Twenty years ago I organised a series of events on marine and riverine litter. Plastic cotton bud sticks were an obvious and common sign of sewage related debris (SRD). Tick – ‘good’ – because you could see which beaches were still being routinely fouled by sewage and SRD. Then there were calls for biodegradable sticks – obvious really – and the manufacturers ignored this and seemingly continue to do so. Considerable progress has been made in that period with sewage treatment at the coast but cotton bud sticks are still being flushed down the loo. In the wake of the good news on plastic bags and micro-beads (see Andrea Leadsom’s speech) perhaps the time has come for a much more concerted attempt to get rid of the plastic bud sticks. Twenty years ago Wessex Water and Welsh Water were in the vanguard of Bag it and Bin it campaigns – it is good news that Wessex has found it’s voice on this issue. It all begs the questions of:
a) should there be priority listing of plastic items to be phased out? and
b) why it take so long for this to happen?
Water Briefing ‘Bristol-based campaign group City to Sea has launched the Switch the Stick campaign, urging retailers to ditch cotton buds with plastic sticks in favour of biodegradable paper versions.
Millions of buds with plastics sticks which don’t biodegrade are flushed down toilets in the UK every year and end up accumulating on beaches and rivers, where they break down into smaller pieces and can get eaten by birds, fish and other wildlife.
The campaign group is hoping to persuade thousands of people to sign a petition in favour of the switch, ahead of a meeting with major supermarkets and high street stores at the end of this month.
The campaign follows a new report by the Marine Conservation Society, which found that the amount of plastic waste dumped on UK beaches has soared by a third in the last year. Cotton buds are among the top five plastic items found – alongside bottles, bottle tops, crisp packets and smaller plastic fragments.’
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