One more I left out. www.ecoenclose.com/Paper-versus-Plastic-and-Bio-Plastic-/

This is not an easy problem to solve. But IMHO it's another issue that has been hijacked by a small percentage with out the full story being told.

NSW has cameras that now can easily see you using a mobile phone. Why not do a couple to get the rubbish droppers

Great idea Craig1. There are hundreds if not thousands of telephone transmission towers all over the country. Set up the cameras on those. However, they're too many demands on the under resourced police force, so why not put lasers on those towers and take out the rubbishers, ice-cream lickers, tailgaters and all those other people that I don't like. That'll kill two (or more) birds with one hit.

Or put a $10.00 deposit on all plastic straws and bags! That will get some attention.

But seriously. If it's not plastic it will be paper or glass. So we need to address the first action. And that's the pig who simply doesn't care.

FWIW my wife puts the cleanest recycling ever in the bin. Every item gets washed. Plastic milk bottles get the hot water treatment. And I'm in real trouble if I throw it in the yellow bin with the cap still attached. It's then a good flogging and I have to do a dive into the bin. Get it out. Take the top off and put it in the other bin. Then stand in the corner for an hour.

bgt, you (and several others) are conveniently ignoring the many other dimensions in the argument. Energy consumption is the tiniest factor in the equation. The very existence of plastics inevitably creates a long-lived pollution problem and plastics don't go away as easily as you imply. The plastic pollution in our waterways and oceans is increasing because we have stopped using viable alternatives and have been sold a pup with "degradable plastics". There is no such thing as a safe form of plastic in the environment. Plastics are toxic to lifeforms including humans. What's so difficult to understand ?

I can't easily edit posts so I'll add another instead. When suggesting people question everything they use or purchase, I didn't mean the only look at containers and packaging. The contents of everyday things like personal hygiene products, potting mixes, cosmetics, chewing gum, barcode/marketing stickers on fruit ALL contain plastics and ALL are easily replaced and/or unnecessary. And the list is far longer because manufacturers want ginmicks or cost savings. And that's the rub, we use products that will kill the environment and ourselves because it's "cheaper".

More good news, recycled plastics, sorted, processed in Wodonga has been mixed with bitumen to redo a section of Hume Hwy near Euroa. Life expectancy of new road surface is much longer than straight bitumen.

Supermarkets are packaging in plastic more and more, so I have started using their facilty to accept soft packaging back for recycling. Coles and Woolworths (not Aldi) have bins available for the purpose although they usually seem to be overflowing. I give them back all plastic that is not accepted by the council recycling service (supposed to be soft packaging only).

Maybe the non soft stuff will still end up in landfill, but if we all did that, then maybe supermarkets would reduce their use of plastics.

That banning of single use shopping bags was a total croc. It seems most people now use the thicker 15c bags for their rubbish, while the total plastic in our trolleys has increased. The target should be a year on year improvement in the plastics leaving the stores in trolleys.

dabbler I'm not ignoring your view. All I'm say, as you yourself have said, is that individuals can make the difference. But unless you nail those who don't care and drop rubbish it with be all for nought. People are the problem. Sure replace plastics. But the the ignorant folks will still drop the rubbish.

You are still ignoring the real issue bgt. Pollution you can't see is far worse than the visual pollution created by uncaring people. It's conservatively estimated that over 75% of the synthetic plastic created still exists in landfills, waterways and oceans. Only a very small percentage is know to be chemically destroyed (ie combusted or usedcin energy recovery) and a slightly larger percentage recycled or repurposed Plastics do NOT go away but break down even further creating microplastics that have entered our food chain. Plastics in the clothes we wear produce microplastics at every wash. Plastics in the soaps and shampoos we use go down the drain every time we wash ourselves. Don't get hung up on an anti-litter campaign. As distasteful as it might be, litter should not be the forefront of our efforts because it's not the pollution type that will kill us. Everyone needs to just stop using plastics wherever possible. It's not as hard as naysayers would want us to believe but it does require effort and thought.