A lot is being said about these at the moment, so I thought I'd try and understand a it more than I did. I've only just started looking, and these are just the things I've picked up on so far. I found it interesting though perhaps I'm just a bit sad.
Random stuff that I didn't know until I looked;
There are essentially 4 main choices at this time;
- HDPE (The current bag)
- Paper Bag
- LDPE (bag for life)
- Cotton/woven bag
The greatest environmental impact from these bags is their production. Both raw materials and manufacture.
Consequently, therefore the biggest difference that can be made comes from re-use. e.g. Reusing a bag once halves the impact its production had on the environment.
Typically the current plastic bags are reused in two ways; repeat shopping trips or as bin liners and consequently is used 3 times (in the UK).
[This bit was the biggest surprise for me] For the alternative bags to improve on the environmental impact of an HDPE bag than the following reuse is required;
Paper bag - 9 Times
LDPE Bag – 14 times
Cotton/Woven bag – 500+ times
Clearly that simply isn't possible for the Paper bag. It is very unlikely to be achieved for the cotton/woven alternatives, but is quite viable for the LDPE bag - that is the bag for life.
The benefit from the LDPE bag *IS* it's reuse. It is more robust and therefore shoudl be able to be reused more than an HDPE bag. If it is not reused then it is worse for the environment than the HDPE bag. 14 times doesn't sound like much, but I reckon that's getting on for a year for me.
The largest impact on the environment after production is on Marine Aquatic Toxicity. Bit obvious I suppose.
Less obvious is that an estimated 93% of the flow of plastic bags into the sea comes from just 10 rivers;
Asia
- Mekong
- Amur
- Pearl
- Ganges
- Hai
- Yellow
- Indus
- Yangtze
Africa
- Nile
- Niger
By far the greatest amount comes from the Yangtze. An estimated 1.5 million tons of the 2.75 million tons in total per year. [This is estimated by taking current samples of the river, measuring how much plastic is in it and multiplying that by the annual flow volume into the sea.
Reduce / Reuse / Recycle
- REDUCE how many you make...
- If you must make them, REUSE them
- When you can no longer reuse them, RECYCLE them.
I intend to do a much better job than I have been doing. Sure, I'm not the significant problem, but I can't really expect others to pay attention if I don't.
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p.s. feel free to correct if you notice errors. I tried to be careful but I've only just started looking into it.
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An interesting review with some facts that will surprise many. particularly the enviromental impact of paper bags. I was surprised by the scale of impact.
However, is the problem of 'plastic bags' the major part of marine pollution or does the existence of other plastics waste eg micro-beads etc have a significant impact? I guess that this would then shift the the balance of problems from 3rd world rivers to the more developed economies?
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There’s also too many people and it’s going to worse.
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>> There’s also too many people and it’s going to worse.
>>
Don't worry, it will be self regulating. There will be a natural disaster, lack of resources, or a world war which will sort out over population. People tend to fight when resources become scarce. Many extinct civilisations have proved that.
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. People tend to fight
>> when resources become scarce.
Like plastic bags? I think we're ok for the time being. ;-)
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My CA friends own dogs. The plastic dog food bags are turned into ‘bags for life’ on her sewing machine. The pictorial on the dog food bags is really quite striking. She then gives them to her pupils and hopes that their parents use them instead of the ubiquitous paper bags in US supermarkets.
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I buy compostable "plastic" bags for my food waste bin, and for dog poo bags.
Why cant supermarket bags be compostable. And surely plastic bag can be recycled back into plastic bags.
The issue is not with plastic bags, the issue is severe underinvestment in the recycling process.
Last edited by: Zero on Sun 5 Aug 18 at 08:46
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Compostable plastic bags are good if they are indeed composted, either commercially or at home. They do need a relatively high temperature to decompose. Thrown into landfill or the sea the remain a problem. What do you do with the doggy bags?
Ordinary plastic bags and film are recyclable in theory but their bulk and likelihood of contamination makes the process difficult and commercially unviable.
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>> they do need a relatively high temperature to decompose. Thrown into landfill or the sea
>> the remain a problem. What do you do with the doggy bags?
They go in landfill bins. Decomposing dog poo in a bag in landfill should reach a high enough temp to decompose.
Tho I am very much into "flick" these days, on walks you grab a stick and flick the poo into the undergrowth on the side, where it performs a natural life cycle decomposition, acting as a food source and fertiliser.
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>> Compostable plastic bags are good .....
>>They do need a relatively high temperature to decompose.
After many years I have used up my stash of compostable bags.
They had been stored in a drawer but the final ones had to be binned as they split when opened so I would class this as decomposing.
I have now purchased a replacement supply of commercially available bags.
My collection of "Green Bags" with plastic base stiffeners have been in use for about 15+ years .
I am not sure if they are cotton based.
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>> >> but the final ones had to be binned
>> as they split when opened so I would class this as decomposing.
>>
>>
May be. Lots of plastic things become fragile with age and break up or split.
So they are obviously becoming chemically weakened. But is that the same thing as decomposing?
Fully bio-degradable surely means the molecules break down into CO2, H20 or whatever, not just that the particles pysically get smaller and smaller until one day they are flushed into the sea and eaten by sea creatures?
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Quite agree Z, slight drift.. Take away coffee cups, I got really naffed off when Waitrose announced that they were stopping their cups at the end of this summer saying they couldn't recycled, happened at exactly the same time as Costa announced the exactly the opposite! Because they can collect millions of cups they have found a company that has found a way of recycling them.
Very easy to put a screwed up bag in a pocket but not a reusable cup!
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> The benefit from the LDPE bag *IS* it's reuse. It is more robust and therefore
>> shoudl be able to be reused more than an HDPE bag. If it is not
>> reused then it is worse for the environment than the HDPE bag. 14 times doesn't
>> sound like much, but I reckon that's getting on for a year for me.
Some of the bags for life are pretty poor, waitrose ones especially. A couple of uses and they are split. The 5p ones I'd say I'd get a lot more than 3 uses out of one, 10 times or more.
Less obvious is that an estimated 93% of the flow of plastic bags into the
>> sea comes from just 10 rivers;
>>
>> Asia
>> - Mekong
>> - Amur
>> - Pearl
>> - Ganges
>> - Hai
>> - Yellow
>> - Indus
>> - Yangtze
>>
>> Africa
>> - Nile
>> - Niger
>>
>> By far the greatest amount comes from the Yangtze. An estimated 1.5 million tons of
>> the 2.75 million tons in total per year. [This is estimated by taking current samples
>> of the river, measuring how much plastic is in it and multiplying that by the
>> annual flow volume into the sea.
I was really surprised when I saw this a month ago. I guess they have a poor waste system and little concern for the environment. Caused by many factors no doubt.
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We've looked in plastic packaging at work as a lot of out product is shipped in plastic.
Paper alternatives look good but there is a lot of chemical processing. Trees can be re-grown though.
Part of the problem for recycling plastics is when it's mixed. One of out products looks like on plastic box but the lid has 3 different plastics. One to form the lid, one for an air barrier and one for some other purpose that I can't recall. The recycling companies can't take product like that.
I thought plastics could be incinerated to produce power and with a good filter produce clean emissions? Perhaps that's the way to go without more landfill.
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>>
>> I thought plastics could be incinerated to produce power and with a good filter produce
>> clean emissions? Perhaps that's the way to go without more landfill.
>>
>>
40 years ago when I was slightly involved in solid waste, Combined Heat and Power was all the rage. All waste was to go to the power station, be burned in a way that produced minimal undesirable gases, the solid residues, ash etc were inert and were to be used in concrete, and lots of energy recovered. And no more landfill.
There was even a scheme (Birmingham ?) where the dustcarts ran on electricity generated by the very waste they were carrying.
This was the future. What's happened?
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Isn't there a massive one of these incinerators where the old Dagenham Ford factory was?
Producing power and ash for making cinder blocks.
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Our local refuse collecting company used to have a fairly narrow range of plastic containers which can go into the recycling box but that changed a few months back to include most food "trays" (i mean like wot meat and sometimes fruit comes on) except if they are black.
So I assume they can do more somehow or other now.
I believe that all the plastic recycling is still hand filtered on a conveyor to take out the stuff they can't manage. (In fact our tins, plastic and paper all go in a box together so there must somewhere be an element of sorting)
This isn't something I'd usually own up to, but as I was not working but SWMBO was, and I was doing the shopping, part of my Xmas pressie in 2016 was four really good strong shopping bags. They are always in the car and I haven't bought a carrier bag since. Possibly the least-interesting but most-used of my recent Christmas presents...!!
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Our plastic, paper, card, cans and glass all go in one big wheely bin. I understand a major part of the sorting is done mechanically with magnets, air currents, shaking etc but that plastic has to be hand sorted into different groups not all of which are currently re-cycled.
Whether Northamptonshire's well publicised cash crisis will affect the service - they dispose of what the Town/District Council's collect - remains to be seen.
Mrs B and I have collection of mostly French (Carrefour, Leclerc, Intermarche, Auchan etc) re-usable heavy duty shopping bags gathered over 15+ years. Waitrose do a type that are insulated so we've four of those as well. With a couple of frozen sports bottles to coo; them down and keep contents chilled they'll keep fresh food adequately cool for three or four hours.
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It is important to understand that Reduce and Reuse are far more important than recycle.
Recycling is what you do when you've failed at the other two.
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"It is important to understand that Reduce and Reuse are far more important than recycle."
Aaaaargh - you've got me going again by reminding me of this stupidity.......
www.car4play.com/forum/post/index.htm?t=25261&v=f
"A couple of years ago, the hinge-pin on the lid of our black-bin was lost during emptying by the bin-men. I contacted the council and offered to cycle over to the council depot to pick up a replacement pin (value 10p?) and fit it myself. The council [motto: Repair, Re-use, Re-cycle] told me not to worry, they would deal with it if I left the bin at the front of the house.
Wife and I were out when they called, but daughter informed us that a small lorry had drawn up, two chaps jumped out and set about the bin with sledge hammers; they threw the bits onto the back of the lorry, left me a new bin, and cleared off.
And their motto again ........???"
BTW, that was one big lump of plastic.
Last edited by: Haywain on Sun 5 Aug 18 at 16:28
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I found that biodegradable garden bags survived intact for several months in my composter. Wet wipes are also condemned but for blocking sewers. As a maintenance man in a recent programme in The Five Billion Pound Sewer series complained, they do not break up. Waitrose claim that their own variety are flushable and biodegradable but they do *not*say that they are soluble. I recently kept one under water for nine days with no obvious change.
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to
>> include most food "trays" (i mean like wot meat and sometimes fruit comes on) except
>> if they are black.
>>
>> So I assume they can do more somehow or other now.
>>
>> I believe that all the plastic recycling is still hand filtered on a conveyor to
If they are saying no to black plastic then it'll be machine sorted. Apparently the sensors struggle to see black plastic.
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All waste was to go to the power station, be burned
>> in a way that produced minimal undesirable gases, the solid residues, ash etc were inert
>> and were to be used in concrete, and lots of energy recovered. And no more
>> landfill.
They do that in Iceland at least the burning of waste. The issue is that the undesirable gases aren't as minimal as first thought.
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My learning continues....
[tell me, are you lot interested in this? I am going to keep looking for my own benefit, but I'm only going to bother putting it in here if you're actually interested?]
The impacts of plastic pollutants are mechanical (e.g. entanglement), ingestion and exposure to chemicals.
The world produces around 380 million tonnes of plastic each year. To date we have made 6.3 billion. We’ve recycled about 9% and burned about 12%. That leaves around 5 billion tonnes of plastic waste which has either been buried or is currently littering our planet.
In the UK we bury around 75%, even these days.
Two common quotes are that 90% of the bodies of seabirds contain plastic and that by 2050 by weight there will be more plastic than fish in the sea.
The North Pacific Garbage Patch is a floating mass of plastic debris. It covers 1.6million square kilometres, though at varying density and concentration, and contains an estimated 1.4 trillion pieces. It is almost entirely made up of pieces larger than 5mm.
80% of it comes from land-based activities and waste. 20% of it is waste from rigs, ships, boats and other sea-based activities. Including 79,000 tones fishing nets.
It was discovered in 1997 during a yacht race.
No country will accept responsibility or take action to clean it up. Not even in groups. The most ambitious goal is simply to stop it growing.
To clean up the patch would take 700 ships around 10 years. More easily understood is perhaps that 70 ships working for 1 year would clean up around 1% of the patch.
That is even it were possible, which it probably is not, at least with current technology. Any net able to collect pieces of less than 5mm (microplastics) would also clean the sea of marine life.
And if that doesn’t sufficiently worry you, there’s another one; The North Atlantic Garbage Patch which is of similar size.
Still not shocked? There’s three more, though of smaller size, around the world. South Atlantic, South Pacific and Indian.
Microplastics are less than 5mm in diameter. There are two types; primary which are manufactured and secondary which result from the breakdown of larger plastic items mostly plastic bags, bottle caps, plastic bottles and Styrofoam cups.
Fishing line/net takes 600 years to decompose. Sanitary towels; 800 years. Plastic bags, anywhere from 10 – 1000 years. Plastic bottles; 500 years, nappies; 500 years.
Plastic Landfill takes up to 1000 years to biodegrade, accepting that some stuff simple doesn’t,
Last edited by: No FM2R on Sun 5 Aug 18 at 16:38
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>> My learning continues....
>>
>> [tell me, are you lot interested in this? I am going to keep looking for
>> my own benefit, but I'm only going to bother putting it in here if you're
>> actually interested?]
Some of it I knew, some I didn't, all of it I find incredibly depressing. Nevertheless, keep going, please.
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>>all of it I find incredibly depressing
Yes, it really is.
And it really puts Trump's antics with the environmental laws, and India, Africa and China's total lack of care for environmental laws into context.
Goodness knows what we can do. It is frustrating to know that if the UK abolished all plastics tomorrow it would make little difference to the world.
Still, got to put your own house in order first, before you can berate the others.
There are some things we can do though;
We need to refuse to buy stuff in plastic packaging. That'd probably hit the Chinese packaged products hard enough for them to pay attention.
We should behave the same with food packaging. And White goods. And TV packaging. etc. etc.
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Refusing to buy stuff in plastic packaging would in many instances counter-productive. Plastic wrapping for food allows us to keep food longer, keep it in hygienic conditions and minimise waste. Reduce unnecessary packaging yes but eliminate it? I don’t think that’s really practical. Fancy buyin a pound of liver in a paper bag? ( yes I know we used to,)
It is rather ironic that for years we fretted about disposing of nuclear waste, which is actually comparatively easy ( Bury it in a big hole in Scotland) when we should have been worrying about plastic.
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I do not yet know enough to argue, though I am sure that you are reassured that at some point I will be.
Though really, to take every word literally and ignore the meaning or intention behind a statement is a very small way of debating a point.
However, I doubt that it would be counter productive simply and only because it would cause a shorter life for food. In fact, arguably, it would perhaps cause better behavioural pressures on our spending habits and therefore our farming behaviours. Or not. I don't know. I try to save my opinions for matters I feel sufficiently knowledgeable to be credible about.
To obviously over-react simply for emphasis;
Question: "Fancy buyin [sic] a pound of liver in a paper bag?"
Answer: Not much, but a dead planet seems an even less palatable proposition. How connected are they?
>>we fretted about disposing of nuclear waste, which is actually comparatively easy
Easy? Of course it's easy. But, as with plastic, there will come a point where we will have to deal with the ramifications of accepting a decision solely because it was easy.
Easy is perhaps not the best justification for doing something.
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I think you miss the point I was making. Plastic packaging has many advantages over other materials, particularly as far as food is concerned. We need to look at the evironmental impact of the alternatives before we reject plastic. I am sure your research will reveal that all the alternatives have advantages and disadvantages. In some cases you will find the disadvantages are considerable.
The immediate problem we face is disposal in the worlds oceans not its use.
As far as my throwaway statement regarding nuclear waste is concerned my rather flippant solution would actually be both easy and carry few ramifications other than protest from the rather ill informed by and large anti- nuclear public. Deep storage in the stable igneous Cambrian rocks would, compared to eliminating plastics, be an easy solution to an environmental problem.
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>>We need to look at the environmental impact of the alternatives before we reject plastic
I absolutely did miss that point, apologies. And I agree.
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I agree too - lets not jump to another solution that has other problems.
I assume the microwavable plastic containers for ready meals are black to aid heat absorption. But can we not come up with an alternative or even an identifier the cameras in the recycling plant can recognise like a QR code?
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Again, recycling is not the answer. Recycling is what you do when you've failed at reduction and reuse.
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Here is an article comparing the environmental effects of paper v plastic bags.
It was produced by the plastics industry so need to be read with a degree of caution but nevertheless raises some interesting points.
www.allaboutbags.ca/papervplastic.html
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Thank you. Interesting.
Still though, the problem with the paper bag is the environmental cost of making it and then inability to dilute that cost with reuse.
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True but if you could eliminate or at least reduce the escape of plastic into the environment that would make plastic the more environmentally favourable option.
As an aside I was in Nova Scotia recently. They insist that all household waste bound for landfill is placed in a clear plastic sack so it can be checked for recyclable items. If they see any the contractors will not collect the waste
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>>I assume the microwavable plastic containers for ready meals are black to aid heat absorption
Don't think microwaves care about colours as much as infra-red.
Probably to enhance the colour (or lack thereof) of the tripe being heated.
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No, the use black because food looks better displayed on black. It’s purely down to marketing.
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So your lasagne or cannelloni filling the black plastic looks a little better than a different colour for marketing. Does anyone buying an M&S ready meal care?
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Yes. They sell more if it’s on black so people do care.
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>> Yes. They sell more if it’s on black so people do care.
>>
It's curious then that food is usually displayed in shops on white slabs for meat and fish, and green for vegetables and fruit.
And by and large people prefer to eat off white or pale coloured plates rather than black.
The food inside your black refrigerator must look especially enticing. :)
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>> >> Yes. They sell more if it’s on black so people do care.
>>
>> The food inside your black refrigerator must look especially enticing. :)
>>
Actually,
jennair.com/obsidian-refrigerator
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>> So your lasagne or cannelloni filling the black plastic looks a little better than a
>> different colour for marketing. Does anyone buying an M&S ready meal care?
>>
I think it's to do with colour contrast, I've noticed that darker meats such as mince/steak tend to be in black plastics and lighter meat such as turkey/chicken tends to be in clear plastics. Ready meals tend to be darker I would think. So perhaps it's to do with how we see and look at colour?
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"all of it I find incredibly depressing"
I put it on a par with world population growth, though only Sir David Attenborough and I seem to worry about that.
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Yumans are a blight on the planet and other species. And ourselves. There has to be a serious reduction in population, one way or another.
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Could you clarify what you mean by "one way or another". What are you advocating?
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>>People tend to fight when resources become scarce
I think it is more common for resources to become scarce when people fight.
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>> >>People tend to fight when resources become scarce
>>
>> I think it is more common for resources to become scarce when people fight.
>>
Not when Japan tried to take out the American Pacific fleet which could obstruct the routes from the Dutch East Indies oil fields and rubber plantations, which went past the Philippines, after the Japanese occupied the Dutch East Indies because they were short of essential resources.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Sun 5 Aug 18 at 23:05
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>>Not when Japan tried to take out the American....
I said 'more common', not exclusively!
The usual route for obtaining resources is through trade.
Last edited by: Lygonos on Sun 5 Aug 18 at 23:18
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>> >>, after the Japanese occupied the Dutch East Indies because they were short of essential
>> resources.
>>
I think the Japanese attempt to take out the US fleet came before the invasion of the Dutch East Indies.
But I agree the move was in response to the western squeeze on Japanese imports of essential raw materials.
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>>What are you advocating?
...I think it might have been along the lines of "Come the revolution, you'll be first against the wall......"
;-)
Last edited by: tyrednemotional on Sun 5 Aug 18 at 22:42
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>> Could you clarify what you mean by "one way or another". What are you advocating?
I simply meant that it is inevitable and probably not too many generations away. Unless there is a self-imposed reduction then as ON implies it will come down to war, famine, pestilence and death.
I suppose I must therefore be advocating some sort of agreement or consensus between nations to bring about the reduction by generally acceptable means.
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If the world became vegetarian it could sustain 15 billion souls.
It would, of course, smell of fart.
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There’s is only one acceptable way to reduce the birth rate and that is to increase the standard of living in poor countries.
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>> There's is only one acceptable way to reduce the birth rate and that is to increase the standard of living in poor countries.
A similar but different way is to increase the educational achievement of women.
Looking at data from Middle East countries, fertility rates have gone from 7-8 births per woman in 1960, to 2-2.5 now, so I expect the wealth/education angle is (unsurprisingly) linked
Last edited by: Lygonos on Mon 6 Aug 18 at 08:40
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I agree. One of the outcomes would be to increase the effectiveness of the local economies.
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But the downside, environmentally, of improved education and wealth is that people start to want more western-style products.
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Your comment that plastic in landfill takes 1000 years to biodegrade may have an unexpected benefit as pointed out in this article. One of the biggest problems we face is the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere and the consequent global warming effect. As the article points out plastic can act as a useful carbon sink and correctly stored in regulated landfill plastic waste could be, at least in part be an answer to a problem rather than itself be another problem.
waste-management-world.com/a/opinion-landfill-could-be-best-option-for-waste-plastics
The more I read on this the more convince I become that the manufacture and use of plastics is not in itself the problem. Plastics are far too useful in so many way for there to be a significant reduction in their use. The problem is how we manage the stuff after use. We don’t have to chuck it in the ocean.
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>> The more I read on this the more convince I become that the manufacture and
>> use of plastics is not in itself the problem. Plastics are far too useful in
>> so many way for there to be a significant reduction in their use. The problem
>> is how we manage the stuff after use. We don’t have to chuck it in
>> the ocean.
I agree. But there is more to it than just that.
We need to reduce what we produce. Really only use it where there is no viable alternative. Where the viability of an alternative considers both it's function and it's environmental impact.
Reuse what we produce wherever we can and beware of unintended consequences. The reduction of plastic supermarket bags is likely to have a significant impact on the demand for bin liners.
Recycle what we can. We're simply not recycling enough.
And *then* dispose of carefully. As you say, not dump it in the sea
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So how would you judge viability then? Let’s look at two major items that consume a lot of plastic, Window frames and children’s toys. I can see a lot of functional justification for both but they will all eventually end up in landfill at best. There are viable alternatives for both but they are neither as cheap nor do they arguably fit their purpose so well.
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Good question, got an answer. But in meetings most of the rest of today. Catch you later.
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>> There are viable alternatives for both but they are neither as cheap nor do they
>> arguably fit their purpose so well.
Indeed, I have just had removed some UVPC french doors and side windows, and had them replaced with thinner profiled powder coated aluminium ones, About 70% as thermally efficient and twice the cost of UVPC ones
I wanted even thinner steel ones (think crittal windows) but they were twice the cost again, and an 18 week leadtime.
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>>About 70% as thermally efficient and twice the cost of UVPC ones
Aye, but in 40 years they'll still be as good as the day they were fitted I expect.
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>> >>About 70% as thermally efficient and twice the cost of UVPC ones
>>
>> Aye, but in 40 years they'll still be as good as the day they were
>> fitted I expect.
Indeed, placky doors dont have a great operational life. In this heat they a droopy things.
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 6 Aug 18 at 17:48
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Good post.
While you’re at it Mark can you find out why cellophane bags as carrier bags are not a viable environmentally friendly alternative?
Cost of production? Lack of strength? Break up in water?
The thing is, to be somewhat bio degradable something has to give.
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>> A balanced article on plastic recycling.
>
>> www.economist.com/international/2018/03/03/the-known-unknowns-of-plastic-pollution
I thought it was going to be and looked forward to reading it. Actually though I didn't think it was very good.
It was not an article I'd previously read. It's actual facts and figures seem accurate and born out by articles and studies that I have previously read.
My approach when trying to learn about a subject, especially when using a lot of articles and studies, is to cut and paste the study/article into MS Word, and then start deleting all the sentences which are either fluff, something I already knew or opinion (as opposed to conclusion).
Doing that to this article didn't leave much for me to learn from.
What did it say;
- It's not the biggest problem we have
- Other countries are a bigger problem than 'we' are
- It's not the highest value damage impact we have to deal with
- There is no evidence that eating small pieces of plastic will hurt you
- Discarded trash is not the biggest killer and only 10% of it is plastic anyway
Of the three issues; mechanical, ingestion and toxicity it seems to only worry about the third, relying on the fact that those particular parts of the ocean are "neither especially rich in fauna nor particularly biodiverse"".
Or reduction, reuse and recycling it focusses most on recycling, though it does mention reuse. It appears not to support reduction.
Neither educational nor inspiring. But, fair to say, no lies or inaccuracies that I could see.
Way too much editorial opinion seeking not to offend plastic manufacturers, in my view.
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"What did it say;
- It's not the biggest problem we have"
Did the writer say what they considered to be the biggest problem?
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One of the dis disadvantages of cellophane is the the toxicity of Carbon disulphide used in its manufacture.
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Some plastic is essential.
Some plastic is inessential.
If we can reduce the inessential, then we will reduce the size of the problem. Plastic has many benefits. At this moment I happen to have run out of cling film; the consequence of which is that food goes off more quickly or has to be wrapped in aluminium foil - which is more expensive and not as effective which means that food goes off more quickly.
It strikes me that huge quantities of wasted plastic arise from takeaway food. It also kicks around the streets of London. You might not want your pound of liver in a paper bag, but if you can avoid somebody else cooking it and delivering it in a plastic box then you may be winning.
The 5p charge on plastic bags has certainly reduced my use of them; if I can carry what I have bought without one then I will (it helps a mini Tesco is fifty yards from my front door).
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Plastic bags.... - No FM2R
