The political plastic waste time bomb

The plastic waste time bomb has been ticking for many years or decades. This blog was started as a result of observations of plastic litter around Waterlooville.  Today we hear that China will no longer take UK plastic waste for recycling, some 25% of UK plastic waste in total, and why should they?

European and American companies happily exported industry to China because labour was and still is cheap, in turn British European consumers happily bought Chinese produced goods with British brand names (once produced in the UK, some in Havant), names such as Bush, Clarks, Morphy Richards and Kenwood. We exported our carbon emissions to China and then imported the products to use in our homes which inevitably became waste (partly because the products were not designed to be repaired).

A lack of action at Westminster and at our local Councils has resulted in a lack of recycling facilities and as pointed out previously Hampshire County Council has opted to reduce facilities (a political ideological decision, not one based on technological know how, science or the pseudo science of economics). Hampshire County Council have a record of banning wind turbines and approving the burning of hosuehold waste for energy.

What is wrong with plastic?

You have to distinguish between the material and the product designed to use the material.
You can view plastic as a wonder material that lasts many hundreds of years and this was how it was sold and marketed in the last 60 to 70 years, a cheap and cheerful material that can be used to make dishes, bowls, pipes, clothes, packaging and food wrap etc.

This is fine, these products would last forever wouldn't they?

Unfortunately nature and physics was ignored and of course the products did not last forever, joints break, fractures appear, threads unravel or break, babies out grow the baby products etc. So then the plastic products were buried in the ground (hidden) or burnt (causing polution and carbon emissions).

Manufacturers and governments failed to have a long term plan for the material (a typical fault of industrial economics), they didn't plan how to recycle the materials or even attempted to design recyclable products. Selling, marketing and jobs were more important and maintained a stable society for government to manage. They didn't want to take responsibility or knew they had to.

Today we know that we have to take responsibility. Plastics don't just crack and fracture, plastic threads don't just break, plastics also erode into tiny fibres and microscopic particles, they form dust that will still be in our air, water and earth for hundreds of year and we are adding to this dust as we produce more products. It isn't just waste plastic that you put in a bin that creates microscopic plastic waste, the daily use of plastic products also creates microscopic plastic particles and fibres.

Can we burn all the plastic waste?

When we burn plastic we are in reality using it as a fossil fuel like coal, diesel or petrol. We create particulate pollutants in the atmosphere and toxic residues in the furnace, we also produce carbon emissions in the same way that fossil fuels do when burnt. Climate change is already having an impact on people around the world including us in the UK, this includes migration of species to these isles following changing weather and climate patterns.

The only solutions are as follows:

1. Use no plastics or reserve plastics for very specific and essential uses (medical, military etc).
2. Use biodegradeable plastics that meld into nature after they have been used by us. This is similar to natural materials like wood, cotton, wool etc. They last just long enough to be useful and then return to nature to be used again.
3.Recycle all plastics and invest in extensive recycling facilities. Frankly if a council or Westminster is unwilling to do this then they should be legally enforcing 1 and 2.

Westminster and councils should be legally accountable for any lack of action on their part.

Removing litter at bus stops

Apparently Havant Borough Council does pickup up litter around bus stops.

But wouldn't it be more efficient to install bins which can be quickly emptied and would reduce the amount of litter in the bushes and grass.

This guy was picking litter for as long as I was waiting for a bus (about 5 minutes). He was there when I arrived and was still picking litter when the bus was leaving.

Lovely Milton Road Bus Stop

I don't really understand people that just throw rubbish onto the ground.
It doesn't take much effort to retain crisp bags and drinks bottles until you have reached a public waste bin, I do it whenever I buy a food product that I want to consume immediately, or alternatively save money and don't buy a product that has plastic packaging. When it comes to paper and card (or hybrids that can be seperated, such as card and plastic sandwich packaging), I try and take it home to recycle.

Fixing the economy won't stop this, if anything a booming economy with fewer and fewer green policies will increase the amount of garbage, in hedgerows or in our bins. Picking it up and burning it isn't a solution either, that just moves the problem from the ground into the climate (carbon emissions).

Manufacturers and retailers are providing the product and using plastic, it isn't a question of blame, it's a question of identifying the source and those that have the capacity to change (retailers and manufacturers).

 

Plastic bags re-surface

In January and February 2008 I posted some articles about plastic bags found in trees and hedgerows around Waterlooville. As a result of my campaign, nationally supermarkets began a voluntary scheme to reduce plastic bags being handed out at the checkouts (ha, well I wish I had that much influence).
Supermarkets claimed that they reduced the number of bags they were handing out for free by (I think) 40%.

Is it just me that has noticed that after an initial effort to get checkout staff to reduce the number of bags handed out, the staff where ever you went, started going back to their old ways and automatically pulled out the bag with the assumption that you need one.

In some respects, I don't blame the staff, however even when you buy a small item, a checkout person will still offer a bag, even though the item can be carried or dropped in your pocket. This suggest management training is pushing them, along with consumer laziness.

So today the Guardian reports that bag use is going back up and Defra are preparing for legislation after a failure of the voluntary code. Something has to be done, leaving it to competing monopolistic institutions such as supermarkets, will not achieve the desired results.

Plastic carrier bags down

It is great to see that supermarkets have cut the number of free plastic carrier bags given out at the checkouts. 48% is an impressive cut and the environmental groups are correct in saying that it shows what businesses and people are capable of doing when they put their minds to it.

I have been using the stronger plastic multiple use bags for some 7 years now. In fact one lasted about 6 years before needing to be recycled and replaced. The trick of remembering to take one when shopping, is to keep one or two folded up in your jackets/coats. In any case, after a while it becomes habitual to look for a bag before you go to the shops.

I actually started this blog because of plastic bags spotted in hedgerows and trees. Hopefully the original subject that got me blogging will be one I won't have to return to in the future?
However there is still a lot of plastic packaging to deal with, we'll have to see how quickly things change.

The demise of the plastic carrier bag

Hmmmm, looks like i'll be turning my attention away from plastic carrier bags if The Daily Mail and Gordon Brown have their way. Maybe if the campaign against plastic carrier bags is successful i won't have to take photos of them flying like flags in trees and bushes around Waterlooville. I think it will be a long time yet though before plastic garbage is completely gone from the trees, grass and hedgerows of Waterlooville and the UK. So you can expect to see more horrible photos of Waterloovilles waste problems in the future until something is done to tackle the problem of crisp packets, fast food containers and other such rubbish.