The Beach’s Plastic
How much plastic do you think you throw away? 500 grams a day? A handful? A few bits and pieces?
On average a family in the UK will throw away at least 40 kilograms of plastic — plastic that could be recycled — into their general waste bin per year. That’s the weight of two suitcases that you’d take on holiday.
Imagine your family holiday this summer — jetting out to Spain or somewhere similar with 30 degree plus temperatures. All you want to do is lie on the beach and get a nice tan; the children want to build sandcastles and have a dip in the sea. But instead you are met with a beach saturated in plastic debris, from bottles to umbrellas.
Or maybe you do not experience this and have no idea that just two miles up the coast, the tide has deposited everything. Long shore drift at its finest.
Then you come back home a week later and don’t have to deal with any rubbish you have left behind.
Almost every type of plastic can be made into something new, even non-recyclable ones. Plastic drinks bottles are one of the worst offenders when it comes to being placed in the incorrect bin. It has been estimated that only 52% of all plastic bottles bought in the UK in 2011 were entered into the recycling system. A bottle made of PET can be recycled (essentially melted and remolded) into new bottles, pens, fibers for clothing, carpets and much more. Reusing our plastic means that less fuel needs to be extracted from underground, and the whole process releases less greenhouse gas, which ends up depreciating the ozone layer which is protecting us from harmful ultraviolet and microwave radiation, into our atmosphere.
If you are not sure what you are actually allowed to put into your recycling bin, then click this link. All you have to do is enter your postcode and it will give you a list and examples of everything your bin collectors can accept.
