanne Toumbourou, CEO of the Australian Council of Recycling.
Source: The final link in the chain – Waste Management Review
A functioning recycling system has three essential elements: collection, processing and end markets.
Despite significant investment in recycling capacity, around 80 per cent of plastic packaging still ends up in landfill.
The imbalance is structural: recyclers must manage material locally, but the products they remanufacture compete in global markets shaped by cheap imported plastic.
Large-scale international investment in virgin plastic production capacity has driven persistent oversupply, suppressing prices and undermining recycled material worldwide.
The result is a clear and enduring price gap. Australian-made recycled plastic can be about 50 per cent more expensive than imported virgin material. That gap reflects real costs: energy, labour, logistics and regulatory compliance in a high-standards economy.
Left unaddressed, the consequences are predictable. Recyclers struggle to sell material and therefore take in less feedstock, ultimately operating below viable utilisation levels. Capacity sits idle. Planned investments are delayed or cancelled. Recoverable resources are lost to landfill, and environmental harm increases.
This is not a failure of infrastructure, effort or capability. It is a market failure.
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