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? 
Zero Waste Journey
Posted on July 28, 2013 by DrRossH in Plastic Waste News
The cornerstone of the new initiatives is an unlimited “clear garbage bag program” that requires residents to use clear garbage bags, in preparation for the transition from the landfilling of waste residue to incineration in 2014.
The clear bag program will ensure Mark-ham’s waste does not contain hazardous or toxic materials, recyclables or organics. In a counterintuitive move, the current bi-weekly three-bag limit has been eliminated and replaced by an unlimited clear bag policy to give residents added flexibility. The advantages of switching to clear bags were too numerous for Markham officials to ignore. Carts and user-pay bag tags were considered but dismissed as ineffective tools for the cost containment and lasting recycling behaviour change Markham sought.
A seemingly simple idea that offers considerable advantages to allow visual inspection of any contaminants in the bags that should really be in another waste stream.
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