The UK alone uses over 5 million tonnes of plastics each year, of which just 24% is currently being recycled. This figure needs to increase, particularly as nearly all types of plastic can now be recycled but often aren’t due to logistical and economic reasons.
what are the solutions
As with every issue in today’s world, it all comes down to Economics. The World Economic Forum said ‘the only way to avoid a disaster is to massively improve the economics and uptake of recycling. That means giving people incentives to collect plastic garbage and recycle, use reusable packaging, and encourage countries to drastically improve their waste collection infrastructure, to avoid plastic garbage leaking into the nature.
The Natural Resources Defence Council of the US agrees that we need to tackle this issue on both individual and industrial levels, saying that 'the most effective way to stop plastic pollution in our oceans is to make sure it never reaches the water in the first place. We all need to do our fair share to stop plastic pollution: individuals need to recycle and never litter, but producers of single use plastic packaging need to do more too. We need producers to design packaging so that it is fully recyclable, and so there is less waste. We also need producers to help cover the costs of keeping their products out of the ocean.’
so what can you do now to help
Dispense with single-use plastic bottles and cups! Whilst the quantities of plastic being released into our oceans and the harm being done to us and our environment can be concepts too huge to get your head around, a manageable and practical place to start looking at helping to reduce the plastic burden on our oceans is one’s own consumption of the stuff. Get your freshly purified water from a BIBO rather than buying plastic-bottled mineral water.
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