61–70 of 192 posts
The western world is responsible for 1,25 % of all ocean plastic pollution. Europe is only 0,28 %![0] There is no need to ban single-use plastics in the West. It's just virtue signaling and the so-called 'solutions' lower our comfort, will cause a rise in food poisoning deaths and are worse for the environment.[1] When you mention this, people reply we should set an example and other countries will follow. The idea t…
Why no plastic bottles as well? The vast majority of plastic I use is from bottles.
Probably because there is a health implication there, the possibility that people could get dehydrated and not have easy access to bottled water.
The California bag ban slightly preceded the uptick in "medieval diseases" in California, which has since spread from Southern California to other cities (possibly by homeless people leaving California and taking their diseases with them). The uptick in such infections is generally traced to lack of sanitation among the homeless, but the idea that the bag ban is an element tends to get dismissed because "we can't prove it, man!" basically.
I was still in California and still homeless when the bag ban was instituted. Following the ban, my sons and I saw more homeless people digging through trash cans, probably for free bags they could use for various purposes. I never did it, but some homeless people use plastic bags as a toilet substitute. They poop in a bag and take it to the nearest trash can rather than poop on the sidewalk.
If you are digging bags out of a trash can to have a bag to poop in because you no longer have ready access to free new ones and 10 cents per bag is a financial hardship for you, well, it shouldn't shock anyone that there is an uptick in disease.
But no one actually wants to believe that or take that possibility seriously since no official health organization has announced that this is an issue.
Meanwhile, I have seen articles that suggest the CDC is actively downplaying the uptick in diseases like hepatitis. They aren't aggressively issuing public health warnings and putting this into the news. It's been slow to get press and the problem gets downplayed as largely an issue for homeless people.
From what I have read, a lot of antibiotic resistant infections are bred in third world countries with poor plumbing and the like, then inadvertently exported via travelers. But, hey, the US and Europe can both readily get in on the action by banning all the disposable items that help make modern life less dangerous than life in a third world country. Let's go with that plan.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/medieval-diseases...
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Why not: Fast food: metal cutlery at the restaurant that gets washed and reused. Take away: your own cutlery at home.
And what if you have motor control issues that makes it impossible to wash cutlery to any standard of cleanliness? I've said it before, and I've said it again: these anti-plastic laws are actively hostile to people with disabilities.
Eating involves fine manipulation of the cutlery to load it with food, and then hitting a relatively small target surrounded by things that you really don't want to, say, stab with a fork if you miss that target.
I'd have expected that if one has good enough motor control for that, washing cutlery in the sink or a dishwasher would not be a problem, as all the movements required for washing seem to require less accuracy and consistency than do those for eating with the cutlery.
So, clearly, I'm missing something about the mechanics of motor control. Is it because almost all movements involve several different muscles, and so that if one has different levels of control issue with different one that you can get some movements are impossible even though they don't require much precision, and others are possible, even with tight constraints, because even though they involve the same body parts, they differ in the contribution required of each muscle?
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And wooden single-use cutlery is pretty common already today.
Really? I've never seen it in the US, except in the form of wooden coffee stirrers.
It's not unusual in the UK.
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And wooden single-use cutlery is pretty common already today.
Really? I've never seen it in the US, except in the form of wooden coffee stirrers.
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We already have an uptick in "medieval diseases"* from unsanitary conditions among the homeless. Getting takeout is one of the ways homeless individuals who have a modicum of cash income (as opposed to just food stamps and the like) can take care of themselves to some reasonable degree. They generally aren't going to be in a position to properly wash and cleanly store their own take away containers. Soup kitchens typ…
I wouldn’t be against carve outs for a relatively small proportion of the pop like the homeless. Also instead of takeout they can do cafeteria style feeding (I believe this was his if was done in the past, aka soup kitchens from the depression era).
Some homeless people are living in their car, attending school or have a job, etc. It is not uncommon for homeless people to be actively trying to fit in and not be noticed as homeless.
Most people did not think I was homeless upon meeting me. They only figured it out by seeing me repeatedly and realizing I wore the same clothes for two weeks or more and had "homeless habits" of various sorts.
Even if you are not loathe to admit in line that you are homeless and entitled to the exception, how to you prove you are homeless?
Proving a lack of a home winds up being a real issue for homeless people seeking services. The lack of something is often inherently hard to prove.
Sometimes homeless people are told they can only access services if they are registered with one of the homeless services in town as proof of their lack of housing. This winds up being a serious barrier to accessing services.
Now I need my registered homeless card to get my take out in disposable containers? And then simply having the containers signals to everyone who sees me that I'm probably homeless because that is on a short list of exemptions that entitle you to disposable containers?
Let's just start tattooing blue lines across the foreheads of all homeless people to make sure they are branded for life. It would be vastly simpler than our current methodologies for politely painting them into a corner at every turn. (<-- sarcasm, obviously)
90% of the plastic in the ocean comes from Africa and Asia. First world countries put their garbage, generally speaking, into garbage dumps. This EU rule will do nothing.
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Why wouldn't they just switch to paper plates instead?
I try to use paper whenever possible for environmental reasons, and it's really only usable for dry foods. Some paper has a waxy coating that helps, but it's quite a bit more expensive and if you are doing any sort of cutting/poking the food, you still don't get a lot of time before you break through. So tl;dr: paper is a worse user experience. Worth it IMHO but many people will certainly not agree.
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Probably because there is a health implication there, the possibility that people could get dehydrated and not have easy access to bottled water.
There are also substantial health implications to eliminating plastic cutlery, cups, etc. We may be largely oblivious to it now and we may fail to see the connection between the cutlery going and an uptick in illnesses after the change. The California bag ban slightly preceded the uptick in "medieval diseases" in California, which has since spread from Southern California to other cities (possibly by homeless people…
90% of the plastic in the ocean comes from Africa and Asia. First world countries put their garbage, generally speaking, into garbage dumps. This EU rule will do nothing.