Plastic Isn't Nice: Plastic City!

Friday 27 August 2010

Plastic City!

Following in the footsteps of the esteemed Mr and Mrs Green over at My Zero Waste, who have written a blog about their recent holidays from a waste conscious perspective. I've just spent a few days in Leicestershire, staying with relatives. My mothers house comes under the jurisdiction of Blaby District Council, who seem to take an enlightened approach to waste, although they provide two large wheelie bins and two smaller ones (for glass and recyclables). Which can cause problems if you lack space outside of the house.

But it was a piece in the local paper, the Leicester Mercury that caught my eye, it appears that recycling rates in the city of Leicester, have actually fallen over recent years, which is in stark contract to the overall national picture where recycling has risen. Leicester City Council in conjunction with Biffa, the company who collect waste in the city, have decided to test trail a new method of collecting waste for recycling. Their plan is to get rid of the green wheelie bin and provide plastic bags instead! In its favour the new scheme will allow Biffa to collect a greater range of waste including mixed plastics. Whilst Leicester council is renowned for its innovative approach to waste, I just can't help but wonder if this isn't retrograde step?

In its favour this city council has also recently opened a state of the art recycling plant called the 'Ball Mill' a fully mechanised waste processing and recycling facility, designed to treat all household waste.

The Ball Mill is the only one of its kind in the UK and can divert up to 70% of household waste from landfill. The process extracts all metal, cardboard, plastic and organic material and sends these for recycling, composting or energy recovery.

I took a trip into Leicester itself whilst I was there too, little sign of any revolt against plastic in evidence around the city though. In fact the ubiquitous carrier bag, with the names of various companies, embedded across the front, appeared to be very much in vogue. Whilst almost every store seemed to me to be a plastic lovers heaven!

2 comments:

rae-ann28 August 2010 at 08:41
Interesting to read about Ball Mill; it sounds like a very forward-thinking set up.

I'm failing to see why changing from a bin to a bag means the local council can collect more materials, however....
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Lobma.28 August 2010 at 12:57
Rae, the explanation given to the Leicester Mercury, from a council official was, "we're always looking for ways to make it easier for people to recycle.In other parts of the country where this has been trialled, recycling has gone up by a quarter!"

I'm at a loss too, in understanding just why people find it easier to put waste in a bag then a bin, unless it's because they can carry a bag around the home with them, whereas they find it too difficult to take it out to the bin. Bearing in mind that the area where this trial is going to happen has a lot of flats, I may just begin to understand.
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Welcome

I've been aware of the dangers posed by plastic to the environment for a while now. But it was whilst watching a video clip which showed graphically the effects the stuff is having in our oceans, that inspired me to create this blog. I hope that you will feel able to contribute in some way, either by adding comments or sending pieces for me to post. We won't rid the earth of plastic over night, but we can make our voices heard, so those who produce this highly versatile yet dangerous material, will begin to question the logic of manufacturing a product that takes hundreds of years to break down and which is filling our rivers, oceans, and fields with its detritus, causing millions of wild creatures to suffer painful deaths. We can but try to lessen our dependency on the stuff!

Some Sobering Plastic Facts

To clean the oceans, you'd need to fill 630 oil supertankers to the brim at a cost of about $56,000 per each a day to charter

To give an example of how long plastic lasts in the ocean. In 2001 a piece of plastic found in an albatross stomach bore a serial number that was traced to a World War II seaplane shot down in 1944 (US Fish & Wildlife)

All plastic breaks down into particles.It does not dissolve; it just breaks into tiny pieces and stays there. At this size it is small enough to be ingested by every single organism in the world's oceans - animals as small as krill and salps (plankton feeders) right up to the great Blue Whale.

It's estimated that over 10's of thousands of seabirds choke or get tangled in plastic debris (including domestic waste and disused fishing gear) and about 100,000 seals, sea lions, whales, dolphins, other marine mammals and sea turtles suffer the same fate, although some scientists believe this figure to be much higher. (DNR) (Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission)

UK beaches have on average 2000 pieces of litter for every kilometer. (MCS)However this average is only given to larger items.The number of plastic particles (small plastic pieces) on a beach in just one square foot can range from hundreds to thousands in some of the worst polluted area's. (Thompson) (Algalita)

The world produces over 200 million tonnes plastic annually. Around half of this is used for disposable items of packaging that are discarded within a year. This debris is accumulating in landfill and the problem is growing. (Thompson).

Since the 1950's almost every piece of plastic that we have ever made, used and thrown away is still here on this planet in one form or another, whether its in our homes, in landfill or in the environment; and it will be here for centuries to come.

An estimated 17 billion plastic bags are given away annually by United Kingdom supermarkets-enough plastic to cover an area the size of London, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and west Yorkshire combined.

On average we only recycle 1 plastic bag in every 200 we use. (londoncouncils.gov.uk)