ColletArrow wrote:The article goes on to state that "plastic-free" means the town is against single-use plastics rather plastics in general. All that remains is whether or not the banner counts as single-use; it's not exactly going to be re-used, but it does have a longer (intended) lifespan than throw-away packaging. Hmm.
Since your post, I've been pondering (to nobody's advantage, even mine, but I have so I might as well tell you what I have pondered) and decided that "Single Use Plastic" is definitely the wrong term. Right now I'm on a park bench, looking at (or at least toward) a park rubbish bin that appears to be plasticy in its various external parts (top, sides, access door), around a metal frame and extractable bin-container. They are all single-use elements, yet should (the ravages of vandals aside) last for a long, long time. More than wood (may even be far less flammable and somewhat self-extinguishing) and maybe more than completely unprotected metal (which, let's face it, is also one of the horns of this dilemma!).
If (I haven't looked) there's a plastic bin-liner in the bin-container (for better management) it may be single-use as it gets swapped out each time it is emptied, or it may be reused as long as it remains intact enough between emptyings as the container+bag are upended and just the accumulated detritus transferred to whatever garbage-collection vehicle/trolley they use here.
I'm toying with the idea of swapping "single use" for maybe something like "transient utility". Or perhaps, in the case of packaging materials, "
transit(ory) utility". It vilifies the right(/wrong) use of plastics and doesn't apply to the ones where they're actually a decent idea (like a long-term use of a banner, or the coating on a CD) so long as you then do what you can at the end of their
extended life. It doesn't help classify copiously shed microfibres from artificial/part-artificial textiles, discarded nurdles and fragments of plastic from other (good) uses ending in uncontrolled fragmentation, but you can't have everything...
And now I think I should quit this park (having eaten my sandwiches, and drunk my drink) and get onto more important things. Even if they don't save the world, either.
