How much are you damaging the environment? Cork households to generate 33,000 tonnes of single-use plastic packaging waste in ’19

HOUSEHOLDERS in Cork will generate 33,000 tonnes of single-use plastic packaging waste in 2019.

That’s according to Irish start-up Diluteze, founded by Simon Ruddy, and which has developed The CUSP Programme (Cease Using Single-use Plastic), which provides free user-friendly online tools that enable individuals and families measure their impact in terms of the volumes of single-use plastic packaging they consume.

The rapidly increasing pace-of-life, which is driving demand for convenience in terms of hot beverages, takeout food and bottled water and soft drinks, has resulted in a significant spike in the volumes of single-use plastic waste generated across the county over the past decade.

Householders in Cork City will generate 7,600 tonnes of single-use plastic waste in 2019, while the rest of us across County Cork will generate 25,400 tonnes.

The impact of single-use plastic packaging goes far beyond the unsightly images we have all become accustomed to in recent years; beaches covered in plastic waste, or decomposing sea mammals and birds, killed as a result of ingesting or getting tangled-up in items of discarded single-use plastic.

The production of single-use plastic packaging is also one of the biggest contributors to global warming, due to its petrochemical based production process and is set to account for 30% of EU CO2 emissions by 2030. The 33,000 tonnes of single-use plastic packaging waste generated in Cork in 2019 will produce over 190,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions during production, transportations, waste collection and recycling.

Up to 30% (close to 10,000 tonnes) of single-use plastic waste generated in Cork each year is not directly traceable, in terms of where it ends-up in the waste stream, and potentially therefore, will continue to pollute the soil, rivers, lakes and beaches across Cork city and county beyond the year 2400.

In the CUSP programme, participating households input their estimated volumes from a list of 30 of the more common items of single-use plastic found in Irish households. “Our platform then converts this to kilogrammes,” said Simon Ruddy, “We have also developed formulae which further converts the total weight of [household] plastic to CO2 emissions linked to your single-use plastic packaging consumption’.