People can live without single-use plastics
People should not demonize all plastics, but can live without the throwaway ones to protect the environment and pass on a healthier planet to future generations, Greek experts told Xinhua following the European Parliament’s vote last Wednesday to ban single-use plastics within the next decade.
Single-use plastic items such as cutlery, cotton buds, straws and stirrers should be banned in the EU by 2021, while members will have to achieve a 90 percent collection target for plastic bottles by 2029, and plastic bottles will have to contain at least 25 percent of recycled content by 2025 and 30 percent by 2030, MEPs decided, according to an e-mailed press statement.
“About 1 million tons of plastic waste is produced each year in Greece. Less than 180,000 tons is eventually recycled, while the largest part of these plastics unfortunately ends up in landfills. Although people get more educated on such issues in Greece, we still have a long way to go,” WWF Greece environmental awareness officer Achilles Plitharas told Xinhua regarding Greeks’ performance in the management of plastics.
“We should not demonize plastics. There is a series of applications where indeed the use of plastics has helped a lot, like in medical devices. However, there is no need to stick to the use of plastics. We can live without them and in particular those single-use plastics which are unnecessary,” the Greek expert added.
[Xinhua]
