Plastic not so fantastic

Jug or bottle? A simple choice.

At a Kirklees Council Event I attended last week tincluded in the refreshments were bottled water, single use plastic glasses, disposable paper coffee cups, single use plastic tea spoons and little single serving plastic milk cartons. Nobody was setting fire to tyres in the meeting so it wasn't a complete environmental disaster! The Council really do need to be getting the basics right on single use plastic but sadly we are not.

When I asked the Kirklees Cabinet Member Councillor Naheed Mather a question about how Kirklees might address the issue of single use plastic at a recent Council meeting she talked vaguely about the possibility of influencing the use of single use plastics by Take Aways using licensing conditions. If this is possible it would be welcome but when Kirklees hasn't got its own house in order it is very difficult to ask anyone else to.improve their green credentials. The Council needs to 'walk the walk' on cutting back on plastic waste and needs to start providing tap water for events. So far all we have had is talk and no action at all.

So what would an alternative to the refreshment arrangements at Kirklees meetings look like? We could have polycarbonate plastic cups which are reusable and aren't a danger if dropped like glass. Reusable mugs and metal teaspoons could be used. Using milk from milk bottles which are still being used would be a positive move. Tap water could be provided in jugs or in reusable bottles like many organisations already do. Doing the right thing is not rocket science it just requires the right choice to be made and a decision to be taken.

And here from 1980 (the dawn of time) is Buggles and The Plastic Age