So, on the Air Quality Matters blog, what do I do for my 1,500th post? That’s right: This is my 1,500th. I’ve been posting here for 12 years now. More than 12, actually.
Well, I thought for a moment and all of a sudden this idea popped into my head. My mind focused on the plastics situation that has impacted the world so. Not just its impact but the waste element that’s connected with that. At the very least it’s shameful and an out-and-out tragedy at most. A tenth of that making its way toward recycling and reuse, would in fact be considered quite optimistic. So, for those who hope for the recycle and reuse avenue, if that fraction of waste plastics is what actually gets recycled and reused, that’s something to be thankful for. But, it’s not nearly enough which tells me that where plastics is concerned, as a consuming life form, there is just too much plastic in our lives.
Now just think about all the things we use or consume made of plastic. The cup I drink out of is. So is the spatula I use to cook with. You know those little covers or protectors that wrap the ends of shoelaces that allow shoestring ends to be fed through shoelace holes? Even those are often made out of plastic.
So, I just want to talk about one application of the material: plastic bottles. Everything from water to designer beverages is sold to consumers in them.
Well, that epiphany that I had revolves around the prospect of packaging those in paper cartons like the way milk oftentimes come packaged in.
The advantages of using this type of recyclable and reusable packaging material is that it can decompose in the environment once it goes to waste and can no longer be used.
Secondly, since its construction or manufacture doesn’t call for petroleum to be an ingredient that goes into the material’s makeup, that makes using it so much more eco-friendly than what would be the case in an equivalent petroleum-based product.
And, furthermore, paper cartons can be recycled or reused.
Maybe it’s the psychology of the thing that prevents consumers from wanting to buy water and designer-type drinks in these types of containers. It’s tough to say for sure. I mean who’s ever heard of a designer drink being sold in a designer carton? I know that some packaged beverages like fruit drinks are. And, that’s cool.
But, I mean, if waxed paper cartons were used in that way on a much grander scale than what is the case today, just think how much plastics waste could be eliminated by not having to bottle water and beverages in containers made from it.
I don’t really know whether I’m on to something here or not. At the same time, it seems to me that someone else has already thought of this. I can’t imagine someone not thinking of this prospect already.
But from where I sit, this solution seems to me to be the most logical and makes the most practical sense.
My question now is what’s keeping us from moving forward in this direction to help solve one of the world’s crisis situations: plastics waste. And why aren’t we demanding fewer plastics in our lives be used? And, lastly, why aren’t we bent on just not using — and making — as much of the stuff as we are?
Being that these are all valid questions, the question now is will we work toward finding practical and sustainable solutions to help address the plastics-waste-disposal crisis? And, yes, this truly has reached crisis proportions.
Oh, and one more question: Is this an idea whose time has come…again?
And, there’s this other thing: When plastics are subject to the process of exhausted- or emitted-to-the-air incineration, that action has a direct air-quality, and potentially, human-health impact.
— Alan Kandel
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