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Case Studies of Environmental Issues

"Plastics: Cannot live with them, cannot live without them"

The invention of plastic has revolutionized the way we live. Plastics have unique characteristics i.e. lightweight, durable and easy to form. Because of this they are commonly used.

Plastics even play an important in environmental management. For example in protection of the environment plastic liners are used in landfills to prevent leachate from leaching into the ground. Hence preventing soil and groundwater contaminaiton. Plastics also play an important part in food safety, hygiene and in the medical field. In waste management plastics may even have advantages over paper in terms of volume for example.

Plastic Usage in Brunei Darussalam

Due to its increasing usage, discarded plastic products and packaging make up a growing proportion of municipal solid waste. In Brunei Darussalam more 20 percent of our total household waste stream inplastics. The amount and proportion of plastic we throw away will continue to increase. We estimate thet no less than 1 million plastic bags, big and small, are issued to consumers every month in Brunei Darussalam.

Additionally, some plastic items end up as litter that pose an ecological risk, especially to the marine environment, aesthetic and economic loss (needs money to clean up). When burnt, plastics emit toxic substances such as dioxins and other harmful substances.

From our preliminary inquiries: cost has been the most cited reasons for choosing plastics against paper. But the cost is not environmental cost. Others include durability, especially for usage in handling of wet and heavy goods. For these there are solutions. Other reasons cited are for security.

Based on the facts obtained, we strongly believe taht source reduction is the best method for reducing the environmental impacts of waste plastics.

Source Reduction

Source Reduction Defined: Source reduction means decreasing the amount or toxicity of the materials that we throw away. Effective source reductin promotes the use of products that generate the smallest environmental impacts.

Benefits of Reducing Plastic Wastes:

Plastics are targeted for source reductioin because of their rapid growth in the municipal waste stream. Addionally, plastics contain additives (e.g., colourants, stabilizers) that may include toxic contituents such as lead and cadmium. In the United States, plastics contribute 28 percent of all cadmium in municipal solid waste and approxiamately two percent of all lead.

We also realise that source reduction of plastics, however, must be accomplished within the goal of reducing the amount and toxicity of the entire waste stream. For example, replacing a plastic cup with a paper will not necessarily benefit the waste stream as a whole, even though the amount of plastic waste is reduced. But for our purposes here and the

How Can We Reduce Plastics in the Waste Stream?

Volume reduction can be accomplished in a number of ways by both consumers and manufacturers/suppliers. For example, consumers can reuse products and packages as much as possible, avoid use of disposable items such as cups and dinnerware, and try to buy concentrates, bulk foods and products which require less packaging. Manufacturers can reduce volumes by using less material in their packages and products and using economies of scale in packaging (e.g.,concentrates or large "economy sixe" packaging).

Toxicity reduction must be done by manufacturers of plastic products by replacing toxic constituents with non-toxic or less harmful materials.

So this is where we here can all play a part!!