EU Commission presents draft directive to ban some plastic waste • Hacker News Board

Re: EU Commission presents draft directive to ban some plastic waste

#41

Post by avar » Mon, May 28, 2018, 3:33 PM UTC

houshuang wrote: post #36

avar wrote: post #24

> Curbing the use of plastic cups for beverages I wonder what this will mean for events & festivals. E.g. Amsterdam has made it a policy that big events (including normal bars when the event is going on) must issue plastic cups to curb broken class everywhere. Will we have to go back to glass, or drink our beer out of paper cups? > as well as plastic food containers, such as the ones used for take-away. I'm open to t…

At most festivals in Switzerland, you have a single kind of reusable plastic cup, for which you pay a deposit of a few Euro. You can then hand it back at any venue part of the festival and get the deposit back. Of course it requires some dishwashing facilities, but it seems to work very well, everyone is used to it, and it avoids massive heaps of garbage.

We have these in Amsterdam too. I'll buy a beer with one of these, then by the time I'm ready to leave the lines are so long that I think "fuck it" and throw it in my bike saddlebag thinking I'll bring it back next year. It's not worth it to stand 15 minutes in a line to get 2 EUR back.

But of course I forget about it and just buy a new one at the same festival next year, and each festival will only accept their own branded cups.

So now I have a pile of these things sitting in my shed, there really needs to be some ISO standard for these plastic pints and it be made illegal to not accept ones from other festivals. I now have like 20 EUR worth of otherwise worthless plastic crap I can't exchange or sell except once a year at specific locations.

Re: EU Commission presents draft directive to ban some plastic waste

#42

Post by jri939mcko » Mon, May 28, 2018, 3:33 PM UTC

api wrote: post #6

psergeant wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poverty reduction programs, not trashing the planet, is the correct response to that

That can work to a point, but if environmental policies permanently increase the cost of things like energy then poverty reduction programs must pay that cost. That in turn inflates the cost of poverty reduction programs, making them require increased taxation. This in turn drags down the economy, creating more poverty.

The Bible and other nonsense myths used to guide the masses in the past show we don’t need to abide economics to build a rule set for society

We could do with a little less fetishizing “economics are physics and the rules of the universe” nonsense

The contemporary economy is basically held hostage by a handful of emotional babies and economists measuring within their curated playground

How that establishes economic activity they observe as facts of objective reality, I dunno?

So who even knows what’s “real” trade and not “gun at head, build us chat bots or work retail cause daddy says so” servitude

Re: EU Commission presents draft directive to ban some plastic waste

#43

Post by vincnetas » Mon, May 28, 2018, 3:34 PM UTC

simion314 wrote: post #29

avar wrote: post #24

> Curbing the use of plastic cups for beverages I wonder what this will mean for events & festivals. E.g. Amsterdam has made it a policy that big events (including normal bars when the event is going on) must issue plastic cups to curb broken class everywhere. Will we have to go back to glass, or drink our beer out of paper cups? > as well as plastic food containers, such as the ones used for take-away. I'm open to t…

>I wouldn't mind such a system where you e.g. get 1 EUR back for each bottle, but it's going to have to be something like that. The current deposit fees on plastic bottles are too low, once you're earning enough money it doesn't make any financial sense to return them. I think in some countries if you don't want to get your money back you leave the bottles and cans near the garbage bin or other places and a kid or a…

In Lituania after we implemented deposit system for cans, there was 97% return ratio in 2017. This was so unexpected that agency responsible for managing deposit system had to updated agreements with beverage producers because of this.

Re: EU Commission presents draft directive to ban some plastic waste

#44

Post by simion314 » Mon, May 28, 2018, 3:39 PM UTC

api wrote: post #26

DmenshunlAnlsis wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Environmental collapse also disproportionately hurts the poor. When a drought strikes, they’re the first to starve. At least the pain inflicted by regulations can be mitigated, while collapse leads to something like Libya.

I was not arguing otherwise. Whenever I bring up issues like this I get a lot of "shoot the messenger." My point was not that environmental concerns are wrong but that they do tend to decrease the economic well being of poor and middle class people more right now vs. the status quo. That in turn tends to anger these classes of people right now , causing them to vote for people like Donald Trump. Trump, a super-hard-r…

This article and law proposal was not about energy, it is all about cheap plastic, fishing equipment and tires, though I did not understand if they plan to do anything about the car tires.

You can have good environmental laws and have the person that pollutes pay and encourage recycling. I am not from US but I don't think the elections were influenced by environmental politics

Re: EU Commission presents draft directive to ban some plastic waste

#45

Post by pmontra » Mon, May 28, 2018, 3:43 PM UTC

avar wrote: post #24

> Curbing the use of plastic cups for beverages I wonder what this will mean for events & festivals. E.g. Amsterdam has made it a policy that big events (including normal bars when the event is going on) must issue plastic cups to curb broken class everywhere. Will we have to go back to glass, or drink our beer out of paper cups? > as well as plastic food containers, such as the ones used for take-away. I'm open to t…

> Amsterdam has made it a policy that big events (including normal bars when the event is going on) must issue plastic cups to curb broken class everywhere. Will we have to go back to glass, or drink our beer out of paper cups?

A quick search for recyclable cups and plates returned plenty of results. And are paper cups bad for beer?

Re: EU Commission presents draft directive to ban some plastic waste

#46

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, May 28, 2018, 3:45 PM UTC

avar wrote: post #38

simion314 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I wouldn't mind such a system where you e.g. get 1 EUR back for each bottle, but it's going to have to be something like that. The current deposit fees on plastic bottles are too low, once you're earning enough money it doesn't make any financial sense to return them. I think in some countries if you don't want to get your money back you leave the bottles and cans near the garbage bin or other places and a kid or a…

> I think in some countries if you don't want to get your money back you leave the bottles and cans near the garbage bin or other places and a kid or a poor person will return it and make some money. Indeed. Personally I do this because it's not worth it for me to recycle it on my own, but I still care about the environment and my fellow man. But what I'm pointing out is that it's an economically irrational decision…

> Personally I do this because it's not worth it for me to recycle it on my own, but I still care about the environment and my fellow man.

> But what I'm pointing out is that it's an economically irrational decision on my part,

It's not economically irrational; as obviously the condition of “the environment and your fellow man” play into your personal utility function.

Re: EU Commission presents draft directive to ban some plastic waste

#47

Post by sandworm101 » Mon, May 28, 2018, 3:53 PM UTC

avar wrote: post #24

> Curbing the use of plastic cups for beverages I wonder what this will mean for events & festivals. E.g. Amsterdam has made it a policy that big events (including normal bars when the event is going on) must issue plastic cups to curb broken class everywhere. Will we have to go back to glass, or drink our beer out of paper cups? > as well as plastic food containers, such as the ones used for take-away. I'm open to t…

I consider myself to be an environmentalist and normally wouldn't think twice about taxing producers of plastic for its cleanup, but this doesn't get to the real issue. Most oceanic plastic comes from only a handful of sources: a few rivers in Asia. The plastic cups at a London Starbucks aren't killing sea turtles.

What we need is a cultural change in places like china. They need to stop dumping plastic waste into rivers and instead put it in landfills. Landfills are evil, but not nearly as evil as what is happening to our rivers and oceans. So rather than spend our money/energy on reducing plastic use in Europe we should address our attentions to the much larger issue in Asia. The good news is that we already know how to solve the problem, it doesn't cost that much, nor does it require radical changes to behavior. We just need to convince a handful of countries to do what a great many have already been doing for decades: landfill the plastic.

Re: EU Commission presents draft directive to ban some plastic waste

#48

Post by gepi79 » Mon, May 28, 2018, 3:56 PM UTC

hartator wrote: post #2

It’s worth noting that I’ve seen poor families in France reusing plastic forks and knives. Like always, this kind of policy hurts the poor a lot more.

I wonder about your intentions.

Stainless steel cutlery for a family costs about 30 euros. This is nothing compared to the cost of living in France.

After 1 - 2 years, it is also cheaper than plastic forks and knives.

Re: EU Commission presents draft directive to ban some plastic waste

#49

Post by newman8r » Mon, May 28, 2018, 3:58 PM UTC

ganzuul wrote: post #11

I want to put 2D barcodes on trash-to-be. Then when you find it in nature you should be able to trace it to when and where it was purchased. If this is one of those 10% of users causing 90% of the problems - type situations this would be an effective strategy to hold trashy people accountable.

That's a really interesting idea. Kind of like wheresgeorge.com for trash

Re: EU Commission presents draft directive to ban some plastic waste

#50

Post by morsch » Mon, May 28, 2018, 4:15 PM UTC

avar wrote: post #24

> Curbing the use of plastic cups for beverages I wonder what this will mean for events & festivals. E.g. Amsterdam has made it a policy that big events (including normal bars when the event is going on) must issue plastic cups to curb broken class everywhere. Will we have to go back to glass, or drink our beer out of paper cups? > as well as plastic food containers, such as the ones used for take-away. I'm open to t…

> What are the alternatives that are cheap enough for disposable take-away use?

Reusable containers that come with a refundable deposit? Ie. when the guy delivers your soup, he takes back the container from the last time around? Just an idea.