Refill and re-use must become a habit to tackle plastic pollution
By Brian Mayne:
Local environmentalist Brian Mayne looks at a refill project aimed at helping us reduce waste and in particular plastic, which is fitting as it’s the Marine Conservations Plastic Challenge Month. Brian is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, as well as the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management, Chartered Environmentalist, and is recognised by the International Solid Waste Association as an International Waste Manager.
I have been fortunate to go on several walks this year celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Wales Coast Path.
Not only has this been a great form of exercise with beautiful scenery but it has provided an opportunity to use a scheme designed to tackle the problems of single-use plastic.
The path begins in Chepstow, Monmouthshire, and ends across the border in Chester, Cheshire, and includes a stretch through the Vale that provides an opportunity for walkers to view the amazing scenery of the Glamorgan Heritage Coast, visit nature reserves and wander around ancient churches. Throughout the 870-mile (1,400 km) length of the path, there are over 600 water refill stations. These sites encourage people to carry a reusable bottle as they can top them up for free with fresh drinking water when out and about, rather than buying water in a plastic bottle.
The project is organised by City to Sea, a not-for-profit organisation and is part of a promotional campaign to prevent plastic pollution at its source. It is also part of Wales’s aim to become the world’s first Refill Nation.
According to research by #OneLess, the average person in the UK will use 150 plastic water bottles every year. So, if just one in 10 of us in the country refilled once a week, we’d have a staggering 340 million fewer plastic bottles a year in circulation, which would help reduce the number of plastic bottles ending up in the sea and washed up on the very coastlines many of us enjoy walking along so much.
City to Sea is not just about refilling water bottles but creating a world where everyone can eat, drink and shop with less packaging – which is where zero waste shops are playing a vital role. To help us live with less waste, the organisation has developed a Refill App (www.refill.org.uk) which connects you not only to the network of water refill stations but to a variety of places that offer us the opportunity to reduce, reuse and refill.
Many experts have recognised that we can’t simply recycle our way out of our current plastic problem. We urgently need to shift from using disposable, single-use plastics to a more sustainable alternative, with reuse and refill at the centre and initiatives like this are key to achieving these ambitions as well as making sure the coastlines we treasure are plastic-free.
and https://twitter.com/BRMayne
- The views expressed by columnists of this newspaper do not necessarily reflect the views of the Glamorgan Star, its employees or its proprietors
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