Getting Drastic with Plastic
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Getting Drastic with Plastic |
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Just
got rid of all that Easter Egg packaging? Well, you’re not alone. UK
households generate a staggering thirty million tonnes of rubbish a year, of
which sixty per cent comes from packaging. Plastic waste weighs in at
three million tonnes (almost exactly the amount we produce each year), fifty-six
per cent of which comes from packaging and three quarters of which originates
from our homes. Shrink-wraps, cellophane and plastic bags all seem indispensable
to our modern life styles and most of it goes straight in the bin. Only
seven per cent of all plastic waste is currently recycled. It
is easy to understand the attraction of plastic to manufacturers and retailers
alike. There are around fifty types of plastic with hundreds of different
varieties. It is an extremely versatile product (as light and flexible as cling
film or as tough as a hang glider), durable, resistant to moisture, chemicals
and decay, and relatively inexpensive to produce. Hardly surprising, then, that
we use twenty times more plastic today than we did fifty years ago
(or that consumption is growing by four per cent every year in Western Europe). Plastic is everywhere and we hardly give it a second glance. Supporters argue that it requires less energy than comparable materials to produce and, because it is generally lighter and easier to store, less fuel is consumed during transportation. It has even been suggested that its resistance to degradation helps to stabilise landfill tips and release them for house building earlier than might otherwise have been the case! Problematic
Production Its
production, however, requires oil and gas (fossil fuels that generate green
house gases). Worldwide plastic manufacture consumes eight per cent of world oil
production. And that’s just making the stuff, it doesn’t include the cost of
recycling and wider environmental damage (it has been estimated, for example,
that almost every sea bird in the world has plastic
inside it – one fulmar found in Belgium contained 1603 separate
pieces, while another from Denmark had 20.6 grams in its stomach). Plastic
manufacture also uses other resources, such as land and water, and produces its
own waste and emissions. Potentially harmful chemicals are used as stabilisers
and colorants, many of which have not undergone full environmental risk
assessments; and neither is their impact on humans fully understood. PVC,
for example, is seen as a most environmentally hostile plastic because it is
hard to recycle and cannot be incinerated because it releases carcinogens. Unlike
wooden windows, that can last a century, the average life of a PVC window is
twenty years. PVC is cheaper, however, and the impact of regulations requiring
homeowners to install double-glazing when replacing windows inevitably means
that plastic is chosen by many, if not the majority. Most
plastics are non-degradable (even those that are degradable
need the right conditions to do so effectively). Because the technology is a
relatively recent phenomenon, no one knows exactly how long the material will
take to finally break down, but it could be hundreds of years. Most waste
doesn’t even find its way to landfill sites, ending up instead in hedgerows,
rivers and parks; places where individuals accept little responsibility for
dropping or clearing it up. In
short, plastic is convenient and saves time in busy lives, but it has serious
downsides in terms of energy consumption, pollution and problems of disposal. So
what can we do? Like many of
the challenges we face today, the answer lies not in the promise of some
technological fix that will allow us continue with our throw away culture, but
in embracing changes to the way we choose to live our lives: ones that will
ultimately make them sustainable. Those changes can be summed up by Reduce,
Reuse, Recycle. Recycling is good, but much more expensive
than reusing and reducing. Reuse is better, reduce is best of all! For a start,
with packaging accounting for such a significant proportion of plastic
production, it makes sense to try and reduce the amount we personally consume. Take
bags (preferably made out of organic materials) with you when you go shopping.
Avoid heavily packaged items. Patronise stores that provide paper bags for fruit
and vegetables; if they are not available make a point of telling staff that you
would prefer to have this option and why – while you’re about it ask what
the company’s policy is regarding transporting and displaying food (most
supermarkets, for example, now use returnable plastic crates, but not all). Buy
items that can be stored – washing up liquids, etc. – in larger quantities,
which reduces the amount of packaging. Little things maybe, but if
we all did them the impact would be huge and, reviewing your shopping
habits in this way, will suggest other steps that you can take to reduce the
amount of plastic (and other forms of packaging) that you throw away without
even being aware of it. Reusing
plastic bottles is preferable to buying new ones (drinking tap water
seems to be infra dig at present, even though it is better regulated than most
of the bottled stuff on the supermarket shelves). When you have finished with a
plastic item, make sure it is recycled. At present, only an estimated fifteen
per cent of UK households have access to kerbside collections and that usually
only for bottles. Find out where collection points for other types of plastic
are located and press your local council to provide better amenities (which they
are increasingly obliged to do under EU regulations). There has
been a lot of publicity recently about waste that has been put out for recycling
ending up in landfill sites. It is also clear that an increasing amount is being
shipped to China (it apparently makes economic sense to fill up the containers
that are arriving daily at Britain’s ports full of cheap imports – many made
out of plastic – with rubbish, rather than send them back empty) where it is
sorted by the lowest of paid workers with little concern for health or
environmental impact. Up to a third of our waste paper and plastics are
currently being exported in this way, a practice that is putting our own
recycling industry under immense pressure, forcing some plants to close down
because they can no longer compete. In a global
economy it is no longer sufficient to say we pay our taxes and it is therefore
the Council’s/Government’s responsibility what happens to our
rubbish once it leaves our homes. They often don’t know! We
should be asking our local officials and councillors at every opportunity to
reassure us that any recycling programmes they run are delivering effectively. That
means tracing waste down the chain to its ultimate destination. Transparency
is not just a feature of plastics. It should inform the whole waste management
industry. Further info Emerge
Recycling now offer plastic bottle recycling as part of their kerbside recycling
scheme in parts of .
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Action for Sustainable Living, St Wilfrid's Enterprise Centre, Royce Road, Hulme, , M15 5BJ.Email: [email protected] Tel: 0845 634 4510 Fax: 0870 167 4655 |