can you cut down on plastic
 

I have just been watching the BBC programme War On Plastic.

Really scary stuff. There are many pollutants around, some we know about, some we (I) don't.
Washing clothes often releases small amounts of plastic from our clothes.

Wet wipes, use them? They are 80+% plastic, I never knew.

I'm not sure where the fault lies, manufacturers, retails or us the consumer. All of the above perhaps but who can make the greatest change and who has the greatest influence to force change?

With so many consumers but so few retailers, they probably have the greatest influence. If the major retailers got together gave manufacturers due warning that they were going to stop selling a product due to the amount of plastic in the product perhaps a change could be forced. With so many consumers there are too many that would not stop buying a product I don't feel it would have such a impact.

Perhaps the manufacturer that is first to go Green could steal the advantage from the others.


Whilst I may get ridiculed for this I am going to ask you to see what you can do to reduce the amount of plastic you buy.

Me, I'm going to chat to the wife about our shopping to see what we can do.

please try not to be negative should you comment.

macafee2

I try, but it's just everywhere!
Morrisons did paper bags for the fruit and vegetables for a while, no idea what happened to that idea, lasted about a week here :duh:

I think a lot of us are trying but it is a very small drop in a very large ocean when you see what the rest of the world is doing or should I say are not doing.

Some friends arrived from Holland a few weeks ago and they had not heard anything about the plastic problem.

When you see how the US, India and other countries are going I do feel we are wasting out time.

Today I heard the amount of oxygen in the sea is decreasing and this will have an effect on the amount of fish and potentially we wont have fish to eat in another 30 years.

I am a packaging consultant...

You will NEVER get rid of plastic packaging...

You can use starch based compostables and mono materials that can be recycled more easily but less than 0.2% of waste is actually recycled in the TWO plants in the UK which can actually do it fully with polymers.

The so called compostables are only commercially compostable and this required 140F plus for several weeks.

They are not domestically compostable.

The best way to dispose of this material is to use high efficiency, low emission incineration and turn the calories in the materials in to usable electricity and reduce fossil fuel use.

Interesting Klarzy - I too believe that efficient incineration for energy generation is the correct way to go - but instead the green muppets (I’m not supposed to use the term ‘green Taliban’ anymore- it upsets the overly sensitive:duh:) convinced us all that recycling was the way to go and so we shipped all our plastic cr@p to third world countries who we paid to take it and they dumped it all in the oceans for us.

As said plastic is used virtually everywhere. I don't think it's possible to eradicate it.

The way I see it is that we all have to act a wee bit more responsibly. Re use containers, take our own shopping bags ( charging for plastic bags was a fantastic idea) and so on.
I do wish that manufacturers would reduce the amount of packaging though.

Very surprised that you watched the BBC documentary though :shrug: I would have thought that you would be put off by its inherent lefty, green agenda bias:eek::getmecoat::}

And I’m not surprised at the height of the pedestal you place your backside on when you show your prejudice in the judgement of others. One day things will slip and you will need the help of a good (moral) Proctologist.

The issue is the Left/Greens run around like frightened chickens yelling at everyone that the sky is falling and “something must be done”

The result of such knee jerk reactions is our urban streets polluted with horrendous levels of diesel particulates and NOX’s, our “recycled” plastic being washed out to sea via a third party country so the Lefty Greens fool themselves by their righteous actions - and as a third example - the deforestation of huge areas to grow palm oil so we can run our cars on bio-fuel.

Again this may give the Lefty Greenies a nice warm glow that “something is being done” but I very much doubt that the Orangutan populations of the world who continue to lose their unique habitats think this “something” is the right thing.

We may not be able to eradicate it but we can surly cut down on its usage.
Milk in plastic bottles, what about glass?
Plastic bags what about paper?

I don't know how to put it right but in this case I now see what is wrong.
I emailed my wife last night ( he is away at the moment) s asking that she no longer
buys wet wipes, looking in the shower I'll ask for no more shower gel.

Just thinking about the contents of the shelves in a super market where body products are, my goodness its a lot of plastic

We can but try

macafee2

ya the shipping abroad for them to pollute was something else.

macafee2

You may be best placed her to give sound advice on what can be done.
Is paper bags and glass bottles a step in the right direction?
We can and must do better.

macafee2

I remember watching an episode of countryfile about milk, they said that plastic was actually better than glass. Using glass requires lots more energy to make them, glass has a high breakage rate, it also takes a lot of energy to wash and sterilise them between uses. Wagons also use more fuel transporting them because they are heavier like for like than plastic.

When you dig down into the issues it's quite a difficult problem.

Complex matter. Where I work we produce tonnes of food packaging every year. Mostly cardboard based but some have small clear plastic windows in them. Retailers ask us to provide recyclable alternative, which we can but they are more expensive and they always say they can't afford it. Also it seems to me that local authorities have as many methods of recycling around as there are stars in the universe. Would it not be better to rationalise and standardise the way waste is recycled so the councils all do it the same way? The worst culprits are the luxury/best of/the best food products which are frequently encased in rigid plastics, might look nice but terribly polluting. I always though incineration is a very good idea but some don't but I am not qualified to comment on the pros and cons. All the packaging we do at work is FSC and all recyclable apart from the plastic element but until retailers understand that eliminating plastics costs money and they will have to pay that cost it will be a slow process. It can be done, think of carrier bags which you now need to pay for but the supermarkets didn't half resist that. However once one has the guts to make that step others invariably follow.

Do you have any real-world data on the dioxins and heavy metal pollutants produced and ejected int the air by the incineration processes - not from brand new, recently commissioned, incinerators but those with an operational and maintenance history?

Also, I thought studies had shown that recycling and reuse actually is more efficient than incineration as a whole-lifecycle process. Is this not the case?

I agree - in my view, we all should be doing our bit to curtail the use of plastics. When shopping, we tend to look for unwrapped produce e.g. foods such as cucumbers from Morrisons....

Interestingly Morrisons are one of our customers who feels the bodegradable plastic window option is too expensive!

I will bow to Klarzy’s greater knowledge here but you have -from how I understand the issues - hit the nail on the head Ian.

Plastic is cheap and easy to produce - the issue is what we do with the excess we produce.

Paper can be made from recycled material but the original is made from wood pulp and the manufacturing process is chemical and energy intensive. It’s not a “clean” process by any means.

Anyone living downstream from an old paper mill in the past may well remember how the paper mill destroyed life in the rivers.

Glass manufacturing and recycling is also hugely energy intensive. Glass product manufacturing/recycling emits a huge amount of CO2.

And we cannot have that can we.

Despite the fact that our respiration takes in air with circa 0.04% CO2 and each breath we exhale contains about 3.8% to 5% depending upon how much exercise we are doing at the time.

So in the CO2 production stakes!! - we are ALL as guilty as he**.

ho hum back to square 1

macafee2

They're currently breaking up a huge fatberg under Sidmouth, I think they said it was 200ft long. The cause?......wet wipes.

There are new technologies out there and newer and better technologies being developed. Old incinerator technology is not right for plastics - but the newer “containerised” incinerators captures the toxic chemicals such that they can be extracted and sold as a valuable bi-product.

There is also considerable research work on Thermolysis of waste plastic to produce a liquid fuel.

So it’s not all doom and gloom.


At least now more air is being used in packaging. My son sent me a bottle of aftershave for Fathers Day via Amazon.

A year or so ago it would have come in a box full of polystyrene “worms”. This time it came with one or two plastic “bladders” or balloons.

So the product was protected but the physical amount of plastic was a fraction of what was previously used.

I saw that as a small positive it what is clearly a bleak and serious scenario overall

It’s a serious criminal offence in Kenya if anyone is found carrying a plastic bag, or supplying them. Last week the President of Kenya announced “bans for single use plastic products in protected areas, beaches, parks, forests”. For a 3rd world country, it’s a step in the right direction. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.n...rsh/index.html The link contains a video of his announcement.

My goodness, someone got out of bed the wrong side this morning:D
I'm not on any pedestal that I'm aware of but thanks for your concern over my future needs for a good ( moral) proctologist. If the need arises I will ask for your assistance as I assume you have had experience.

As it happens I agree that there had been far too much knee jerk reactions - a lot of which have been ill advised, short term and in some cases for political objectives.

No - I am simply tired of people judging others from what they see as “the moral high ground” that only they can occupy but which in reality is genuine ignorance.

I suspect you would be “surprised that I watched a BBC programme” with its “lefty green” bias - your words not mine! - I further suspect that such a comment says more about the morals and the prejudice of the writer than the target......

Note. This poster simply cannot accept criticism of any form whatsoever. Has to have the last word always. Is a self appointed expert on anything and will not countenance any opinion to the contrary. Ignore

What Clive ? :eek:

Surely, you must be mistaken. ;):D:getmecoat:

If only you two would

Not exactly men of your word....

There is plenty more I can say here... but not in the middle of a peeing contest...

Will be back later

The only petrson here making themselves look stupid is yourself I'm afraid. Get over it.:D:D

Wow.

I mean. wow.

What an edifying post.



I know. Quite sad really.
No worries Dave, feel free to continue. I'm not going to get into a petty who has the biggest competition.:D

So back on topic please gents.

Plastic, the whys and wherefores, the do's and don'ts and the should we or shouldn't we

Same here, as a plastics processor for over 30 years the industry is being painted as the bad guy by the worlds media.

Okay Simon, ;)

Can all the plastics be replaced? I am thinking about plastic syringes and the plastic collars each needle goes into, to hold the syringe. I can remember at the start of my nursing career drawing a drug up and using a glass syringe to admin meds to a patient, circa 1973. The syringes were not thrown away, they were sterilised, repacked and the packaging was colour coded with an expiry date, to be reused. In those days the issue was not about plastic. The issues would have been around wages, going into the EU, social and economic. We were not environmentally aware in those days. How times have changed.

Ok chaps - it appears the peeing is done.

Now come back and enlighten us. :bowdown:

Reintroducing glass milk bottles will be disastrous over here. Plastic petrol bombs here did not have the same effects during riots. This is a bit tongue in cheek, however, I once read a newspaper article regarding this, and the reduction of issues from molotov cocktails. I have actually noticed it personally, from where a disturbance would've been, there was an obvious absence of broken glass, that would have been present before.

Cardboard cartons is the answer here. (Iknow they have a limited amount of plastic, but they're still recyclable to a certain level)

Sent from my SM-A600FN using Tapatalk

Plastic cartons are undoubtedly very cheap compared to cardboard. Having worked in food packaging for 40 years retailers are still very reluctant to give up the plastic even though where I work we can make fully waterproof and grease resistant cartons of cardboard only - no plastic at all in them. BUT they cost more...

That says to me that they think customers aren't ready to pay the extra.

Ok - so a you think it acceptable to state you find it surprising that I watch a programme based upon your prejudice :duh:

And then when the resident(s) tweedle dum and tweedle dummer do their normal playground ganging up - you join in.

I’m so glad you found my post edifying....

Probably correct in that comment. Also I think the retailers are very reluctant to do something like that on their own through fear that the competition will not follow suit and leave them exposed. Maybe the basic reality is that we can't eliminate plastics or recycle them on the cheap and that is a cost that maybe we all need to share at some point.

Grow up for goodness sake Mr Last Word

I guess it needs lots of us to buy those goods, the established players will see the shift. The government has a part to play as well.

But if we did as Gatekeeper has said they have done in Kenya and introduced a ban on single use plastic bags - why cannot we introduce a similar ban for plastic packaging at the point of sale?

My point tho, is would we simply be swapping one issue for another?

If we use paper or cardboard- would obtaining the wood pulp have a knock on effect? Would the new paper mills be environmentally friendly? Because the old ones certainly were not.

I thought you were going to ignore me?

Ultimately, I believe that it has to be driven by the consumer and the governments. Of course large shareholders also have a part to play, as corporations always take on board the concerns of their majority shareholders.

Consumers can have a limited effect - look at how consumers didn’t change their use of throw away plastic bags - even when it was clear that the bags were incredibly damaging.

It took legislation banning them to truly change people’s behaviour.

http://www.allaboutbags.ca/papervplastic.html

Here's a good place to start comparing.

Our local co-op has started using bio degradable environmentally friendly plastic bags. Great for the food recycling bin;)

That seems like a good idea but I've no idea what the production costs or environmental impact of production is.

I'm quite sure someone will be able to find out.

Currently between 30 and 40% more than the standard grade I’m afraid, we are trialling biodegradable resins at the moment, for packaging they are up to the job adequately, the problem is the customers are reluctant to pay the extra cost.

Together with sugar, plastics represent one of the most dangerous problem faced by humanity, and potentially one of the many nails in coffin of the blue planet, personally I believe this is the cause of the exponential rise in dementia, as minute plastic particles enter the circulation are small enough to pass through the blood brain barrier and over decades affect adversely the brain circulation leading to the vascular dementias.

It is now too late to do much about it plastics are everywhere, we are regrettably in the do dah and swimming in it up to our necks.

Excellent - thank you TM

Useful to see the comparisons set out so clearly - but the cynic in me is checking out the source and ascertain any bias!!

But the American EPA have said that paper mills are the worst pollution sources in the US. Citing the use of Formaldehyde, Toluene and Methanol.

That list makes Fracking look positively benign :D:getmecoat:

?And this is where legislation is required. I was as guilty as anyone with the free throwaway plastic shopping bags.

Why didn’t I buy a permanent shopping bag as use that?

I think the answer was convenience, laziness and inertia. Despite me having the will and motivation to do something - I didn’t.

If a better alternative to plastic is available then I believe it will take legislation to introduce it - but we do need to be certain what we substitute is less harmful.

Look at the diesel debacle!

A classic example of legislators getting it wrong.

So I also believe we should explore the use of containerised burning of plastics for energy production - as well as the conversion of waste plastic to fuel.

Could it possibly be that if these Fat Bergs and plastic waste dumped in our oceans had a value as a resource - would that be a bigger spur to retrieve the stuff than the ineffective notion that “We really should not be doing this”?

I wondered. Thanks

You can't help thinking anything we do now is a wee bit too late. That being said, any step in the right direction is a step for the better.

There has been some work into bacteria to try and turn plastic waste into fuel. Very much early days though.

Yes, the biggest problem is cost... when packers are cutting down to 25 micron film to save £1-£2 per kilo of wrap film, telling them that going green will increase costs by between 30 & 150% speaks for itself.

There are options...

PLA (Polylactic Acid) is promising, as are mono materials, but none of these are retortable, so products requiring sterilization like pet foods, meats, rice and pasta in pouches will not use it.

Co-extruded or laminates of PET or PE with PP are most used, but once you mix the materials simple recycling becomes too expensive.
Pure monos do not make good sealing materials as you melt all of the material to make a pack seal.
Co-Ex PP or PE(t) is possible as you can change the MFI (Melt flow index) or point of liquification to allow homogeneous sealing of a sealing layer bonded to a higher melting point layer of the same material is usable, but again more expensive.

Anything with a light barrier (usually aluminium sheet in the 8 micron range or metalized film in the 10-20 angstrom range) are not viable for recovery as the acids needed to remove the polymers from the valuable aluminium are both expensive and hard to get rid of once used up and very bad for the environment.

The method with the least effect on nature, zero land fill, and giving you something back in the way of energy is modern incineration and electricity production.

Remember for every "GREEN" 100 miles in an electric car (which produces no emissions), you need up to 32 Kilowatts of electricity which creates 0.94 kg of carbon per Kw, and once the coal is gone.... it's gone for good and it does not get rid of any landfill what so ever whereas 98.5% of laminated packaging material can be converted directly in to energy at an average of 44.1 watts per Kg according to studies in the US and Europe.

There will come a day when waste plastic is mined as a resource in old landfill sites.

Commercially degradeable... it won't rot down in a landfill...

Now that last para is interesting - very rare that the plastic “mountain” is seen as a resource as well as a problem

Agreed - I have also read that heat treatment releases volatile gases that can be stored and used as a fuel.

Plus micronised plastic particles can be added to commercial fuel oil apparently and used in shipping.

A slight diversion from plastic but most paper mills these days put great emphasis on environmental impact. It is true they consume large amounts of energy and that is not disputed but the days of mass pollution of rivers are coming to an end. Most have something called ISO14001 which monitors the mills environmental impact and most go much further than that in terms of ensuring water is returned to waterways in the same state it came in. Part of my job involves buying around 1000 tonnes of carton board every year and our customers demand that it is sourced from accredited mills. The ones I deal with range from Germany, Austria, the UK, Chin, Chile and the USA. All comply. The Chinese ones in particular are very forward thinking - they have to be as the end market users demand this. Recycled board has its place too but not for food packaging as our friends in Europe and the USA are worried that there may be residual deposits of harmful chemicals which may taint food. So cardboard has a very bright future but in my experience the retailers absolute obsession with plastic has to be overcome.

Do you ever think about the trees that are used to make paper from the wood pulp or the tree huggers feelings? :D

Not really to be honest!

Were did I put my pop corn....:D:getmecoat:

Deforestation has a major environmental impact Nick. And as I understand it - recycling paper and cardboard requires “de-inking” which creates some noxious chemicals.

Also whilst recycling does help conserve trees - manufacture of paper and cardboard via new material or recycling requires larger amounts of water use than most other industries - and the resulting water “waste” is significantly polluted.

I’m not saying we should not use cardboard or paper products - I’m simply saying that the environmental impact of its manufacturing process is a significant issue and so as an alternative to plastic - I don’t see it as the answer.

paper mills do not deforest. They almost all use timber from sustainable sources. And if they are FSC certified which most are they HAVE to use sustainable sources.

Am I boring you? :D

Put the price up on plastic packaging. :D

It doesn't help when prices are CHEAP... :duh: ;)

Good morning Wes, how are you? When I moved from London to Bristol in November the bubble wrap we used for packing was biodegradable environment friendly and it was more expensive. Something about that didn’t seem right to me. I add it was not much more than the cheap basic stuff.

Hi Phil, I hope you are well. ;)

I agree, its similar to these gluten, wheat, dairy free foods. They take certain ingredients out, we then are expecting cheaper prices... but other ingredients are then needed which increases the price, plus the extra processes involved I guess. :duh:

Less is more... ;)

Absolutely not Phil!! I had a fear that your sensible comment would engender another “war of words” - I was simply trying to portray myself sitting down to watch the resulting fireworks!!

The “almost all” caveat is what bothers me.

And whilst I don’t doubt that FSC, PEFC, CIFOR, IUFRO etc etc all try to do their very best and are to be congratulated, forestry has a history of ripping up indigenous virgin forest to enable them to then plant sustainable trees.

Very much like the Orangutan’s natural habitat is being grubbed up to grow Palm Oil Trees.

Ain't talking about palm oil just paper and board. Many mills are also now totally self sufficient in their own energy production. Some even have their own forest plantations as well. If ever you get a chance to visit one do so. I've seen loads of them and they are amazing places. One however wasn't amazing. A mill making coloured paper in China, the small river next door was a distinct shade of blue reflecting the colour being made that day. However this was an awful long time ago and not typical of what goes on there now.

I only cited Palm oil production as an example of how a need was produced by bad legislation and the opportunity cost of that decision has been dire.

And I am pleased that you have obviously seen improvements over the years and feel strongly about yet further improvement.

My concern is a knee jerk reaction to plastic over use along the lines of “we must now use paper” and the demand created is such that corners are cut and blue rivers like the one you saw in China become the norm in other parts of the world.

Cheers Clive, no worries. I haven’t tried tree hugging, but 2 years ago I did try going to the rollright stones, in the Cotswolds for stone hugging. One of the stones is thermal and gives off heat, why I don’t know, maybe linked to thermal energy. The stones are believed to be 5,000 years old and in ancient times, women went to the stones at midnight to get pregnant and apparently it worked. I wonder if there was a man there :} A happy story and apologies for going off topic.
https://www.cotswoldsmysterytour.co....lright-stones/

Not at all Phil - tho it’s sad that my “secret of the stones” is now out. Haven’t done that for a while. The stone surface plays Merry hell with my knees now.

This may be of interest, makes sad reading

I've seen information about bioplastics being produced from the likes of seaweed and cactus - it remains to be seen whether these can be scaled up to meet "demand". NB I put that last word in inverted commas because of the difference between plastics which are more necessary for health reasons, e.g. medical use or prevention of food contamination with raw meat/fish etc, and those which are more obviously and frivolously wasteful such as Easter egg packaging.

As an individual, I do my utmost to avoid the unnecessary acquisition of plastics. For example, when I buy groceries, I get my loose fruit & veg in a paper bag - these get reused as often as possible while they retain their physical integrity before getting a final use as the lining for my kitchen composter. They do break down in my own compost bin, unlike the so-called "biodegradable" composting bags supermarkets sell. When I buy meat or fish, I try to remember to have a reusable sealable container with me like a tupperware box, and I've refused to buy certain items from my local butcher when they came double-wrapped in plastic, making a point of explaining why he was losing my business in this particular instance. Another example is that we've changed from buying shower gel in a bottle to soap bars wrapped in paper, and my wife has now sourced shampoo bars as well.

In short, we do our best to prioritise the "reduce" and "reuse" approach before we even get as far as "recycle". In a household of two, our recycling bin only really needs to go out every 4-6 weeks, and that mainly because we often end up grabbing a used cardboard box if we're in the supermarket and have once again forgotten to bring a reusable bag with us. If I stopped drinking and didn't have all those wine and beer bottles to process, it would go out even less often!

All that said, the onus should not be on us as individuals to try and fight back against the proliferation of plastic in our lives. It's insane to see bunches of bananas being sold in a plastic bag when the skin is so robust. Why the hell does every cup of takeaway coffee need a lid made of black plastic that's so hard to recycle? Why aren't there greater incentives for people to bring their own containers for cereal, milk, beer, wine etc? If everything cost 5% cheaper so long as you brought your own containers, you can be sure that the vast majority of customers would jump onboard. Ditto if there were deposits payable on returning clean, undamaged plastic containers like bottles etc.

I get the point about cleaner alternatives having a higher price, but there's a response to that issue which is often missed out - the real cost of these materials is not reflected in the price paid. This is because the producers of plastic (especially single-use plastic) are not being made to contribute to the cost of recovering and cleaning up the mess their product ultimately creates. Nor is the cost to our own health and the planet's health factored into the price of these materials. Were the cost of cleanup covered by a substantial tax on plastic packaging and other single-use products, this would substantially equalise the price differential between plastic and biodegradable alternatives. It would also raise some much needed funds towards removing plastics from the oceans and waterways. We can't simply throw up our hands and surrender to the notion that phenomena like the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" are just an accepted or inevitable consequence of our existence. This has to be addressed, and the cost of the cleanup has to be paid one way or another.

Of course, as soon as the notion of using taxation to change behaviours is mentioned, there are inevitable cries of how the gubberment is using the environment as an excuse to hike taxes. The change of mindset required to resolve this issue will be vehemently resisted by those who are too lazy, selfish and/or greedy to care.

Much of our problems are we are too rich and too lazy, and notice "we" word and usually think "they" should do something about it. Legislation doesn't work well, for the same reason "too rich and too lazy" ie cant be bothered to enforce it because it costs money and that might cost votes and aggravation,somewhere someone might object. The solution is in our own hands. Chris S.

I’m certainly not a fan of more legislation - but I have to say the one use supermarket plastic bag changed my view.

I knew I should be better organised - that was all I had to do - plan better.

But I never did

It took legislation to force me to do what I should have done.

One of the "claim to fame" for the Rover 75 is that it was the first volume produced car to have a plastic pedal box:-.

Here is the sales and marketing blurb from Dupont, at the time:-

"The Rover 75 is the first volume-production saloon car to have an injection-moulded plastic pedal bracket. Made by Dura Automotive Inc., the part is moulded from glass-reinforced Zytel nylon.
Powerful and silent: to serve Rover’s aim of reducing noise in the passenger compartment of the Rover 75 to a minimum, DuPont’s specialized NVH (Noise, Vibration and Harshness) facility in Hemel Hempstead (UK) analysed the vibration-absorption characteristics of the pedal bracket component of Zytel.
The new Rover 75 is in fact considered to be a class-leader in noise suppression."

Plastic is often thought to be the wonder material.
Now we have to put up with it, with the creaking pedal boxes and issues with plastic clutch parts, manifolds and many more plastic components failing. :mad:

Give me heavy metal any day :D:getmecoat:

I agree with posts 74 and 75 entirely. We the consumers need to start taking responsibility for our decisions and actions.

I was up Conwy mountain in North Wales couple of days ago and managed to finish my flask of tea whilst relishing the views and spending a few ours pondering about life whilst sitting on top the various peaks. When I came down, I took my steel mug into a coffee shop and asked the teenage girl behind the counter in a small coffee shop if she would fill the cup with a coffee. No problem and I got a great smile from her with it. :}

I hate the thought of throwing away a plastic cup and top with every tea or coffee when out and about.

Actions like this take so little effort.

The problem we have is even the cars we drive have a large amount of plastic that is either unrecyclable or even if it is the company breaking the vehicle at the end of its life rarely do as it is easier to burn or skip it.

With the governments trying to make the cars on the roads cleaner they are actually making the problem worse, perfectly good vehicles are being scrapped well before the end of there life just so we produce less emissions.

I was reading a report a couple of years ago before all this plastic thing kicked off and it was saying the most environmental friendly cars are the ones that last 20 or more years. You have to travel about 80000 miles in the average car to equal the amount of energy it takes to make the same vehicle and don't get me started on the environmental impact on electric vehicles in a few years.

Yes - lots of real data to prove this. If we are thinking about the same report it said that throw away cars built in cheap manufacturing areas were the worst at total emissions and that Jeep and Land Rover overall were the least environmentaly damaging because of their “Triggers Broom” facility of being almost infinitely repairable.

But little tax is chargeable on repairing a vehicle - but quite a nice chunk is chargeable on new vehicles.