Page 10 - Rage Issue1

THE TRUTH ABOUT

THE WAR ON PLASTICS

Plastics are the ultimate packaging solution.Plastic packaging keep products fresh and safe
whilst in transit. Once in situ on retail shelves in stores around the world the
transparencey of the plastic packaging displays the product inside to its full potential and
entices the consumer to buy. However, once bought the pacaging is imeadeately discarded
into the household dustbin and imeadeately forgotton.

At this stage it is easy to blame first the plastic manufacturer for manufacturing the
packaging. Second blame the company for choosing plastic packaging for it products or
thirdly blame the consumer for disposing of the pacaging without any thought of what is

going to happen to it then.

Charities such as Greenpeace WWF along with the BBC presenter Sir David Attenborough
brought to the publics attention the dunping of plastics into our oceans and the devastating
effects it is having on our wildlife.

Many goverments now forced to act on this problem decided to ban the import of all retail
goods using or made from single use plastics. This is clearly an answer but not the answer
... Studying the photographs of these feilds of plastics on our beaches and in our oceans.

Yes they are made up of discarded soft drinks bottles and single use plastics but there are
also many multi use plastics amongst them; such as discarded flip flops plastic netting from
building sites, yachting ropes and plastic sheeting.

During the Covid 19 pandemic single use plastic has been esential in keeping our NHS
workers safe from the virus. The NHS protective clothing known as PPE consists of a face
mask, rubber or latex gloves and a sigle use disposable apron. After use the complete PPE
is removed carefully and disposed of in the hospital incinerator.

The answer has to be to recycle all plastic products. All plastics are recyclable so why is
this not done and some governments choosing to dump used plastics into the oceans? To

recycle plastics they have to be pure, that is to say they have to be seperated into plastics of
the same type.i.e. a product made from just one plastic not mixed plastics.

Local councils now all supply the green bins so that we can seperate items to be recycled.
Once these bins have been collected the council store the recycled items until they can be
sent to a recyle center.We need many more recycle centers to deal with the volume.
Council’s only have limited storage space and the wait for the recycle center to take their
plastic leaves the councils we no alternative other than send it to an incinerator or put it
into landfill.