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.
It will not solve the entire problem, therefore it will do nothing.
EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021
171–180 of 192 posts
Re: EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just coming back from India. They've banned plastic bags and containers in any established store here, at least in the city I went to. Perhaps these countries have started taking more concrete steps than whatever it is thats leading the west?
And it caused quite many problems for them when they made that change.
How so and in what way? Just stating something without even the slightest bit of explanation is hardly believable.
Re: EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're missing the point she's trying to make. She's saying that these types of bans have negative unintended consequences for the poorest people. These consequences get brushed aside "because we can just do X to really help them", but X is never actually done to the degree that it offsets the problem. Her mention of HN is that, this would be one of those places of high ideals where you would expect X to be d…
So your argument is something like “if any system or policy incidentally helps the poorest people while also doing lots of unintended damage, then it is immoral to stop doing it, because replacing the incidental aid to the poor now cut off is politically intractable”? This is precisely the same logic that says we need to continue to use coal power plants because otherwise the coal miners will lose their jobs, and it’…
Whether the OP meant to say that or not, it does come across like this. I am all aboard making environmental changes that do not put people out but at the same time, these changes need to be done if we want to make any real progress towards a solution. I agree with your conclusion, it seems like the OP is taking the ban of single use plastic bags as a stance against the homeless when in fact it is a stance that aims to help everyone by cleaning up the planet. These two ideas do not need to butt heads.
Re: EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cash transfers to the homeless enough to cover sanitation and other basic needs doesn’t necessarily imply a universal basic income policy. > If you aren't willing to open your wallet right here, right now and help out poor people you personally know, I am skeptical that "someday" will ever come. I sometimes buy lunch for homeless people in my neighborhood, and have given people blankets and cash before, and donated t…
See, I meant that there are 5 million visitors to HN every month. I run multiple blogs. I do resume work. I do other things. I've been here nearly a decade. Yet, I still can't make ends meet. I don't need someone to drive me to work. I don't need someone to hold my hand. I'm not a drug addict or alcoholic. I am a woman, and sexism is alive and well, so that closes a lot of doors in my face. I'm dirt poor, so a lot of…
I am not really sure what you want to come from this then. I don't think everybody here has the same exact idea on how to get there, but I do believe that everybody wants to the best for the world. It truly seems like you just want one of us to bow down to you and give you a job or help you directly just because you are yelling the loudest. Many of us are committed to fixing these issues everyday and to say we aren't is truly insulting. I am sorry you are going through this, but I think you can go about this in a better way.
Re: EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021
#175Reading these comments makes me sad, but I am also beginning to understand the opposition to limiting carbon emissions. Introduce an initiative that is "obviously good". I mean, none of the commenters here will be disadvantaged by single-use plastic being banned. It is obviously better for the environment. Whichever way you look at it, it is an improvement on the current state of affairs. And yet, people will moan an…
OK here's the elephant in the room - China produces about a third of all pollution. I wanna say over half of ocean pollution comes from 10 rivers in China. In other words - China affects this whole thing more than anyone else in the world. And they're not far away from being more than the rest combined.
So now look at a family who uses some product like straws or plastic forks. Is it a huge inconvenience for them to stop? Probably not. A little obnoxious, but they can obviously handle it. But now the question they ask is why are they inconvenienced as another party (China) is doing so much more? Why do they have to sacrifice while someone else is the bigger issue?
And before I get yet another accusation that I'm anti climate change or whatever - I'm not. I'm explaining a very obvious reason why this is always an issue. It's because people don't like a scrimping and saving while their neighbor doesn't have to. If the green people can't get that through their heads then this debate will never be constructive.
Re: EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021
#176I'm going to keep saying it. The issue is trash disposal especially in third world countries. You can't just pile trash on landfills. I'm countries like Switzerland were most trash is incinerated to generate electricity, getting rid of plastic bags has little impact if not increase overall CO2 use since a alternate bag uses way more CO2 to be produced. One stat stated that a woven bag would need to be used 7000 times…
If you look at the EU's own numbers on it they say that 150,000 tons of plastic are tossed into European waters per year. Single use plastics make up about half of that. This is less than 2% of the 8 million tons of plastic tossed into the oceans worldwide. We're basically trying to fix less than 1% of the problem with this. Considering how much ire this is raising I'm not sure this is a good use of the time of envir…
Sigh. And here's a reasonable criticism of this implementation and surprise surprise - you're downvoted without anyone responding.
You're thinking rationally. Go for the most effective changes first. The low hanging fruit. If that means plastic straws and forks then so be it. But it's pretty hard to imagine this is the best path and it's a lot easier to think it's just pencil pushing beurocrats coming up with an idea to appear progressive.
If there's data out there that shows this move will be significant then fine, but at the rate these bans are going I see nothing but it exhausting what momentum we have to improve our behavior.
Re: EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021
#17790% 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.
First, comments like yours is how nothing ever gets done. Second, you use citation-free statistics that are misleading. How much plastic waste from Asia is from "recycled" US and European ("first world", to use your dog whistle) plastics? edit: to repeat myself, How much plastic waste from Asia is from "recycled" US and European ("first world", to use your dog whistle) plastics? - the research that 90% of the plastic…
Comments like yours are how ineffective policies get put in place which do little to nothing while simultaneously burning out the drive to change by making people feel hopeless. Just because you can identify a problem doesn't mean any effort to resolve is a good one.
Re: EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
And it caused quite many problems for them when they made that change.
How so and in what way? Just stating something without even the slightest bit of explanation is hardly believable.
Plastic was invented and became highly used because of its convenience and affordability, both to produce and ship. Do you really need peer reviewed data to entertain the idea that removing plastic could cause the inverse to be true? Because if not I'd ask for your studies that show transitioning away from plastic not being a huge obstacle.
Re: EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021
#17990% 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.
y, I used to think this way. We went on a river clean up(major river in the midwest), they take you in a small boat up river and drop you off. I wasn't expecting we would not accomplish much. 8 of us a mix of kids and adults we collected a huge pile of trash and debris from the edge of the river. The volunteer group comes by and picks up all the piles of trash the groups collect while we are eating lunch and piles it…
If we saw more people on the green side doing this I think we'd see a much more willing world of people eager to transition. Unfortunately most would rather beat their chests and get outraged than lift a finger.
I've also picked trash in the Midwest. Days and days of walking the land and having another team collect the bags as you did. Its rewarding work.
Re: EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021
#180Sincerely, the point is not of is actually going to reduce plastic in a big enough scale to make a difference, the point is that it will make business come up with alternatives and progress us towards a solution to plastic use that can then be applied in a more extensive way. The EU, although not bring perfect, is usually the place where these kind of measures start, and I am grateful for it.
I have a lot of doubt that removing a negative behavior from companies will cause a positive one to pop up necessarily. It may, it may not. If they want companies to come up with a solution why not offer a bounty for better tech? At least then it's a primary motivator, while with bans there could be any number of other responses.