Faced with the excesses of the industry, actions to stop the planet Plastic multiply. "There is a new trend that has proposed to flee the madness of overpacking, buying back in bulk and returning to municipal markets, and more and more consumers are going to buy with their own containers," Marta Beltran explains. of Rezero (Fundació Catalana per a la Prevenció de Residus i el Consum Responsable).
This week we learned that the Dutch chain Ekoplaza has opened in Amsterdam the first super with a corridor of free products of plastic, packed in compostable biomaterials. "40% of the plastic created is for packaging.Of the 6,300 million tons of this material produced since 1950, only 9% has been recycled", estimates the organization A Plastic Planet, which has collaborated with Ekoplaza. But for supporters of residual minimalism, they fall short. "Reusable packaging is ideal, and there are already many countries where they sell beverages with these containers," adds Beltran.
An "app" with sources
Enemy of the bottling, the ambientologist Andreu Escrivà goes through, canteen in hand, the fountains of his city, Valencia. "It's a somewhat unpopular measure, it seems like a poor thing, but there are more and more addicts," says the author of "Encara es és tard: claus per entendre i aturar el canvi climàtic". He says that the company Closca has launched a glass bottle that is attached to the backpack, bag or bike. The novelty is that it includes an "app" that shows the water sources around you.
"The advertising of bottled water is bestial, even associated with health and beauty, drink such a brand, you'll be more handsome! You have to know that it contributes a thousand times more than tap water to the carbon footprint [C0 emissions] 2 ] ", emphasizes Escrivà, who informs of the impulse that the nostalgic one is going to the source. The UN has encouraged the use of its own containers in a campaign that warns: "A million plastic bottles are bought every minute in the world!" More concrete has been the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who in January announced a revolutionary measure: a network of sources (20 new) and water dispensing points will be installed to combat bottling.
The Balearic Islands has also signed up for something ecological: it will ban from 2020 the non-recyclable coffee capsules and other objects. Among other European initiatives, in Norway a fee applies to single-use containers and in Germany supermarkets must have bins for consumers to leave the containers they do not want.
But the most forceful plastic wars are fought in Africa. The reason: the mountains of garbage that draw the landscape, especially in the slums. Kenya last August banned the manufacture, import and marketing of plastic bags with fines of up to 32,000 euros and prison sentences of up to four years. To be fulfilled, with known corruption, is another battle. Other countries of the black continent - Uganda, Rwanda, Mauritania and Eritrea - already contemplate similar laws for a greener future.