On a recent 45 minute flight my colleague ordered water (I’m always packing… a glass bottle that is). The flight attendant handed her a 50ml plastic water bottle, with a 20ml plastic cup that he placed upside down on top of the plastic bottle. The kid sitting next to me ordered a packet of sweets. They came, as all sweets do, in a plastic packet, and the same attendant placed the plastic packet inside an empty plastic cup. Has there become an international plastic cup day, or is this just standard practice on airlines? The latter, of course.
Order the in-flight meal and each of the six or so items on your plastic tray is covered in a plastic wrap. As is your plastic cutlery, your napkin and plastic cup of tap water. Air travel has plagued my mind for years as possibly being the biggest culprit in the plastic waste trade, but now I know it with certainty.
The International Air Transport Association says that in 2015 airlines saw close to 3.6 billion passengers. It has been reported that airline passengers each generate half a kilogram of waste. Of on board products, 75% are recyclable, yet less than 20% are recycled worldwide. Do the math, that equates to 1.8 gazillion tonnes of plastic waste, or somewhere near. This figure is horrifically disturbing.
Surely the culinary geniuses that rule the airline food industry can equate the cost to airline companies and the cost to the planet with what they know? Surely we can do better, because we know better? Health, safety and quarantine regulations aside, the health risks of the plastic toxins in the plastic wrap is equally detrimental. Another global report found that no airline recycles all of the major recyclables. No airline has a comprehensive programme for minimising onboard waste, or composting food waste. All airlines offer food that is wrapped in a plastic that is not entirely recyclable.
So look at it this way, from the meal you had on your flight, one penguin died. From the drink you had, a seal died. From those sweets, a dolphin died.
Food aside, let’s look at the fuel. A big plane uses as much energy as 3 500 family cars, equivalent to six cars per passenger. Long haul flights produce on average twice as much emissions per mile as compared to those which cars emit. And short haul flights produce three times as much as that. According to IATA 770 million tonnes of carbon dioxide is produced (2% of all CO2 emissions produced by humans) by the airline industry annually. That means that the average passenger produces 19 tonnes of carbon dioxide. Scientists believe that particulate matter emissions from airplanes contribute to 1 800 early deaths per year in the UK alone.
Fuel aside, and back to my plastic name-and-shame. There is much to debate about air travel when it comes to reckless plastic waste, but none more so than the baggage cling wrap business (A complete and redundant waste). There goes a sperm whale, so your bag can make you look like an asshole. Ever seen what happens when customs needs to inspect such luggage? Bought by beginners, it is a waste of your money, bags with locks and bolts get broken into, cling wrap won’t protect anything it’s the easiest material to cut through, before it then destroys the sea and drowns the life in it. That plastic will eventually fill the stomach of a whaleshark and it will slowly die of starvation because it is impossible to digest plastic and as plastic surpasses plankton in the oceans biomass, fish can’t order much else to eat.
I have not quite listed the seven deaths of my heading, but you get the gist (I should have said 700 not seven). The bubonic plague killed a number of people (clearly not enough, look at us now). The plastic plague is doing far greater and irreparable damage that will leave a darker (Permanent) mark when the history of the world is recorded for posterity. What future does the white plague offer any of us?
otherwise 