Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

hongkongfp.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–417 of 417 posts

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

#411

Post by Baeocystin »

redthrow wrote: post #388
Baeocystin wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of bags used drop is significant, but I wonder how much the volume of plastic used has changed? This is an honest question. I am genuinely curious. Here in California, for example, the 10 cent bags you now pay for are much more robust than the cheap freebies of before, but also clearly use more material in their construction. I would estimate at least 5x-10x the mass per bag of the previous free ones. (I m…

The economist Bryan Caplan wrote about the topic here: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2017/01/californias_gre....

Interesting read, thanks for the link.

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

#412

Post by to3m »

emodendroket wrote: post #405
to3m wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It must surely include rinsing under a fast-flowing tap (something I rarely bother with personally), and/or maybe doing the washing under a running tap too. I don't see how you could get to 120L otherwise. 120L = 7 very full sinkfuls of my fairly standard size kitchen sink. 7! For 12 people's-worth of stuff!

It sounds like he was describing just measuring how much a typical person washing dishes uses. I'm sure if you were specifically concerned with conserving water you could do better.

I noticed that the photo at the top of the article shows somebody washing under a running tap, so maybe that's how they got to 120L.

I'm not myself concerned all that much about conserving water, but I am a normal person, so I don't wash my dishes under running water. I fill the sink up with water, stick in some washing-up liquid as it fills, then once it's mostly full (12-15L of water?) I use that. Total use per wash is then 12-15L. Maybe a bit more if I give something a rinse. (Very much optional in my view for most items - but some things do need it.)

You can wash a lot of stuff in that much water! So that's why I am a bit surprised at people using 120L to wash twelve places'-worth. That's eight times the amount I'd use for washing 3-4 people's-worth of stuff and all the items used to prepare the food in the first place.

Poor scalability!

(I think my dishwasher uses 17L per wash so I don't worry too much about using that instead. I am quite lazy.)

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

#413

Post by blackRust »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #203
wastedhours wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdata, but since it was introduced, I've gone from getting a new bag every day (lunch/fresh groceries), to using the same one for pretty much the last 6 months. It was a very noticeable shift to making me think about their use. Buying one because I've forgotten is a rare, and slight annoyance (the price doesn't put me off, it just changes the mental model).

Lots of my friends have said the same thing. I've always wondered why people didn't re-use bags before the charge... Saving the environment didn't matter, but 5p does? People didn't know plastic was bad before? They didn't care? It's great that the 5p charge works, but do we need to have a 5p charge on every bit of plastic to drive the point home?

I would put it down to Nudge theory:

* http://www.economist.com/node/21551032

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nudge_theory

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

#414

Post by kelnos »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #367
kelnos wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't get psychologically addicted to guns like they do to most drugs. Gun bans are perfectly successful in drastically reducing gun violence in countries other than the US.

People are plenty addicted to being paid $10K per to manufacture guns. Who needs to sell them?

I don't think you get what the word "addicted" means.

Also, obviously you need to ban the manufacture of such weapons before you offer to buy them back.

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

#415

Post by acct1771 »

kelnos wrote: post #338
deepvibrations wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ideal scenario is to reward customers for being environmentally conscious as oppose to penalising those who aren't. eg. A 5p-off your shopping incentive for every re-used bag. However, sadly I don't think this would work as well currently.

A bubble tea place near me gives out glass bottles, and offers a 10% discount if you bring back the bottle for a refill. I have... quite a few bottles in my cupboard now. It doesn't work, for me, at least. An extra charge to 'buy' the bottle would likely be a more effective incentive for me.

There is.

It's 10% of the cost of the drink.

Just seems you're not super great at personal finance, is all.

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

#417

Post by ekianjo »

sdfasdasfsf wrote: post #174
ekianjo wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not bring your own (non-plastic) bag though?

... we forget. Glad to know you're helping bring down the average though

> ... we forget.

My technique is to always have such bags in my bags so that I never go anywhere without having them on me. Redundancy :)

Post reply on HN