Going Plastic-Free! Is It Good For The Environment?

Experts call for an end to demonisation of material and say people are the real problem, and that the war on plastic bags may actually harm the environment.

PAPER Vs PLASTIC
Which bags do least harm to the planet? The Scottish government's 2005 report on plastic shopping bags said the manufacture of paper bags consumed four times more water than the manufacture of plastic bags. A 2011 UK Environment Agency study found that paper bags contribute three times more to global warming.

Dr Sally Beken, of the Knowledge Transfer Network and Innovate UK, which reports to the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, said plastic was suffering an identity crisis and needed to be revalued. Speaking at The Cheltenham Science Festival, she argued that going plastic-free would have an environmental impact four times greater than sticking to current production levels.

"We're demonizing plastic", she said: "We think plastic kills. Plastic is a material, it doesn't have a conscience, we do. It's not the material, it's us. Plastic saves lives. We should value what plastic can do". If we were to change from plastics to paper, there would be seven times as many trucks to deliver those bags, so there is a carbon footprint.

"I see plastic as a resource rather than a waste material. If we banned all plastic, the environmental footprint would be four times as great".
In January, Prime Minister Theresa May warned that plastic was "truly one of the greatest environmental scourges of our time" and said future generations would be "shocked at how we allow so much plastic to be produced needlessly". The Government has committed to hugely reducing plastic production as part of it's 25-year Environmental Plan and in 2015 imposed a 5 pence levy on plastic bags.

Dr Mark Miodownik, a material scientist from University College London, warned that supermarkets would struggle to keep food waste down without plastic. "We need to get to the point where we're not throwing away this plastic. We need to find a way to recycle all that plastic back into the system", he told the festival.

SOURCE: https://www.telegraph.co.uk