Litter ? bottles & cans
Litter, in particular beverage containers, like cans and plastic bottles accounts for a significant portion of material that pollutes and spoils our environment.
It is particularly bad that this material is made from non renewable material, aluminium and plastic ( a crude oil deritavive) As we become better educated about living sustainably on mother Earth, we need to find solutions to the damage and wasteful ways that us humans have been practicing.
In South Australia, where these containers have an economic value (as they do in fact) and it is recognised through returnable refund, the incidence of roadside litter for example is dramatically reduced.
Peter Cook, a local hills resident, has been campaigining for a return of bottle and can refunds in Victoria. His website AFROCAB ( Australians for return of cans and bottles) details the problems and solutions, while exploring the myths that are often trotted out as answers as to why we can’t go “back to the future”.
Croydon Conservation Society has just signed up (October 2007) to the list of community groups that support Peters proposal. It is not OK for us to be told that our local Councils have an agreement with the recyclers and it would detract from their “business” .
What this really means is that WE pay for the waste through rates! When ethically the responsibility should rest with the manufacturer, to retrieve and refund for the material, so recklessly consumed and often trashed to roadsides, train line verges, drains and landfill.
Do you have contacts with a group who would be willing to sign up to the “in principle” idea of asking the Victorian or Fedral Government to re-adopt refundble containers? If so please contact Peter via email on his website.
