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? Without enough recycling facilities in Australia, some are getting creative with plastic solutions
Posted on May 21, 2023 by DrRossH in Plastic RecyclingWith a flick of the wrist, you’ve removed the plastic lid from your water bottle.
How much thought did you give to this small, round piece of plastic that keeps your drink contained in the bottle?
Despite being a hard plastic, these lids are a contaminant that much of Australia’s current recycling infrastructure is not set up to handle.
But many in the sector, including Jeremy Williams from WA business Rainbow Plastic, are concerned Australia’s onshore recycling facilities are inadequate.
“We haven’t got the infrastructure or the capability in Australia for properly recycling,” Mr Williams said.
What is the bigger solution?
Mr Cusack said he was hopeful the federal government’s $250 million Recycling Modernisation Fund would help Australia increase its onshore recycling capabilities.
He said of the material Containers for Change collected, 84 per cent (determined by weight) was recycled within the country.
“The vast majority of the 16 per cent that is exported is aluminium cans, and that’s because we just don’t have the smelting capability to handle this recycled material,” Mr Cusack said.
It is absurd that the people who are responsible for making these items have no role in their colection/recycling afterwards. Why are they being absolved of this? Why is it up to volunteers or not for profits to work hard to try and resolve a part of this problem.
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