Plastic ban a test of one’s mettle
Anna Burns-Francis follows colleague Matt Chisholm as he tries (in vain) to turn his back on one of the world’s most ubiquitous products.
You’ve opened the paper, turned a few pages and arrived at this article. Well done, you’re safe. But take a look around you – the table, the coffee cup, even your clothes – nearly everything we touch in this modern world contains an element of plastic.
So I set my Fair Go colleague Matt Chisholm a challenge: avoid touching plastic for a whole day. I’m not giving the ending away – he didn’t make it.
It’s just impossible in 2016 to avoid the stuff (I wrote this on a plastic keyboard, staring at a plastic-edged screen and navigating with a plastic mouse, on a plastic desk while sitting on a plastic-mould chair). A Statista report puts worldwide plastic production in 2015 at some 269 million tonnes – and it’s rising every year. Now, I know a lot of that would be considered ‘useful’ plastic, all those items I just named, and more, right down to your garage door opener and the teeny tiny parts of your pacemaker.
But for all the useful plastic, there is plenty that ends up in a landfill,
forever – the plastic bags, the Gladwrap, the household junk we throw in the bin instead of recycling . . . And much of it never breaks down. Even more winds up in the environment, where it poses a risk to wildlife. It was discovered this week some seabirds are attracted to the smell of plastic when it has been fouled by algae. End result: a tortured death. It doesn’t take long to realise it doesn’t need to be like that, and it’s embarrassing when I look at the pretty pathetic effort I make, myself. But big change can come from small acts. Britain introduced a 5p (9 cent) charge to plastic bags in October last year. The result? An 85 per cent reduction in plastic bag use, and £30m ($53m) donated to charity. The success hasn’t gone unnoticed here in New Zealand. Last month Green MP Denise Roche tabled a bill aimed at imposing a 15c surcharge on plastic bags. It’s a long way off getting through Parliament, and has a rather large, prime minister-shaped, obstacle to overcome. But if enough Kiwis were to write to their MPs asking them to support the bill, it might just get there. As for my colleague Matt, he knew this day was coming. But unlike the UK, he hadn’t planned for it at all. Getting out of bed was a challenge, so was getting ready, getting to work and then not actually achieving any work. He couldn’t wear the clothes
Right across New Zealand there are individuals, families and whole communities reducing, recycling and re-using their plastic waste.
he wanted to, or do his hair (that’s a biggie).
In fact, it took three hours just to get to work, and that was after walking into a looming thunderstorm and paddling a canoe across Auckland Harbour.
But if you’re thinking this was a stupid idea because one man couldn’t make a difference anyway, think again. Right across New Zealand there are individuals, families and whole communities reducing, recycling and re-using their plastic waste.
Many produce as little as one bag of non-recyclable plastic rubbish a year. That’s one plastic shopping bag, not a big, black sack.
The seaside Waikato town of Raglan redirects 78 percent of its waste. That’s all the plastic, glass and newspaper. How so high? Well, in part it’s actually made easier by the sheer amount of plastic we use and generate every day. But it’s also proof that we can be a whole lot better at recycling if we try. Kerbside sorting, and public education campaigns mean residents are frequently reminded about how to recycle.
Raglan has supermarkets, petrol stations, cafes and a steady stream of holidaymakers who spend up large and throw out a lot of rubbish. Yes, it requires a bit of effort, you have to rinse your milk bottle out. And it won’t kill you to take reusable shopping bags to the supermarket.
Fair Go’s last show of the year covers the whole gamut of our plastic world, because once you realise how prevalent it is you start wondering where it all goes.
Host Garth Bray has been chasing the waste, while Pippa Wetzell has been looking at ways of turning that trash into treasure.
But I’ll leave you with this – there are 4.4 million people in this country. Imagine how clean and green we’d really be, if everyone picked up just one piece of plastic rubbish a day. It would, at least, be a start.
After his futile challenge, Matt has dedicated himself to just that: picking up one piece of plastic every day.
Fair Go screens tomorrow night, TV1 at 7.30pm.