Re:A Restaurant with No Leftovers
by pjc50 on Friday January 03, 2020 @11:46AM
(#21947582)
The plastic bag issue was a particularly conspicuous source of litter, somehow. They tended to blow away and get caught in trees and bushes. The 5p tax has cleaned up the visual environment quite dramatically, just as vaping has put a big dent in the cigarette litter.
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It's certainly a problem and I don't mean to minimize it.
If you look at numbers, it's also enormously better here than in Asia. Like all of Europe and America are responsible for less than 5% of worldwide river/ocean litter.
Part of the problem is us (western society) shipping bulk "recyclables" overseas, which then get picked through for valuables, and the rest is often left out to be picked up by the next wind or rain.
One of the best things we could do for world wide river ocean litter pollution, is to just landfill low value recyclables domestically, instead of shipping then overseas. (Edit: or at least recycle them domestically, or with a trusted, regulated country)
Also applies somewhat to air quality with burning plastic for electricity.