Norwich families highlight how much plastic was produced in celebrating Christmas
PUBLISHED: 11:36 30 December 2017 | UPDATED: 11:36 30 December 2017
Copyright: Archant 2017
The final episode of Sir David Attenborough’s television show Blue Planet II included a shocking look at how plastic affects sea creatures.
And 20 families in Norwich highlighted just how much plastic packaging they amassed in the course of celebrating Christmas.
The families volunteered to take part in the project, organised by Norwich Green Party.
The packaging was yesterday collected up, sorted and the non-food waste packaging put to use at a community event in Jessopp Road in Norwich.
Families were encouraged to make creative use of their non-food-waste packaging and to display it in ways which showed just how much was used over the Christmas period.
Martin Schmierer, leader of the Green group at Norwich City Council, said: “People are waking up to the dangers of single-use plastics. There is a growing national and international awareness of the damage our use of plastics is causing.
“I am concerned about the threat posed to our recycling plastics by the recent announcement that China is considering not taking plastic waste in the future.
“This has made it even more important that to find out what we can do to reduce the amount of plastic waste we produce, particularly at Christmas.”
Norwich Green Party has been running the Plastic in our Environment campaign to reduce the amount of waste plastic produced and to encourage the recycling of plastic.
Last year, Green councillors tabled a motion, unanimously agreed, to Norwich City Council, seeking to end the use of single-use plastics in the city.
Plastic bottles and plastic food tubs, food pots and food trays can all be put in recycling bins, but soft plastics (such as cling film, toothpaste tubes, sweet wrappers and bags) and hard plastics (such as polystyrene, plant pots and toys) cannot be.
New figures recently revealed that less household waste is being recycled in Norwich than it was five years ago.
According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, between March 2016 and 2017, 38pc of all rubbish from Norwich households was either recycled, reused or composted.
That was three per cent less than over the same period five years ago.
If you value what this story gives you, please consider supporting the Norwich Evening News. Click the link in the orange box above for details.