We humans have become dependent on plastic for a range of uses, from packaging to products. Reducing our use of plastic bags is an easy place to start getting our addiction under control.
- David Suzuki (Canadian environmental activist)I recently moved to Australia and not aware about how garbage disposal system works. My building manager informed me about recycle bins and garbage bins. Red lid for the regular waste, yellow for recycling, blue lid for paper and cardboard waste and green lid for the organic garden waste. This looked pretty straight forward until my flatmate asked me not to put plastic bags in recycling bin. I was dumbfounded while I was shoving a plastic bag into a recycling bin and also guilty of using it in the first place. He said, "plastic bags CANNOT be recycled." Since that day I got very conscious of what goes into each waste bin.
The above website helped me understand the waste produced in a household goes into which bin. Few days later I saw a bin outside Woolworths with a sign 'Recycle Plastic Bags'. If council doesn't take plastic bags for recycling how does a super market recycle them. My first thought was 'do they reuse them?' So I had to get to the bottom of this.
Plastic bags fall into a category of soft plastic. Along with plastic bags any plastic item that can be easily crushed by hand like bread, pasta, chips packet, biscuit packs and trays are all considered as soft plastic. Following are few issues regarding soft plastic which are prevalent in Australia:
- Annually Australians use 3.9 billion plastic bags a year.
- 28% of Australians think that plastic bags can go into a household recycling bin. (like me)
- 52% of Australians incorrectly believe that biscuit packs and trays should go in recycling bins.
The plastic bags or so to say soft plastic is not taken by the council in yellow bin because plastic gets caught in the sorting machines at recycling centres causing breakdowns and delays. In turn increasing the cost of recycling. The 'City of Sydney' suggests to drop all the soft plastic outside Coles into REDcycle collection bins. The REDcycle program will recycle the plastic packaging into useful new products like outdoor furniture. All this is good until you have the luxury to go to Coles often to drop off soft plastic waste. Nearest Coles from where I live is 2km away and I don own a car to move around. Also I do not shop at Coles often because I shop locally and there are no plastic bag disposal bins.
No matter how hard I try I cannot reduce the soft plastic coming into the house. If I had a composting pit in the backyard then I could have put my wet waste directly into the pit. Since I don't have one I have to put a bin liner on my bin. This only increases soft plastic in regular bin along with other soft plastic generated through cereal packets, bread packets etc. This leads to landfills causing environmental impacts. Now, even if am not a part of 28% ignorant people I am still contributing towards environmental impact by trashing all my soft plastic into regular garbage bin. Following are few suggestion the local council and The City of Sydney should consider:-
- Provision of bins for soft plastic to make things easier. If not in every house hold then at least in every neighbourhood
- Mandatory composting pit in backyard of all the houses possible to reduce the use of bin liners. Composting pits have sustainable benefits.
- Educate people about environmental impact by usage of plastic bags and limiting the use of plastic like South Australia, Northern Territory state governments.
It is time we keep a check on our addiction of plastic.
References:
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/david_suzuki.html
http://recyclingweek.planetark.org/recycling-info/softplastics.cfm
http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/live/waste-and-recycling/recycling
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