Plastic Free Chesterfield steps up campaign to educate public on issue of disposable packgaging

Campaign group Plastic Free Chesterfield is hosting an online talk with the national charity Hubbub on Wednesday, October 21, at 7pm.

Greg Hewitt, community lead at Plastic Free Chesterfield, said: “We’re holding this talk to raise awareness of the huge issue of disposable on-the-go plastic packaging, with the aim to inspire people that action can be taken to address this crisis.”

Every year we use an estimated total of 25 billion plastic bottles, cans and coffee cups. Of these, almost 11 billion don’t get recycled, meaning they go to waste. That works out at about 8,000 per minute.

Eating and drinking while on the go has become the norm in today’s fast-paced consumer culture.

The environmental action group WRAP UK claims 52% of local authorities do not have any on-street recycling infrastructure. Where they do, contamination rates are often so high that whole batches of materials collected are deemed unrecyclable and end up in landfill.

Recycling at home is important say 93% of people, but when there’s no easy facilities for recycling on-the-go, recyclable materials inevitably end up in general waste.

Hubbub has created innovative trials across the country to address this problem, which saw on-the-go recycling rates triple in Leeds and significant improvements in the quality of recycling collected.

Natasha Gammel, project lead at Hubbub, said: “In 2019, we spent a whopping £17.4 billion on food and drink to eat on-the-go in the UK. It stacks up to about thirteen billion plastic bottles, nine billion drinks and three billion coffee cups every year! On-the-go waste continues to be a significant problem across the country, which means that we continue to look at creative and collaborative solutions to tackle it.”

Members of the public wishing to join the talk should register via www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/talk-qa-tricky-recycling-on-the-go-with-hubbub-tickets-117884994191