I was flying on a short flight in Europe recently and, I’m sorry to say, that I needed some water so I bought one (as you have to do on flights these days) from the flight crew. I know, it’s in a plastic bottle that’s just going to get thrown away (sorry planet!). The bottle I received was from Harrogate Spring Water and I was surprised to learn that it was 50% recycled.

This made me feel somewhat better as Harrogate Spring Water was using 50% materials that had already been recycled. That’s great and they need applause for that. If everyone did that it would be a great step forward.

However of course, we’d like companies to go even further. Why can’t they move to 100% recycled plastic? I’m sure one of the arguments would be the cost and that this might make them uncompetitive compared to other companies who just don’t care about the environment. This is exactly why I believe there should be a total ban on new plastics (as I discussed in my post – Ban New Plastic). This would be the most effective way to protect the world, by ensuring that we don’t create any more new plastic – we’ve already created more than enough.

 

We could go even further and claim that any government that does not ban the creation of new plastics (excluding any compostable plastics of course) is blatantly failing in its duty to protect the people of their country and the world. This might sound harsh, but I think it’s completely fair. The time to act is now. This is not saying we can’t use plastic, just that we’ll have to recycle the plastics we already have when we do want to use it.

For now, let’s applaud Harrogate Spring Water for voluntarily using 50% recycled plastic in their water bottles (as does Wenlock Spring Water). That’s a great move and we need to challenge all companies to do the same and to strive for the magic 100% recycled point.