Taiwan ban single-use plastic straws, plastic bags, disposable utensils by 2030 • Hacker News Board

Re: Taiwan ban single-use plastic straws, plastic bags, disposable utensils by 2030

#181

Post by ksk » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 5:13 PM UTC

oldcynic wrote: post #15

randomerr wrote: post #8

The Law of Unintended Consequences will: * Put companies out of business that produce or import said goods * Reducing availability and increasing cost of medical goods that use plastic because the aforementioned companies no longer exist or are importing products * Put pressure on manufactures to use alternate materials (bamboo and glass most likely) causing shortages and rising cost This in the long run is going to…

> Put companies out of business that produce or import said goods Tough. Don't go into business ruining the environment. Similar closures would have happened in asbestos, coal, tetraethyl lead additives and plenty of other things we've discovered are a very bad idea. > Reducing availability and increasing cost of medical goods That's quite a leap - do you have a source? Scotland is banning all plastic straws from end…

That applies to computers and all of the other un-repairable ewaste generating electronics. All purchases of smartphones, laptops, in fact pretty much all of bestbuy would fall in that category. Can we get a ban on those too?

https://ifixit.org/ewaste

Re: Taiwan ban single-use plastic straws, plastic bags, disposable utensils by 2030

#182

Post by monksy » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

noer wrote: post #128

AlwaysRock wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chicago started charging 7 cent a bag and that certainly made me think twice about my bag use.

I can't believe they didn't do this first instead of doing that ridiculous "No disposable plastic bag" rule. The grocery store by my house (marianos) just gave everyone paper, but it seems like most other places just switched to thicker plastic bags, called them "reusable" and gave out just as many as before.

Hey I liked the whole thick walled bag.

Re: Taiwan ban single-use plastic straws, plastic bags, disposable utensils by 2030

#183

Post by monksy » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 5:17 PM UTC

desireco42 wrote: post #108

AlwaysRock wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chicago started charging 7 cent a bag and that certainly made me think twice about my bag use.

Suddenly this 7 cents are the biggest expense and everyone remembers to bring their bag, which is awesome because effects are great.

I really don't want to give the city more money. They've already upped income tax, property tax (property values have been going up as well), and they played with the sales tax.

Re: Taiwan ban single-use plastic straws, plastic bags, disposable utensils by 2030

#184

Post by gnicholas » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 5:17 PM UTC

greeneggs wrote: post #97

adamio wrote: post #64

There's claims the plastic ban bag in San Diego led to a Hepatitis outbreak https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2017/sep/08/stringers-pl...

Two economists have claimed that the ban in San Francisco led to an increase in food-borne diseases. The proposed mechanism is that people don't wash their reusable bags, and dangerous bacteria gets onto them. It isn't clear to me how strong the evidence for this is. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/02/16/is-sa...

I’ve seen this also and have not seen any evidence to the contrary. Considering how damning this study is to plastic bag bans, I’m guessing this means there aren’t any studies that rebut these findings.

Re: Taiwan ban single-use plastic straws, plastic bags, disposable utensils by 2030

#185

Post by emodendroket » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 5:22 PM UTC

ahartmetz wrote: post #130

bluGill wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming you use the dishwasher correctly: you don't overload it, You don't run it too empty, and you don't pre-wash/rinse your dishes. Fail either of the above and a dishwaser uses more water. When you overload the dishwasher things don't get clean and then you wash by hand afterwards (in the case of pots/pans this might still be less water use just because when hand washing you are likely to drain the filthy water…

Arguments about water "consumption" (hint: it's still water afterwards - it tends to clean itself if you didn't outright poison it and wait a bit) do not apply in humid regions - saving water someplace else doesn't help regions with water scarcity one bit. Berlin is an extreme example, they need to pump water out of the ground in any case to prevent the area from reverting to a bog. Hot water usually costs a lot of v…

The world is going to have more, not fewer, dry regions where water must be conserved over time.

Re: Taiwan ban single-use plastic straws, plastic bags, disposable utensils by 2030

#186

Post by JoeAltmaier » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 5:23 PM UTC

brazzy wrote: post #159

coldtea wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The UK dropped to 500 million bags annually used from 7 billion after introduction of a 5 pence per bag charge. Still totally insignificant. A small plastic product packaging, of the kind everything comes in, has more plastic than 200 bags. https://goo.gl/images/cBp3zn Like TSA "security theater", this is "environmental theater".

Sorry, but that's complete nonsense. A plastic shopping bag weighs about 5 grams. Plastic product packaging does not weigh 1kg, not even close. Second, the shape does matter. Bags are especially bad because they are large, thin and soft, they're easier to be carried away by wind or water, and easier for animals to get tangled in or mistaken for food.

Agreed they have to be reined in. But on the recycling side, they are spectacularly inefficient. They are bulky to recycle - they never lay down flat again. The entire semi trailer load at my recycle center probably weighs a couple hundred pounds of plastic, mostly air. They are very, very cheap to make and lots of trouble to recycle - its arguable the recycle cost is greater than the environmental cost of a new one.

Re: Taiwan ban single-use plastic straws, plastic bags, disposable utensils by 2030

#187

Post by JoeAltmaier » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 5:24 PM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #161

coldtea wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The UK dropped to 500 million bags annually used from 7 billion after introduction of a 5 pence per bag charge. Still totally insignificant. A small plastic product packaging, of the kind everything comes in, has more plastic than 200 bags. https://goo.gl/images/cBp3zn Like TSA "security theater", this is "environmental theater".

It's only theater if you measure by kilograms. If you instead care about "items" or "visual cleanness of the river that all the plastic gets blown into", it's a very different matter.

I'd put the prettiness factor down pretty far in environmental concerns. That is part of the 'theatre' side of the equation in fact?

Re: Taiwan ban single-use plastic straws, plastic bags, disposable utensils by 2030

#188

Post by badwolf » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 5:26 PM UTC

jeffffff wrote: post #180

technofiend wrote: post #10

The UK dropped to 500 million bags annually used from 7 billion after introduction of a 5 pence per bag charge. That's just one country albeit one of the world's largest. Still I think we're over due for much more agressive action. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/30/england-...

the non-reusable plastic bag ban in austin, tx was a pretty big failure. the problem is that a lot of the big stores (heb in particular) sell heavier "reusable" bags for 25 cents that no one actually reuses. these bags have a significantly larger environmental impact than the disposable bags if they are not actually reused as intended. http://kxan.com/2015/06/10/report-austin-bag-ban-had-uninten...

anecdata... Every time I go to HEB almost everyone in checkout line is reusing their HEB "emergency" bags.

Re: Taiwan ban single-use plastic straws, plastic bags, disposable utensils by 2030

#189

Post by gnopgnip » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 5:28 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #145

technofiend wrote: post #10

The UK dropped to 500 million bags annually used from 7 billion after introduction of a 5 pence per bag charge. That's just one country albeit one of the world's largest. Still I think we're over due for much more agressive action. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/30/england-...

> The UK dropped to 500 million bags annually used from 7 billion after introduction of a 5 pence per bag charge. Still totally insignificant. A small plastic product packaging, of the kind everything comes in, has more plastic than 200 bags. https://goo.gl/images/cBp3zn Like TSA "security theater", this is "environmental theater".

Plastic bags end up in litter clogging the beaches and stormwater drains much more than other types of packaging.

Re: Taiwan ban single-use plastic straws, plastic bags, disposable utensils by 2030

#190

Post by cimmanom » Thu, Feb 22, 2018, 5:29 PM UTC

kentosi wrote: post #131

technofiend wrote: post #10

The UK dropped to 500 million bags annually used from 7 billion after introduction of a 5 pence per bag charge. That's just one country albeit one of the world's largest. Still I think we're over due for much more agressive action. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/30/england-...

Meanwhile when I moved here in New York I was shocked at the common practice of "double bagging" where they literally put a plastic bag into another plastic bag. The argument being that 1 bag isn't strong enough.

It's dumb for light items, absolutely.

But New Yorkers tend to carry their groceries home in their hands for as far as a mile, instead of wheeling them out in carts to a car trunk and then carrying them 20 feet to the door of the house.

Heavy items (liquids and canned goods and stuff like potatoes) WILL tear through plastic bags if not double bagged. The worst offenders are half gallons of milk/juice, which have sharp corners.

This has happened to me more than once. I've also on occasion just made it home with a bag that's seconds from splitting open.

And then you're half a mile from home with your groceries all over the sidewalk and nothing to put them in.