Let’s take plastic waste fight to the skies

The recent plastic bag ban in Australian supermarkets and the furore it incited got me thinking about the thoughtless plastic waste generated by airlines (“Bag rage prompts supermarket backdown on plastic bag charge in Australia”, August 1).

Aside from being bad for the environment, the cost of manufacture of airline food and beverage packaging – and transporting to landfill or recycling – must contribute to higher ticket prices. Do canned and bottled drinks really need to come with a plastic glass to be poured into unless those beverages need to be further chilled on ice? Is there a health risk from drinking directly from the lip of a can or bottle after it has been handled by serving staff?

Worse still are the often-unused plastic knife-and-fork sets in sealed envelopes that automatically come with finger food such as sandwiches and brownies.

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I have yet to see anyone cut their bite-sized, easily handheld, room-temperature food with these redundant implements. Please do not claim that for one-size-fits-all meal types it is more convenient to hand out a range of unnecessary dining implements to all passengers, just to satisfy that rare traveller who demands a set for god knows what reason.

Joseph Ting, Brisbane