Plastic Rubbish
Discussion
The hot topic at the moment seems to be plastic rubbish.
bottles and other plastic rubbish on our beaches, in our beauty spots, in the rivers.
Link to the good old Daily Mail. The Daily Mail will never let you down.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5130731/Be...
Piece on BBC1 Breakfast show this morning about the rubbish on beaches in Dorset and Weston super Mare(sp?)
Well don't stand there staring at it! Pick it up! Put it in the rubbish bin!
If everyone who got their phone out and took a photo of a plastic bottle had taken ten seconds to pick it up, it wouldn't be there for someone to tutt over tomorrow.
Don't gawp at it - pick it up!
bottles and other plastic rubbish on our beaches, in our beauty spots, in the rivers.
Link to the good old Daily Mail. The Daily Mail will never let you down.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5130731/Be...
Piece on BBC1 Breakfast show this morning about the rubbish on beaches in Dorset and Weston super Mare(sp?)
Well don't stand there staring at it! Pick it up! Put it in the rubbish bin!
If everyone who got their phone out and took a photo of a plastic bottle had taken ten seconds to pick it up, it wouldn't be there for someone to tutt over tomorrow.
Don't gawp at it - pick it up!
And it's going to get worse.
Until recently, China has been the destination for around half of the UK's recyclable plastic. This is because they have the highest demand for it but with limited ability to collect it domestically but this has been improved to the point where there are close to gathering sufficient within their own borders to satisfy need and is thus cheaper than importing it. As a result, they have placed restrictions on the quantity of imported recyclable plastics.
This affects us (and many other western countries) as we don't have sufficient domestic capacity to process the amount that would have otherwise been exported. And nor do we have domestic demand to the same levels. Europe does (on both counts) but one would assume they would prioritise their own needs rather than accommodate a non-EU country post Brexit.
Even more worrying is the issue of plastic nano particles. Scientific understanding of this is only just emerging and I would expect this to gain greater prominence over the coming months and years.
This is a topic that falls squarely in my field and something that I am getting increasingly involved with here and internationally. I was going to open an 'ask a recycling expert anything' thread but will attempt to answer anything here instead.
Until recently, China has been the destination for around half of the UK's recyclable plastic. This is because they have the highest demand for it but with limited ability to collect it domestically but this has been improved to the point where there are close to gathering sufficient within their own borders to satisfy need and is thus cheaper than importing it. As a result, they have placed restrictions on the quantity of imported recyclable plastics.
This affects us (and many other western countries) as we don't have sufficient domestic capacity to process the amount that would have otherwise been exported. And nor do we have domestic demand to the same levels. Europe does (on both counts) but one would assume they would prioritise their own needs rather than accommodate a non-EU country post Brexit.
Even more worrying is the issue of plastic nano particles. Scientific understanding of this is only just emerging and I would expect this to gain greater prominence over the coming months and years.
This is a topic that falls squarely in my field and something that I am getting increasingly involved with here and internationally. I was going to open an 'ask a recycling expert anything' thread but will attempt to answer anything here instead.
The Mad Monk said:
The hot topic at the moment seems to be plastic rubbish.
bottles and other plastic rubbish on our beaches, in our beauty spots, in the rivers.
Link to the good old Daily Mail. The Daily Mail will never let you down.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5130731/Be...
Piece on BBC1 Breakfast show this morning about the rubbish on beaches in Dorset and Weston super Mare(sp?)
Well don't stand there staring at it! Pick it up! Put it in the rubbish bin!
If everyone who got their phone out and took a photo of a plastic bottle had taken ten seconds to pick it up, it wouldn't be there for someone to tutt over tomorrow.
Don't gawp at it - pick it up!
You are not alone, both me and the wife said exactly the same at the BBC piece , I wonder why the focus our beaches, when plastic can travel thousands of miles in the oceans, we can put very stringent controls on our plastic, but it will still wash up from other countries.bottles and other plastic rubbish on our beaches, in our beauty spots, in the rivers.
Link to the good old Daily Mail. The Daily Mail will never let you down.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5130731/Be...
Piece on BBC1 Breakfast show this morning about the rubbish on beaches in Dorset and Weston super Mare(sp?)
Well don't stand there staring at it! Pick it up! Put it in the rubbish bin!
If everyone who got their phone out and took a photo of a plastic bottle had taken ten seconds to pick it up, it wouldn't be there for someone to tutt over tomorrow.
Don't gawp at it - pick it up!
StevieBee said:
Even more worrying is the issue of plastic nano particles. Scientific understanding of this is only just emerging and I would expect this to gain greater prominence over the coming months and years.
My understanding is that this is a key issue if you are concerned about plastics getting into the oceans.Not entirely sure how this is going to be fixed by taxes on plastic bottles, or takeaway coffee cups....
JagLover said:
StevieBee said:
Even more worrying is the issue of plastic nano particles. Scientific understanding of this is only just emerging and I would expect this to gain greater prominence over the coming months and years.
My understanding is that this is a key issue if you are concerned about plastics getting into the oceans.Not entirely sure how this is going to be fixed by taxes on plastic bottles, or takeaway coffee cups....
Don't get me started on Christmas Crackers.
PurpleMoonlight said:
Am I missing something?
Surely the problem is people indiscriminately discarding it, not the plastic itself.
That's a tiny part if the problem. Most - in fact the vast majority of people diligently dispose of all their waste. There are few who don't. Surely the problem is people indiscriminately discarding it, not the plastic itself.
The problem originates on a global scale; debris blown from landfill sites, container boxes falling off ships, etc. The core problem is that we use a truly staggering amount of plastic.
It's a typically vague commitment by a government too. Doesn't really mean much and is a huge timeframe.
Contrast that with the Sky announcement - https://news.sky.com/story/sky-to-remove-all-singl... . They've stated they're eliminating single use plastics from the operations, products and supply chain by 2020.
Any new products released will also not include any single use plastics - that started with their SoundBox which had no plastic bags or cable ties in the packaging and even used a different lacquer on the outer boxes to reduce the impact.
Contrast that with the Sky announcement - https://news.sky.com/story/sky-to-remove-all-singl... . They've stated they're eliminating single use plastics from the operations, products and supply chain by 2020.
Any new products released will also not include any single use plastics - that started with their SoundBox which had no plastic bags or cable ties in the packaging and even used a different lacquer on the outer boxes to reduce the impact.
JagLover said:
StevieBee said:
Even more worrying is the issue of plastic nano particles. Scientific understanding of this is only just emerging and I would expect this to gain greater prominence over the coming months and years.
My understanding is that this is a key issue if you are concerned about plastics getting into the oceans.Not entirely sure how this is going to be fixed by taxes on plastic bottles, or takeaway coffee cups....
DapperDanMan said:
Reusable shopping bags have been available for years but the year before the bag charge came in we used 7 BILLION of them. That dropped to 500 MILLION after the introduction.
Don't get me started on Christmas Crackers.
But what have we replaced them with? 7 billion strong yet wafer thin plastic bags replaced with 500 million heavy duty thick “bags for life”. Did plastic usage drop by weight?Don't get me started on Christmas Crackers.
Or should we switch to Paper bags? So we will have global deforestation instead?
The point is - they are reusable and we do reuse them. They previously were used until too shabby for food shopping, at which point they were then reused as bin bags. In my household they would be used as a bin bag for plastic recycling and themselves would go out for the plastic recycling collection. I assume they can be recycled because our intruction is to separate plastic and paper into different coloured bags for recycling. Nobody had informed us olastic bags should not be included.
Now the charge has come in, we need more of the plastic free bin bags the council chucks at your door, and we also have to supplement that bu buying bin bags, which is something we never did before.
I think its important to tackle waste and pollution but it needs to be done at source. My question is, if 100% of my recycling waste goes in the recycling collection, what percentage of it gets recycled, and if any finds its way into a river how and where is that happening?
Edited by menousername on Thursday 11th January 08:54
DapperDanMan said:
Taxes change behaviour appealing to the better judgement of people doesn't. Reusable shopping bags have been available for years but the year before the bag charge came in we used 7 BILLION of them. That dropped to 500 MILLION after the introduction. Now it is being extended and it needs to get to 0. A completely avoidable levy is not a tax.
Don't get me started on Christmas Crackers.
Spot on. Kenya has completely banned the used of sing-use bags with a $40k fine or 4 years in prison if ignored!!Don't get me started on Christmas Crackers.
The nub is what the money raised from such a levy is used for.
In the mid 90s, a landfill tax was introduced. The money this raised was invested in the research for alternative waste treatment and later, to fund the transition to a circular economy (recycling) to the point where today, the UK has some of the most advanced waste treatment facilities, recycling plants and recycling systems the world.
At the moment, the 5p charge for mags is dispersed somewhat arbitrarily between the retailers and 'eco charities'. Investment in bio-plastics and oxo-degradable plastics is needed and I'd like to think that some realignment of funding would be made to support this.
DapperDanMan said:
Taxes change behaviour appealing to the better judgement of people doesn't. Reusable shopping bags have been available for years but the year before the bag charge came in we used 7 BILLION of them. That dropped to 500 MILLION after the introduction. Now it is being extended and it needs to get to 0. A completely avoidable levy is not a tax.
Don't get me started on Christmas Crackers.
In the right context it can reduce plastic use yes.Don't get me started on Christmas Crackers.
Speaking personally I used to use shopping bags as rubbish bags, now I just use a black plastic sacks instead.
I shop at Sainsbury's and so have their bags for life that are replaced free of charge when they have any damage to them.
This is all rather different to popping into Costa for a coffee on the go. Without any feasible mechanism for returning a disposable mug it simply becomes a tax.
Given the impetus for all this seems to be the recent Blue Planet series, it is also very questionable how much of this was ending up in the oceans.
menousername said:
My question is, if 100% of my recycling waste goes in the recycling collection, what percentage of it gets recycled, and if any finds its way into a river how and where is that happening?
If your council sends it to a UK processor then none of it.If it comprises part if a consignment destined for export and the container it's being transported in falls off the ship then all of it. And if it does make it to the destination, depending upon the quality controls in place there, either none of it or some of it.
AMG Merc said:
I've often wondered (it may have been mentioned earlier) why we don't move to all paper bags. These have been used in the US for years.
Don't they only really work for carrying a small amount of stuff 20 yards to a car? Rather walking home with one or more in each hand?And with regards other posters comments about using single use bags for waste; did they really produce as much waste as the stuff they bought? Once I've used the bog roll and kitchen roll, but the cereal packets and other paper n the recycling, recycled the bottles, tins and milk cartons, chucked the vegetable peelings on the compost etc, there's not much waste left.
DapperDanMan said:
Don't get me started on Christmas Crackers.
We have the same hatred of these things. My mother in law insists on spending a fortune on a box of these hideous things every Christmas - I wish she'd just chuck them in the bin on the way to the house, rather than them being ripped to bits before I chuck them in the bin.This is a much wider issue than plastic bags. We seem to have got into a culture where single use disposable things are OK. As I have kids, I see it really clearly - pretty much everything that is bought for them is short life, and will be in the bin in less than a year. In most cases it will be in the bin in less than a week.
I think the only possible answer is some charge based on the planned longevity of the product, its repairability and the spares support the importer or manufacturer guarantees to provide. So an item that is repairable at reasonable cost, and is guaranteed to have spares support - attracts no charge. A bit of tat, unrepairable, no spares, short life - let's start with a 500% charge and raise it if it doesn't work.
This might be controversial...
I used to live close to Chichester and the South Downs was my weekend stomping gound in the winter, almost all the rubbish I saw in the countryside was farming related.
Living by the sea also, I noted most of the crap that washed up on my local stretch of coastline, or spotted when sailing seemed to be from the fishing industry!
Perhaps hold these two industries a bit more accountable and stop dishing out the grants if they don't as a starting point?
I used to live close to Chichester and the South Downs was my weekend stomping gound in the winter, almost all the rubbish I saw in the countryside was farming related.
Living by the sea also, I noted most of the crap that washed up on my local stretch of coastline, or spotted when sailing seemed to be from the fishing industry!
Perhaps hold these two industries a bit more accountable and stop dishing out the grants if they don't as a starting point?
Setting aside the plastic waste issue...
Did anyone see the disgracefully loaded Charlie Stayt interview with Michael Gove this morning.
Never a more loaded attempt at an ambush have I seen.
I though Gove handled it well.
The BBC seem to be more interested in cheap point scoring and making themselves look clever that getting to the bottom of a real issues
Did anyone see the disgracefully loaded Charlie Stayt interview with Michael Gove this morning.
Never a more loaded attempt at an ambush have I seen.
I though Gove handled it well.
The BBC seem to be more interested in cheap point scoring and making themselves look clever that getting to the bottom of a real issues
Impressive how plastic waste, especially plastic waste in oceans has become a 'thing' recently.
Endless coverage in press, TV, politics and so on, and with no obvious reason for it to have suddenly become such an important and 'popular' issue. It's certainly not driven by general public concern.
Of course the 'solution' involves guilt, bans and new taxes!
A more cynical type than I would suggest that it has been decided by the great & worthy that this is a problem and pressure quietly applied to promoting it. So those meetings in Davos and elsewhere aren't just about the canapés.
Endless coverage in press, TV, politics and so on, and with no obvious reason for it to have suddenly become such an important and 'popular' issue. It's certainly not driven by general public concern.
Of course the 'solution' involves guilt, bans and new taxes!
A more cynical type than I would suggest that it has been decided by the great & worthy that this is a problem and pressure quietly applied to promoting it. So those meetings in Davos and elsewhere aren't just about the canapés.
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