Dear Editor:
Thanks, county council.
The Save Our Water group was pleased to learn that, at their virtual meeting on March 26, Wellington County council resolved that single-use plastic be banned from county council chambers. Staff is also researching a plan that would reduce single-use plastics at county facilities, operations and events.
The county’s decision underlines the dangers of throwaway plastic.
According to the Recycling Council of Ontario, more than 1 billion plastic bottles are not recycled in Ontario every year and end up in landfill. Of plastic disposed for recycling, there is now a mountain of trash that no one wants to buy.
While plastic pollution has been the high-profile concern with single-use plastic, an issue that remains largely hidden is its effect on the climate crisis. For single-use plastic this includes greenhouse gas emissions from the production of plastic resin, the product and packaging processes, and for bottled water, the relentless trucking.
It takes 2,000 times more energy to create bottled water than tap water.
County council has made a significant start. What else can we do to reduce our use of single-use plastic?
Jan Beveridge,
Save Our Water,