Call to arms for ban on single plastic

Env ironmenta l campaigners s ay it is now “imperative” that the Scottish Government acts quickly to ban single use plastic items.

Friends of the Earth Scotland say delaying a ban by even six months could result in hundreds of millions more items such as straws and disposable cutlery ending up in landfill.

The organisation called on ministers to act at the end of a Scottish Government consultation which looked at the possibility of introducing restrictions on single use plastic items such as c u t l e r y, plates, straws, drink stirrers and balloon sticks.

Friends of the Earth Scotland campaigner Sarah Moyes insisted the response from the public “clearly shows that people are concerned about plastic pollution in Scotland and want to see action to tackle these persistent polluters”.

She added: “The knife and fork we use for a quick bite to eat shouldn’ t endure beyond our lifetime sitting in landfill for hundreds of years. Plastic pollutes at every stage of its life cycle from the oil and gas extracted to produce it, to the end products which litter our environment.”

Scots use an estimated 300 million plastic s t r aw s , 276 million pieces of plastic c u t l e r y, 50 million plastic plates and 66 million polystyrene food containers every year, says the Scottish Government.

Ministers have already committed to meeting an EU directive to introduce restrictions on the sale of some of the most environmentally harmful single-use plastic products by July 2021. That pledge was included in the Nicola S t u r g e o n’s 2019 -20 Programme for Government