OPINION: Arguably plastics, even more than other modern bulk materials like steel and concrete, have changed the face of modern civilisation. Most of the consumer goods we buy and use every day are either made from plastic or contain major components of plastic, it is used everywhere for packaging, for carrying goods when we shop and for containing the rubbish we toss out. I am not sure we could entirely live without it.
At the same time, it is a modern curse. There is apparently a whirlpool somewhere in the middle of the Pacific where all the floating rubbish ends up and it is mainly composed of plastics, in all their forms. It is by all accounts an awe-inspiring sight. Plastics are a curse for wildlife if they either get tangled up in it or try to eat it. And it is a big component in the material that goes to our landfills as rubbish. The occasional working bees that clean up sections of the coastline always end up collecting tonnes of the stuff. It could be argued that if we don’t do something about this we will end up drowning in plastic and irretrievably despoiling the environment!
Some would like to ban plastics altogether but it seems to me they do have legitimate and high-value uses for which they should be retained. But there is enormous scope for reducing the adverse impact. I think the No 1 enemy is packaging. I am appalled at the amount of plastic involved in delivering most consumer goods like appliances. In many cases, the discarded packaging occupies a larger volume than the appliance itself. Retailers would probably argue that they are simply giving consumers what they want, and it is equally true that they have limited power to act because most of the packaging is applied at source – whether it be China or somewhere else in Asia.
I can’t get quite as excited about the banning of plastic bags in supermarkets etc. and many supermarkets have now given this away because of the lukewarm response. The problem with supermarket bags is that they are genuinely multipurpose and often get used several times over before being finally consigned to the rubbish bin with the rubbish.
Some of the uses of plastics are for relatively superficial convenience and, for example, I think a growing trend is to revert back to the use of glass as a containment material because it is both a natural material and recyclable. There is a weight penalty but in many uses that is not too big a hurdle. There is also a cost in ensuring that glass containers remain sterile when re-used. Many people are a fan of using paper or cardboard containers instead of plastic but there are some practical issues with this unless some natural weatherproofing can be applied.
However, the real hurdle is us! For even, the fairly modest initiatives outlined above to work there has to be a solid commitment in the community to making them work – paying a bit of extra cost and giving away a bit of convenience for the sake of less plastic. And it is not much use for just some in the community to act like this – it has to be widely accepted or even required, and thus effective behaviour. Like so much else in life, that is then the challenge – getting people working cohesively and together in the same direction.
By Bas Walker
This is another of Bas Walker’s posts on GrownUps. Please look out for his articles, containing his Beachside Ponderings.
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