The Plastic Crisis/Environment Thread | Page 10 | Vital Football

The Plastic Crisis/Environment Thread

It does, but also the sustained increase has to cause worry. As do the many nature programmes that show you, year in, year out, the ice caps melting.
 
The Royal Mail is testing the use of electric vans for postal rounds, as part of efforts to cut emissions. The vans are refitted electric black taxi cabs. The design that is ultimately launched will probably be different. The first van will be tested in Birmingham, with more to follow in Leeds, Derby, Edinburgh and Bristol.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53321006
 
Love this, it should be pushed and pushed... it is a huge part of the solution.

Recycled plastic products made in Britain from British waste, slash maintenance costs for public and private sector organisations, from the smallest school or parish council, to the largest supermarket chain or government department.

https://britishrecycledplastic.co.uk/


they are currently doing a survey with a prize draw:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/B53MLML
 
Caught something earlier about turning plastic bottles into tow rope etc, cable ties - doesn't remove from the system but extends their life before they become landfill.

Was at least promising.
 
https://eastdevonnews.co.uk/2020/08...c-bags-recycled-into-bin-sacks-is-a-uk-first/

Exeter City Council has become the first authority in the UK to turn plastic bags collected from outside residents’ homes into litter bin sacks.

The ‘closed-loop’ project sees waste polythene collected from kerbsides across the city and from and trade customers and sent to recycling firm Jayplas’s new film-sorting plant in Smethick
 
Possibly the right thread - but maybe not in the spirit.

More than 160 pairs of shoes representing pollution-related deaths have been placed outside a transport museum by climate change activists. Extinction Rebellion Coventry hoped placing 168 pairs at the city's museum earlier to mark each local death would "give a sense of the tragedy".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-53628335

No doubt drove there but forgot the telephone wires and the associated pollution of trainers.
 
https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/kenya-bans-single-use-plastics-protected-areas

:clap:

Kenya is taking a bold step in this direction. This year, the country will mark World Environment Day by banning single-use plastic in protected natural areas.

Following a presidential directive on last year’s World Environment Day, the ban will come into effect on 5 June 2020 in National Parks, beaches, forests and conservation areas, which means visitors will no longer be able to carry plastic water bottles, cups, disposable plates, cutlery, or straws into protected areas. The move follows Kenya’s ground-breaking step of a nationwide ban on single-use plastic bags in 2017.
 
The Fear said:
https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/kenya-bans-single-use-plastics-protected-areas

:clap:

Kenya is taking a bold step in this direction. This year, the country will mark World Environment Day by banning single-use plastic in protected natural areas.

Following a presidential directive on last year’s World Environment Day, the ban will come into effect on 5 June 2020 in National Parks, beaches, forests and conservation areas, which means visitors will no longer be able to carry plastic water bottles, cups, disposable plates, cutlery, or straws into protected areas. The move follows Kenya’s ground-breaking step of a nationwide ban on single-use plastic bags in 2017.
Click to expand...
Its a great pity the dirty sods who were going here there and everywhere during lockdown lifting werent banned from taking stuff like that into beauty spots in this country.
Hate litter.
 
Plastic recycling is a big industry here in Norway, as is general recycling. For example, our local buses all run on biogas created by composting household food waste, the resultant compost being sold to farmers.

I see a few big issues with recycling plastic, points picked up from household waste disposal and though our contracts at work with a local recycling company (I was responsible for establishing the contract, therefore I have some insight): Not all plastics can be recycled and even those that can are done so at varying cost and to varying benefit, therefore the products that get recycling priority are those that are easiest to recycle and provide the greatest cost benefit - as things stand here the prime plastic for recycling is clear (uncoloured) soft plastic that stretches followed by coloured soft strechable plastic, ridgid plastic or soft plastic that doesn't stretch either can't be recycled or costs too much considering the sale value of the recycled product. The second issue is that, unlike glass and metals, plastic can only be recycled a limited number of times: We have a plastic bottle return system in operation that collects over 90% of used drinks bottles (a disposite system), these bottles are crushed and recycled into new boottles but after a while (about 7 cycles) the quality of the recycled material drops and can no longer be used to make bottles, so it goes to making fleece cloathing and then ultimately either to landfill or to be burned in Swedish power stations (we sell them our non-recyclable flamables). Ultimately all recycling does i delay the inevitable, either land-fill or burning.

Personally I'm a fan af using alternative materials, like paper bags - yes paper bags require more energy to produce but that energy can come from renewable sources and the product is 100% bio-degradable. There are also a number of plastics produced from vegetable fibres that are bio-degradable (NB. not all vegetable fibre plastics are bio-degradable) which should also be a viable option for areas where plastic is the only viable material.
 
Yup, as you say, some are in a total cycle, you can recycle paper and aluminium, and I think glass, endlessly.

I'd like to see a ban on any plastic that can't be disposed of properly in some sustainable way, no matter the short term pain. We all lived well without it years ago.
 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53968502

The fee for plastic shopping bags in England will be doubled to 10p and extended to all shops from April 2021.

Small retailers - those employing 250 people or fewer - will no longer be exempt, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said.
 
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