Plastic and Littering
I got the idea for today’s podcast when I walked along the Ticino River on January 1, 2024 (the live version was a bit of a train wreck so I re-recorded it based on this newsletter). They had put up signs indicating how long a glass bottle, a plastic bottle and a face mask would be around until they had decomposed completely. It was part of an anti-littering campaign. I wouldn’t say that Switzerland is the worst country when it comes to littering, definitely not. But then I saw that one of the signs said that 2,700 tons of plastic are littered in Switzerland every single year and that’s a lot. I also talked about microplastics before on my podcast [back to edit: the podcast no longer exists - it got deleted when Callin was sold].
What else the signs say is that litter takes a lot of time to decompose, and it is a loss of precious raw materials. Then underneath the pictures it gives you the number of years it takes. For the face mask it then says “a new form of littering”, for the glass bottle that it is recyclable countless times and for the plastic bottle it talks about those 2,700 tons and also that macroplastic becomes microplastic. I have added some nature pictures from that walk to highlight what’s at stake.
On the way to the train station, I saw an WWF ad – the one that says that you don’t have to be perfect to do something protect the climate. We can’t all do everything, but everybody can do something.
So, all of this left an impression on me. I then remembered that I’d seen a lot of firework litter left on the field across the street when I walked out very early in the morning. I thought about all those small plastic pieces being swept down the drains along with the rainwater. I don’s think anybody managed to clean it up before that could happen. We clearly need to do better than this. I mean, you can’t do much about what goes up into the air, but you can pick up what falls back down, and you can definitely pick up what is left behind. It’s not rocket science.
Anyway, I wanted to look up how much microplastic or general plastic waste was left behind after fireworks. Most articles seemed to focus more on other environmental impacts (e.g. air pollution, animal welfare). I found one study that looked at microplastic pollution in the River Thames. I guess what annoyed me about that one was that they made it seem like more than it actually was. So, they took three liters of water from the Thames at the first high tide of the day for a certain time period, then they measured the microplastic levels. Now on January 1 they found that the levels had increased by 1000%. Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? Sounds like a lot more than when you say it’s 11 times more than usual. I’m not saying that 11 times more than normal is not bad. I just get annoyed when results are presented in a way that gives a wrong impression – that’s all.
I found another very informative article on Earth.org that deals with other aspects of fireworks for those interested. It does quote the study I mentioned above. I guess it’s a yes on more microplastics in the water after big fireworks, but it’s not the main problem we’re facing with here. We need to rethink fireworks altogether. There must be other ways to do this. Maybe laser shows or something like that.
Something else that caught my attention this week was a post by sustainablerookie on Instagram. She talked about how cigarette butts are thrown away and forgotten about, because apparently somebody will magically come clean them up or they just disappear into trash heaven. Then she has pictures of animals that died because they ate cigarette butts. Pretty disturbing.
I had a look at some numbers and The Guardian says that “An estimated 4.5 tn [=trillion] tobacco filters are littered each year and many end up in oceans with deadly consequences.” You know when we put our plastic waste in the trash, and we don’t really have any control about what happens next? Well, in this case it really is up to us to do the right thing and not toss cigarette butts on the ground. This one’s pretty simple. I’m not sure everybody is aware that those filters are plastic. Not that it should matter in terms of throwing them on the ground or out into a field.
I remember talking about how our beaches are littered with cigarette butts in an earlier episode and that if the EU really wants to ban single-use plastics – cigarette butts need to be eliminated as well. They are single-use plastics and that’s what we should call them. I then read that San Francisco spends 7.5 million a year to clean up cigarette butts . And it also says that those cigarette filters are the “last acceptable form of littering”. That’s just sad - sad but true. Now if they didn’t have that problem in San Francisco (and it must be similar in other cities worldwide), imagine what could be done with that money. I’m not saying that it would be used for something sensible – it’s politics after all, but we can dream.
I don’t want to take anybody’s cigarettes away, what I want to do is to raise awareness that those filters are in fact PLASTIC and that they definitely should not just be tossed on the ground. Also, there is no magic fairy cleaning them up. They WILL end up down the drain with the rainwater and in our rivers and oceans where animals will die because of it. Seems pretty unnecessary to me and it should be quite easy to solve this aspect of plastic pollution. Carry a small box to put the filters in until you can dispose of them properly. Also, to all those people in Switzerland saying that our plastic doesn’t end up in the ocean – think again.
This is what I came up with when I looked into plastics and littering. One topic was because I was wondering about plastics and fireworks. Bit of a dead end it turns out. And the second one was triggered by an IG post. It’s one I talked about before, but those numbers are just too staggering not to talk about them again and remind people that cigarette butts are actually plastic.
Sources:
https://uel.ac.uk/about-uel/news/2022/march/firework-display-could-cause-thames-pollution
https://earth.org/environmental-impact-of-fireworks/
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/cigarettes-story-of-plastic
https://unsplash.com/de/fotos/zigarettenstummel-lot-zbVngERQBUk
I have picked up debris when someone tosses garbage out their car window and hand it to them saying, "Hi, you dropped this." People used to feel shame but not so much anymore, plus it can be dangerous being confrontational. I have bike pals who pick up the trash and toss it back in the car window without a word. Also, had to explain to folks there is no city position where an employee is paid to walk around cleaning up trash.
I think everyone should have to do litter pick up at least once a month; school programs, family days out, team building projects for work (wink). The experience can instill more recognition of the problem, and motivation to not litter.
Yes I realize that does nothing to make the major corporate changes that are needed, but still.