71–80 of 192 posts
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 not: Fast food: metal cutlery at the restaurant that gets washed and reused. Take away: your own cutlery at home.
And if you're on the go? Eating as a passenger in a car, etc.
Part of reducing environmental damage is changing everyone's behaviour, and maybe considering eating in the car not being a good thing for several reasons, one of which is environmental impact.
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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…
So the solution is public hygiene, like public toilets being available. Not handing out plastic bags to poop in, wrapping poop in plastic is the worst option.
But way to go to completely miss the point. Disposable plastic bags have myriad other uses, such as carting trash away from your camp or even carrying some of your possessions when you can't currently afford a new bag and your last one broke or whatever.
Pooping in plastic bags in just one use that homeless people have for free plastic bags routinely acquired every time they purchase something. Every time you eliminate one more free resource from the lives of the poorest of the poor, it winds up being a hardship with myriad consequences.
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What you call virtue signaling other people call a form of morality. Just because not everyone is doing something doesn't mean that it's not the right thing to do. And even though it doesn't guarantee other countries will follow suit, it's disingenuous to suggest it doesn't make ANY difference. It helps normalize these policies in the global mindspace. Plastic pollution is death by a million cuts. Even though any spe…
I would call it a form of morality to require church attendance, or maybe to outlaw cursing. You wouldn't want that, I assume? So maybe government should focus on guaranteeing freedom rather than thinking of ways to morally limit it.
What about single use made from bioplastics? Are they that much more expensive?
For example PLA for 3D printers, technically bioplastic, but realistically it still needs to be collected and when it comes to breaking it down, the process is still pretty involved, and who is going to pay for all of that?
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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).
I already addressed why soup kitchens are a worse alternative than fast food in my experience. I can't believe you are rebutting any of my points with "We can just have more soup kitchens!" 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 upo…
Have a significant surcharge for disposable, then if people present their WIC/SNAP they get a waiver at checkout.
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Maybe you bring your own (multi use) take away container? Kind of like when you bring your own coffee mug to a coffee shop?
Even setting aside the inconvenience factor, that would become a hygiene problem very quickly. Disposability is extremely useful when cleaning isn't an immediate option.
There is a tendency nowadays to be more concerned with dirt and germs than is biologically justified (possibly to our detriment in some cases--some researchers think that the rise in prevalence of allergies and asthma in children is due to insufficient exposure to things that can help train their immune systems since we are stopping those things before they get that far).
There's a 1€ deposit but some people keep the cup as a memento. Another side effect is thieves breaking into the festival tent at night to steal the plastic pipes containing dirty cups (so they can get the deposit for them).
So what is the best replacement for fast food and takeaway purposes? Bamboo cutlery?
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.
Can we do something about cigarette butts next?