Remember 3 Rs? Add a 4th REFUSE

BRACEBRIDGE — “Suck it up” used to be more closely associated with the anti-climate change crowd.

Think about this Tuesday during World Environment Day.

Now it’s taken on a new life with a move to ban plastic straws, which many claim are adding to global pollution.

Even McDonald’s is looking at changing — and oddly they could just revert to the paper packaging that surrounds their single-serve plastic straws.

People with difficulty drinking out of cups still want straws — even if they are paper.

That leads to June 5, says the Muskoka Conservancy in a release Friday.

They say ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’ is the theme for this year’s World En

vironment Day (June 5) and Canadian Environment Week (June 3-9), which explores the concept of how we can make changes in our everyday lives to reduce plastic pollution in our environment and combat one of the great environmental challenges of our time.

Here in Muskoka, The District Municipality of Muskoka operates a comprehensive waste diversion program to reduce the amount of divertible material entering our landfill and to preserve valuable landfill space.

More than 1,100 tonnes of plastics

were collected in 2017 in Muskoka,

but we can do better, says the Conservancy.

Remember the 3 Rs of reduce, reuse and recycle? Now add a 4th – REFUSE.

They suggest you choose reusable mugs and bottles rather than styrofoam or plastic, say no to single use plastics like straws and plastic shopping bags, and if you have no choice about these “one-time-only” products, always recycle them.

This theme encourages all of us to consider how we can make changes in our everyday lives to reduce the heavy burden of plastic pollution on our environment.

A good start is the reduction in plastic bags coming out of grocery store and retail shops.

Globally, 5 trillion plastic bags are used each year and 13 million tonnes of plastic leak into the ocean. 100,000 marine animals are killed by plastics each year, and 83% of tap water and 90% of bottled water contain plastic particles. Plastic pollution is an issue that affects not only ecosystems, but wildlife and humans, as well.

World Environment Day is celebrated every year on June 5th and is the United Nations’ most important day for encouraging worldwide awareness and action for the protection of our environment. Since it began in 1974, it has grown to become a global platform for public outreach that is widely celebrated in over 100 countries around the world.

World Environment Day 2018, ‘Beat Plastic Pollution,’ encourages change in four key areas: reducing single-use plastics, improving waste management, phasing out microplastics, and promoting research into alternatives to plastic dependency.

To learn more about World Environment Day, how you can help reduce your plastic dependency and how to protect your local ecosystems and wildlife from this issue, please visit the World Environment Day website at http://worldenvironmentday.global/en