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Single Use Plastics

How many items made from plastic have you used today? Some
will be items that you have been using day in-day out for a

long time, indeed it’s fair to say that plastic can be a very useful
material for its many practical properties. It is also likely that
you have come across plastic today that has had a very fleeting

‘useful life’, that’s to say that it served its purpose for a very short
time before being discarded in the bin (hopefully the recycling bin).
it’s packaged, is there an alternative? It might be that you need to do things a
These products are called ‘Single Use Plastics’ (SUP) for that very reason, Most importantly, try to limit the amount of plastic you use as much as possible.
they’re designed to be used once and usually for our convenience. Next time you buy something, take time to notice what it’s made from and how
may want to change one thing at a time. Why not look at it as a challenge!

What’s the Problem? little differently and change your habits or routines in order to avoid the SUP, you

When plastics are discarded as litter, they can pose a real problem as, unlike natural

materials, plastic never fully breaks down- only eventually disintegrates into more smaller
pieces. Therefore, that sandwich bag or water bottle, useful for a matter of hours or

minutes, will possibly still exist for hundreds, if not thousands of years to come! We know
that there are tons and tons of plastic items floating in the oceans and that they cause
problems for marine animals by entanglement or ingestion, either of large items mistaken Invest in items that can be used time and time again, such as sturdy

for food or through the microplastics that work their way into the food chain. refillable drink bottles and coffee cups. Look out for options to refill

So what about recycling? Many items of plastic are now easily recycled through kerbside containers for food, cleaning and beauty products and use tubs,
collections, which prevents the items ending up in landfill or incinerated. While
bags, bottles etc again or repurpose for something else.
recycling works well to keep some materials, such as aluminum cans, in a
continuous loop of use, plastic on the other hand is not as easy to manage in

that its recycling is more of a downward spiral than an infinite loop. Plastics
are usually sorted, cleaned, shredded, melted and remoulded. Each time
plastic is recycled this way, its quality is degraded. The new, lower grade

plastic often becomes unsuitable for use in food packaging and
currently, most plastic can be recycled a very limited

number of times before it is so degraded it becomes
items not currently collected at the kerbside. The https://
unusable. For more information about what It is important to recycle any ‘unavoidable’ plastic items
points all over the country for a wide variety of difficult to
happens to your waste materials, take a look whenever possible and look out for collection points for
at https://myrecyclingwales.org.uk/. www.terracycle.com/en-GB/ website offers collection

recycle items.