According to Eurostat, Luxembourg residents are the second worst offenders in Europe, with 52kg of plastic waste per resident.
Across the EU, an average of 1 billion plastic bags are used per year - that’s 190,000 per minute! An enormous amount of plastic, damaging the environment and reducing quality of life for people everywhere. But plastic is cheap to make, available everywhere in all sorts of forms and colours, making the plastic industry so attractive for enterprises everywhere. The amount of plastic available is so encompassing that most people don’t think twice about how to change their comsumption.
RTL journalist Deborah Ceccacci set herself the goal of renouncing all plastic for 10 days, with the goal of establishing how difficult it is to give up plastic in modern society.
The use of plastic bags was banned in Luxembourg at the end of 2018, save for the ones used in fruit and vegetable aisles in supermarkets. The aim of this was to reduce the consumption of plastic bags from 140 to 90 bags per resident each year, achieving less than 40 per person by 2025.
But this alone is not enough, as remarked by Ceccacci during her plastic-free journey. It is practically impossible to live plastic-free in today’s society, with plastic forming the cornerstone of many everyday objects. Reducing this is a challenge in itself - requiring a complete change of thought processes, careful examining of everyday habits, and of course renouncing many routine products. But there are alternatives for many things.
The outcome of Ceccacci’s attempt will be shown at 7pm on RTL Magazin tonight, exploring what everyday life could look like in a plastic-free world. As well as researching how plastic can be dangerous for humans, Ceccacci also met with a Luxembourgish woman who has lived a life without plastic for the last 3 years.
IN ADDITION:
2 June 2019 will see a Europe-wide effort to raise awareness with over 100 “Plastic Attack” actions, including at the Belle Etoile in Luxembourg.
The campaign will seek to raise awareness of excessive plastic production, in particular packaging, and will apply pressure on suppliers to use environmentally-friendly alternatives.
