3 steps forward?

There's been a few interesting news articles lately, with various people taking steps to reduce waste. I think its quite positive.

US town bans sale of small water bottles:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20895902

Ghana bans second hand fridges - I'm not so sure about this one, because surely its better to get a few more years out of an old inefficient piece of kit than to send it to land fill and manufacture a replacement, but I think the sentiment is good:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20895902

And last but not least, somewhere I've never heard of is banning plastic bags:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20891539

Small steps, but if it reduces the amount of plastic ending up in the sea and in landfill, it must be a good thing.

 

Yeah, bring it on for the UK. The point about plastic water bottles is not just the throwaway plastic involved but the vast amount of fuel needed to drag the stuff around the motorway network just so we can sup on yuppie water.
But then the same thing applies to many, may other unnecessary products - fabric softener, for example.
Should all be banned - but then, that would be bad for business, wouldn't it?

 

Chanell was telling me how little the Americans recycle, if its suggested then you are considered a tree hugger. For a country that nearly fell off the fiscal cliff, thats an awful lot of money to be sending to landfill.

Think Scrungee & I should write to Obama and tell him where he's going wrong.

 

They stopped giving plastic bags away for free in supermarket in Ireland about 10 years ago. They then started charging about 20 cents per bag. Before this there were loads of them just chucked everywhere as you have to pay for rubbish collection over there. If people didn't just throw them in fields and hedges people used to burn them. Now ( not that I have been for a few years) there are hardy any discarded all over the place. A lesson for this country in my opinion.

Rusty

 

When I worked in Germany , there were no plastic bags offered in supermarkets at all. You had to bring your own. They should be banned a long with plastic bottles.

 

If plastic bottles were banned drinks manufacturers would start using glass again which would cause a lot more problems when people start smashing them all over the street.

Rusty

 

I once worked at a large company, our section alone was 2000 strong. Each and every one of us had our own bin, and each and every bin was emptied daily and the plastic liner changed, even if the bin was empty.

I wrote to the newly appointed 'Officer for the Environment, Health and Safety' within our company and told him that I thought it was daft that the company was paying a cleaning contractor to throw away 2000 plastic bags per day, and it would inconvenience nobody if we had one bin between two desks, and if those bins were only cleaned if they had been used. I even did him some draft sums to show that the company could not only save money and help us to achieve our 'excellent' status with the Carbon Trust, but would also reduce the amount of plastic the Sheffield section alone sends to landfill by more than 50%).

He couldn't have been less interested, and after several exchanges with one of his underlings who he'd fobbed me off onto, they even got one of the senior bosses to warn me off for wasting time and being a nuisance. I didn't let it end there. Shortly after that, the same buffoons started a competition to see which department could waste the most printer toner, and I made a meal of that too.

Here in Britain, we make all the noise about being 'eco', but I'm afraid at a corporate and government level, I think we're among the worst there is.

That's a different problem. It seems to me that if bottles are going to get thrown about, its going to be beer bottles, which are glass anyway. People don't tend to get stupid on soft drinks. Personally I think the issue there simple lack of policing. Coppers don't need to catch everyone. All they need to do is enforce the terms of an off-license's license. If an offy is regularly the supplier of alcohol to people who then get drunk and do silly things, they can have their license withdrawn. Once a few off shops in an area have been forced to stop selling alcohol, the consumers will police themselves. Imagine you're a young man out with your mates, and one of them starts being a loony. If you think his behaviour is going to ruin the future fun for you and your mates, you're going to sort him out.

 

Ah, back in the day ...
- we all took our own shopping baskets and we were charged if we needed to use a carrier bag

- bottles had a return on them; as kids we'd scout out bottles for our pocket money.

Funny how things go in cycles

 

Clueless.

At the moment 58% of pop is sold in plastic bottles, 27% in cans , 10% is dispensed, 4% in glass and 1% other. So this tells us that bottles are the most popular way to consume pop. If plastic bottles are banned the manufactures are not going to stop selling bottles they will go back to glass so 62% of pop will be sold in glass bottles. As there are already loads of plastic bottles discarded willy nilly why would that change for glass. I agree with you on the beer bottles being smashed, but in my opinion if pop was sold in glass it would be a lot worse than beer bottles.

Rusty

 

Maybe you're right. I remember when drinks just weren't sold in plastic bottles at all (except for the kiddies 'Trendy Pops'), but it is a fairly vague memory for me because plastic started to take over when I was still quite little.

I might be looking back through rose tinted glasses, but I can't really remember the streets and alleys I played out in being full of broken glass. Sure there was always some, but I don't remember it being any more than we see nowadays.

 

Neither can I, but I think back then there was a lot more pride and respect for the environment that people live in. And as you said in an earlier post what are the consequences if caught now where asback then not only would a police officer smack you around the ear so would the local residence if they caught you.

Rusty

 

when I was living in Germany I remember that we took the empty glass bottles back to the supermarket to be recycled.