Poisonous Plastics - Part Three: What To Do?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2205419.stm gives some background on Eire's answer to the plastic bags menace.

Citing a BBC report from 2002 is not that illuminating. When the Scottish Executive looked at plastics bag taxes they decided that the results were not, in environmental terms, what was expected. Higher fuel costs, increased waste creation, etc. The driver should be on reducing ALL waste not just focusing on plastics - which at the end of the day are so prevalent because they have proved so cost effective. By the way, have you heard about heavy metals in glass?

I remember as a kid. Taking glass bottles back to the store for the refund.

I recycle as much as I can even though I don't get any money for it. It very easy to do where I live. Once every 2 weeks I take the items to the city recycling site. The only bad part is storing the card board till I take it. If I set it outside the neighbors complain but I don't have room to store it inside .

But I think a refund on plastic bottles would help tremendously. Just look at all the people who recycle or wander around picking up the aluminum cans. Just for the cash they get at the recyclers. I think the same would happen to plastic bottles if they gave $ for them.

I agree, separating cardboard, plastics, cans, etc. is not difficult. Where I live it is mandatory to recycle, not that we have garbage police looking through bags prior to throwing them in the hopper.

I have a friend who has been picking up returns from the side of the road for years, so a refund does seem to help the clutter. I think he bought a car with the money.(25 yrs of picking)

I prefer cans and plastic containers because they don't shatter (well, under normal circomstances), easier to pick up one piece of litter than a hundred shards. Although beer certainly taste better from a glass bottle, I'd hate to have plastic beer containers.

I agree. Having grown up when glass bottles were recycled as the norm, the continual switch to cheaper and cheaper sinle use disposable containers seems rediculous. Obviously, the new containers must be considered by the bottlrs to be cheaper than reusing the glass bottles and redistributing them, and must be considered by the purchaser to be more convenient. The point then, it seems, is to balance the environmental costs to the costs of convenience and the redcued costs to the bottlers. This could potentially be accomplished via a stiff tax on companies that wont provide the products in glass bottles, or a stiff tax on purchasers that purchase a product in plastic containers.

To reduce the amount of plastic bags accumulating on roadsides, grocery stores (and others) should provide paper bags with the option for plastic bags at a premium add on cost. I suspect the problem would be eliminated in record time. It is the low cost to the consumer and the packager that results in its disposal as trash throughout the world.

Actually all bags should have a additional charge to encourage the use of cloth bags that can be used many times!

The total cost of glass is higher due to the additional costs of production, logistics involved in reuse [transportation, cleaning, storage & inspection].

Many states have deposits on plastic bottles.

The next target should be coffee cups, there must be a better solution than disposible styrofoam, not to mention the stuff that must leach out from the heat?

It is not just in ireland where people are trying to improve the situation, Teso in the whole of the UK will give you greenpoints on your clubcard if you bring your own bags. Each bag you use that you brought yourself results in one extra point on your card.

Personally I think we are concentrating too much on recycling in this thread. We already discussed recycling before and do not realy need to repeat all that. I think the question that was stated, what to do now?, should be reflecting the origin of the problem more. Where does it start and what can we do about that. Who decides we want all packaging to be plastic and why? I think those answers would bring the next step in enlightenment about this issue. Basically we are all guilty as sin for the simple reason that we all consume in enormous quantities. We all work too much and therefor have less time to hang around different shops for our shopping thus we all end up in the supermarkets. As we are also lazy we all buy ready packed. As we are so pampered by public services that we do NOT want to bring our recycling back to the shops, we have it picked up.

All questions have answers, most answers have no consequences and that is the problem here, nothing else. We simply do not want to change our easy lifestyle. I bet you don't either!

Solution must therefor be found in progress somehow, manage the problem with advanced technology. Hopefully it will result in packaging with the same benefits but much better performance in the environmental department.

In the mean time we should try to save on it as much as possible. Cut it out of our life where we can. Force industry to do the same. Loads of packaging is unnesecary and does not get recycled.