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Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

theguardian.com

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Re: Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

#291

Post by lurquer »

dd36 wrote: post #257
jdietrich wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plastic packaging doesn't spontaneously release itself into the ecosystem, it's put there by someone irresponsibly managing waste. Norway and the Netherlands are both trialling waste-to-energy incineration with carbon capture. Failing that, there's nothing particularly wrong with well-managed landfill. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187661021... http://www.vivis.de/phocadownload/Download/2017_eaa/…

You're confusing waste that is properly disposed of with waste that is not. The problem is waste that is improperly disposed of and neither of those are solutions to that problem.

That's correct. Indians litter. It's a cultural thing, I guess. Filthiest place on earth. (Don't downvoted me unless you have been to India.) It's sad that the solution is to ban plastic bags and the like... I'm not against the solution. But, the problem is Indians who think nothing of tossing trash out into the street and would be genuinely confused if you suggested they clean up after themselves.

Re: Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

#292

Post by hw »

piyush_soni wrote: post #156

Again, nice objective but like demonetization, it's a decision without any planning/preparation, and the terms and conditions are changing almost everyday. This is from today (small shop owners might be given relief from this rule): https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/plastic-ban-... They should have first researched and offered cheap environment friendly alternatives before doing the same. According to f…

The decision to ban plastics has been communicated for a few months. It's only in the last few days that the law went into effect, but businesses have had time to plan. One could argue if the 3 months notice was enough, but people shouldn't be caught by surprise.

Wet food is a challenge in delivery. There are wax lined paper cups that are more environmental friendly, although not entirely eco safe.

Re: Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

#293

Post by eesmith »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #283
eesmith wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that help? Let's take going to a salad bar or buffet. Many health rules say that only clean plates may be used. For example, from http://EzineArticles.com/1402314 : > There must be clean plates and other tableware at or adjacent to the buffet or salad bar and customers should be reminded, or notified if need be, that only clean tableware is to be used when returning to the buffet. Most restaurants are "set…

I've been to upscale food courts where each vendor has their own clean plates and utensils. Food is served on these clean plates, and when you're done, you dump your dirty dish in a container which is later washed.

I believe what the OP wants is for everyone to wash their own dishes then-and-there, not have someone else wash it later.

Re: Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

#294

Post by hw »

Lunatic666 wrote: post #173
EGreg wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arent there eco friendly alternatives already?

I remember that in Germany you can buy bags made from corn starch, but they're very thin and very fragile. You need to be really lucky to bring home your shopping bags safely and you definitely cannot reuse them. But you can put them on the compost, which is really cool! If they work on making it a little more robust, bags like that would be my first choice

Just a word of warning - some compostable and bio degradable bags only compost in an industrial facility.

http://www.capradio.org/articles/2015/02/17/is-compostable-c...

Re: Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

#295

Post by theptip »

dd36 wrote: post #257
jdietrich wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plastic packaging doesn't spontaneously release itself into the ecosystem, it's put there by someone irresponsibly managing waste. Norway and the Netherlands are both trialling waste-to-energy incineration with carbon capture. Failing that, there's nothing particularly wrong with well-managed landfill. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187661021... http://www.vivis.de/phocadownload/Download/2017_eaa/…

You're confusing waste that is properly disposed of with waste that is not. The problem is waste that is improperly disposed of and neither of those are solutions to that problem.

I don't think jdietrich is confusing anything; they explicitly said:

> Plastic packaging doesn't spontaneously release itself into the ecosystem, it's put there by someone irresponsibly managing waste.

They are (correctly, IMO) pointing out that this is a classic case of missing the root cause; it's a commonly held position that plastic containers are inherently bad for the environment, and that position leads to laws like the one in the OP.

My read of jdietrich's posts was that a more nuanced approach would be more optimal; the problem is not plastic containers per se, it's poor disposal.

Keep in mind that India has less well developed infrastructure than Norway and the Netherlands, and so it's much harder to dispose of waste properly. More investment in this sort of service might be a better long-run strategy in terms of national cost/benefit. (Or it might not, depending on how much it would cost to improve the infrastructure; but the discussion about whether it's a good idea should make an analysis on that point.)

Re: Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

#296

Post by failedartifact »

Ive been thinking theres a better classification one could make for wrapping food products using entropy. Food with short shelf life and not a survival food should be packaged in high entropy packaging.

Although, sweet items would need to be taken care of since these would have a long shelf life but shouldnt be packaged in plastics.

But in general, so long as there is adequate recyclable replacements, then this is great

Re: Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

#297

Post by dahart »

jdietrich wrote: post #284
dahart wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the environmental impact of wasted cucumbers is far greater than the environmental impact of a gram or two of polyethylene wrapping. You're comparing the transportation costs of cucumbers to the production costs of plastic wrap, this conflated comparison seems disingenuous to me. It also needs to be qualified that whatever truth is in that statement only applies to cucumbers that went to the grocery store and weren…

>You're comparing the transportation costs of cucumbers to the production costs of plastic wrap, this conflated comparison seems disingenuous to me. Cucumbers are wrapped in plastic to enhance their shelf life and reduce waste due to spoilage. If the environmental impact of the plastic is lower than the environmental impact of the cucumbers that would be lost due to spoilage, then it is a net environmental benefit. I…

I understand your argument about the net c02 benefit of wrapping cucumbers in plastic. It doesn't mean plastic should be used or that it's good. You're not comparing the benefits of plastic wrap to the benefits of increased engine efficiency, or the c02 benefits of improved sales cycles or local agriculture vs global conglomerate food producers.

Drawing any conclusion from your c02 net benefit calculation assumes that we continue to do business exactly as we do today without improving, and ignores the possibility that there might be a point where there is no net benefit to wrapping cucumbers. The sources you provide elsewhere in this thread conclude that improving the processes involved in production of foods is where we should focus, not that we should wrap more things in plastic.

If we could sell 100% of cucumbers without wasting any cucumbers and without using plastic, that would be better than wrapping them in plastic, right? Unnecessary use of plastic is not good for the environment, right?

This cucumber thing feels like a sideshow distraction to sing the praises of plastic. Unnecessary single use water bottles are a massive global problem. Cucumbers, not nearly as much. There are legitimate uses of plastic, and I'd be happy accepting wrapping some veggies in exchange for getting rid of single serving plastic water bottles and the many other unnecessary uses of plastic that pervade.

> The run-off water from cattle feedlots, grazing pastures or the fields used to grow cattle feed cannot be readily recaptured in a usable form

Not immediately, but next year, right?

> this run-off water will have polluting effects on aquatic life due to contamination with nitrates.

You mention the pollution from agriculture but leave out the pollution from plastic production. Plastic production has immediately toxic pollutants, causing high rates of cancer to workers and nearby communities. Not to mention plastic waste itself being damaging pollution, with a lifespan far longer than nitrates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_pollution

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3327051/

Re: Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

#298

Post by loco5niner »

namibj wrote: post #269
gianpaj wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Ukraine, there is a big French supermarket chain called Ашан (auchan.ua), in which people can buy liquid cleaning products by the volume. For example, if you need a litre for dishwashing cleaning soap, you can go and pull a lever and fill an appropriate size plastic bottle. It's their own brand and it's very cheap. I'm not 100% sure if you can bring and use any plastic bottle, or you have first get it from them. T…

I hope you understand the irony of using a plastic bag for this...

I assume the use of plastic in most cases is reduced since it only needs to travel from store to home.

Re: Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

#299

Post by asenna »

jdietrich wrote: post #154
vishaltelangre wrote: post #105

Instead, government could've imposed ban on the consumer products which are wrapped using plastic material. Almost 50% plastic come directly from such consumer products sold by all FMCG companies. Such plastic material which is used as a wrapper (e.g. mineral bottles, wrappers of chocolates, biscuits, wafers, tobacco, etc.) is often useless and people tend to throw it right away. I agree that "we", the people need to…

>Instead, government could've imposed ban on the consumer products which are wrapped using plastic material. Almost 50% plastic come directly from such consumer products sold by all FMCG companies. Such plastic material which is used as a wrapper (e.g. mineral bottles, wrappers of chocolates, biscuits, wafers, tobacco, etc.) is often useless and people tend to throw it right away. Broadly speaking, that would be a te…

> If you buy a beef steak wrapped in plastic, the problem is the steak, not the wrapper.

Oh no worries about beef, they're definitely handling that problem in India well.

Re: Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

#300

Post by yongjik »

jdietrich wrote: post #154
vishaltelangre wrote: post #105

Instead, government could've imposed ban on the consumer products which are wrapped using plastic material. Almost 50% plastic come directly from such consumer products sold by all FMCG companies. Such plastic material which is used as a wrapper (e.g. mineral bottles, wrappers of chocolates, biscuits, wafers, tobacco, etc.) is often useless and people tend to throw it right away. I agree that "we", the people need to…

>Instead, government could've imposed ban on the consumer products which are wrapped using plastic material. Almost 50% plastic come directly from such consumer products sold by all FMCG companies. Such plastic material which is used as a wrapper (e.g. mineral bottles, wrappers of chocolates, biscuits, wafers, tobacco, etc.) is often useless and people tend to throw it right away. Broadly speaking, that would be a te…

You can't compare CO2 and plastic wraps by weight, because the scale of the problem is very different.

According to Wikipedia, mankind emitted 33.5 Gt of CO2 in the year 2010, and the surface area of the Earth is 510072000 km^2. In other words, we add 66g of CO2 per every square meter of the Earth, every year.

Imagine an Earth where we add six ~10g plastic wraps per square meter, every year, in every corner of the world. It becomes clear that the reason plastic wraps are collectively a less serious problem is that there are much less of them in the first place, compared to CO2 emission.

In other words, you cannot just compare a single piece of plastic wrap with an equal mass of CO2 and claim they are equivalent. You're comparing apples and oranges.

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