50 signatures reached
To: The Secretary of State
Make disposable plates, cups and cutlery compostable by 2020
Please ensure that, as France has done, that by 2020 all our disposable plates, cups, knives, forks and spoons are made of biologically sourced materials and can be composted.
This means they will break down naturally rather than filling our planet with tonnes of plastic clutter for generations to come
Why is this important?
Only a tiny percent of the billions of plastic cups thrown away are currently recycled. The waste is phenomenal and the destructive impact on the environment is appalling. What point have we got to in society where plastic is created, formed into a spoon, wrapped in more plastic and shipped, only to be used for a few seconds before being thrown away, never to be reused and to exist on the planet for the foreseeable future?
Plastic cups and cutlery clog up our oceans injuring and killing all that live in there. In response to this France has just passed another ground breaking law. The law, which will come into effect in 2020, will ensure that all disposable plates, cups, knives and forks will have to be made of biologically-sourced materials and can be composted.
And this is just the latest part of France’s transition into a greener country.
Earlier this year, supermarkets and stores in France were told they could no longer hand out plastic bags.
We in the UK should be following suit. The large packaging companies and their industry groups will be lobbying against any such suggestion. But our government needs to override such protectionism for the greater good of us all.
Recyclable is not good enough - we have all seen how difficult it is to actually find places in the real world to recycle these types of apparently "recyclable" plastics. The law must be to ensure these single use products are compostable.
Ensuring all disposable cutlery and crockery is fully compostable will cut both the energy used in plastic production and the waste and pollution caused by its disposal.
We ask the Secretary of State to follow France's lead and ensure that by 2020 all disposable plates, cups, knives, forks and spoons are made of biologically sourced materials and can be composted.
