As regular readers of the Freshbinz Ltd blog will know we’re passionate about the environment. All the water we use to clean your bins is recycled and when it reaches a stage where it’s no longer viable for use, it’s disposed of down a drain specifically designed for that purpose, and for which we hold a licence.
This month we’re taking a look at single-use plastics, things we took for granted only a few years ago we now know are killing our planet. But what are single-use plastics? Apart from the obvious like carrier bags and plastic bottles, other things contain single-use plastics, for example, cigarette butts.
Take plastic bags for example, worldwide we produce over 1 trillion annually, a staggering, eye-watering amount. If we only use them once, they probably have a usage time of less than an hour but can take between 400 – 1000 years to break down.
Since the UK government introduced a cost of 10p per bag, usage has decreased by around 95% which is obviously a great thing, but they are still being produced in huge volumes.
Disposable coffee cups, you may think you’re buying a recyclable paper cup, but in fact, they have a thin plastic bonded to the cups to ensure they don’t leak and burn the drinker. To separate the plastic from the paper for recycling is just not viable.
The shocking truth is that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the sea than fish.
What can we all do to help stop this from becoming a reality?
- Replace plastic carriers with reusable bags
- Don’t use non-recyclable drinking straws
- Take your own cup to the coffee shop
- Buy items in larger quantities to reduce packaging
- Make sure you recycle everything that you can
As we’ve said before at Freshbinz, if we all do our bit we can make a huge impact on the life of our planet.