I DON'T want to pay any more for my takeaway coffee than I have to but action needs to be taken to tackle the scourge of litter. A Westminster committee is proposing a 25p charge per disposable cup nicknamed the “latte tax” and a Highland MSP is seeking action on plastic straws.
I back both moves all the way as we need to cut waste. Individual and societal behaviour has to be challenged and changed.
Throwaway cups are jettisoned at will. They’re visible on every street, blowing in every park and washed up on every beach. It has to stop. It’s not just unsightly but harmful.
My longstanding hostility to them was based initially on their contribution to litter. However, I was appalled to hear that, given the plastic used and the complexity of the construction, it was landfill at best for their final resting place.
There simply isn’t the space for the rubbish we’re generating as a society and the maxim of repair, reuse and recycle needs to be more than a political mantra but become a lived experience for us all.
The logic is inescapable. Communities don’t want incinerators or landfill sites next to them so they need to reduce the requirement for them.
For sure, much of the blame rests on individuals who refuse to walk the length of themselves to find a bucket or take it home. But there’s an issue with the volume of rubbish that now exists and the throwaway culture that it has fostered. That’s why these proposals and others have to be backed.
Some will whinge and whine but it’s a small price to pay and people are going to have to get used to it.
Governments both north and south of the Border are considering their options and it’s not if changes will be introduced but which ones and when. It can’t just be the stick of taxation – there has to be the carrot of incentivisation – but action there must be.
Taxes target a specific problem, offer a revenue source in a time of austerity but fundamentally seek to change a culture of throwing anything and everything away. Many of the solutions aren’t cost free but come at a price in the installation of and collection of goods for recycling. Likewise, education has a cost to it.
Walking my dog on Portobello Beach I'm surrounded by litter. There is rubbish strewn by those who jettison it rather than amble to the many buckets but other stuff is washed ashore from Lord knows where.
It's bad enough in urban areas but it’s heart-breaking to see the detritus lying on desolate sands on what should be pristine beaches in the Western Isles. Old creels and fishing ropes are to be expected and whilst unsightly are at least understandable but the plastic bottles and other items of fast food and modern living aren’t.
It may be an age thing or simply the slower pace of life I now lead but these issues specifically and the environment more generally means so much more to me now. There was a time when I would be oblivious to nature and engrossed in political or other thought as I hurried about. Now walking my dog, I not only see the seasons change on the hillside and the tide turn on the river but I see the rubbish strewn all about.
We have only one planet and we’re not just using it up but throwing it away. That’s why these actions are long overdue. The objections to the plastic bag tax have been shown to be spurious. A culture has changed and the country is the better for it. I was as aghast at shops in the US blithely dispensing plastic bags as I am at smoking in pubs in the few countries that still allow it.
As people now take their own bags so it will be with coffee. The Chinese and indeed many Americans now carry their own containers for tea or coffee. It’s not difficult and soon becomes the norm, just as keeping cloth or other permanent bags in the house or car. That can and will happen here.
But it has to go further. Fast food outlets are likewise a source where change and tax are long overdue.
The car park near my flat is an endless adventure for my dog as refuse and scraps are jettisoned. It may be the fault of individuals but it's also a problem caused by the method of service.
Manufacturers and suppliers may complain but it’s our world and we need to cherish it.
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