So i woke up this morning to wonderful news : [click here]
No more plastic bags on Saturdays! Awesome! Go, Selangor government! Now, how's 'bout the other states start following suit? Or perhaps implement this move on more days of the week?
Did you ever notice the little symbols embedded into the plastic products you use? The recycling symbols with the numbers in between them -- the resin identification code.
These are meant to make our lives easier when sorting out the types of plastics for recycling -- but did you know that only a small part of only TWO out of these seven types of plastics are recycled? That would be code 1 (PET) and code 2 (HDPE).
Now, the soft drink/mineral water bottles we use account for code 1. On the other hand, code 2 plastic materials consist of grocery bags, shampoo bottles, etc. But what happens to the other 5 types of plastics? And what of plastic bags (code 4) -- the very ones that we see at Tesco, Giant, or pasar malam? The ones that are supposedly not given out on Saturdays in Selangor anymore?
Well, as most of these recycled plastic have little market value, most industries are now starting to resort to incineration. Yeap, i believe we just took a high leap from recycling to incinerating. Naturally, this means extreme air pollution AND waste of energy.
So what do we do if recycling isn't really an effective solution? Well, the obvious thing to do would be to cut down on the usage of plastic materials in your everyday life. Instead of buying bottled water every time you go out, why not bring your own water instead? Instead of getting new plastic bags every time you hit the supermarket, why not buy one of those hip reusable bags and reuse it?
Simple as that! Think about it. Less plastic used, less plastic needed to be recycled, less pollution, greener environment! Awesome!
Have a wonderful day, all. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment