Environmental group “The Society of Wilderness” says that policies designed to cut down on plastic are having an effect worldwide. But it also says that litter remains a problem.
On Thursday, the group held an event at Taipei’s Songshan Cultural and Creative Park to highlight the problem of coastal litter. To illustrate the issue, group members built “snowmen” on the park’s grounds using 950 discarded plastic and Styrofoam cups they had picked up on Taiwanese beaches.
The group presented figures from the 2019 International Coastal Clean-up showing a drop in the use of plastic bags, cups, disposable cutlery, straws, and other single-use plastics over the past five years. The use of plastic straws has seen a particularly sharp drop, decreasing 27% since last year.
However, the group also said that plastic bottles, plastic bottle caps, cigarette butts, and plastic bags remain five of the most common types of coastal garbage. It called on Taiwan’s people to keep cleaning up Taiwan’s coasts and rivers, but also to cut down on the amount of plastic they use.