Revolutionise recycling
Calls to ban plastic products are a simplistic response to a complex problem. What’s required is a rational solution to the genuine crisis of plastic pollution.
Many of those leading the call to “wage war on plastic” fail to understand the terrible effect that alternative materials have on the environment. Although it’s tempting to imagine a world without plastic as some sort of environmental utopia, plastic in consumer goods uses four times less energy than alternative materials such as metal, paper and glass. In fact, alternatives to plastic packaging would nearly double greenhouse gas emissions.
The fact is that plastic — if disposed of correctly — is one of the most environmentally friendly products there is. And this is where the solution to plastic pollution can be found: in the correct disposal and management of plastic waste.
But to win the war on plastic pollution, everyone in the plastics industry must confront some hard truths. This includes us, the producers of plastics, but it also includes government and consumers. We support President Cyril Ramaphosa’s quest to clean up South Africa, but it can only happen if there is a recycling revolution in this country.
We need government to urgently fix South Africa’s inadequate waste
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Government can do this if it ringfences the plastic bag levy, which has increased from three cents a bag when introduced in 2003 to 12 cents in 2018. The nearly R2-billion that has been raised through the levy so far should never have been absorbed into the black hole of our national fiscus. Instead, the levy should have been ring-fenced for its intended purpose: to develop better recycling facilities and incentivise sustainable consumer behaviour.
It’s time to declare and act on the war against plastic pollution. — Anton Hanekom, executive director, Plastics SA
See “Death or taxes for polluting plastic”, Page 41