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EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021

fastcompany.com

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Re: EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021

#181

Post by ac29 »

thatoneuser wrote: post #175
jwr wrote: post #120

Reading 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…

Reducing demand for disposable goods that are likely manufactured in China would eliminate any pollution associated with its manufacture.

Re: EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021

#182

Post by dingaling »

EpicEng wrote: post #51
tinus_hn wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t help much! Better do nothing!

Would you spend time and resources making your web page load 1.5% faster?

I've spent time and resources making backups 1% more efficient because cumulatively it reduced expenditure on disks.

Re: EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021

#183

Post by Grue3 »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #62
Brakenshire wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've been saying for a long time is that plastic bags were the single most important factor in the decrease of infectious and mold-caused diseases in the 20th century. Storing food in containers like paper bags that are easily penetrated by bacteria and spores is pure stupidity. Along with the prevalence of anti-vaxers, I won't be surprised if California will become the least healthy place on earth in the near future.

Re: EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021

#184

Post by DoreenMichele »

Grue3 wrote: post #183
DoreenMichele wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've been saying for a long time is that plastic bags were the single most important factor in the decrease of infectious and mold-caused diseases in the 20th century. Storing food in containers like paper bags that are easily penetrated by bacteria and spores is pure stupidity. Along with the prevalence of anti-vaxers, I won't be surprised if California will become the least healthy place on earth in the near future…

*I've been saying for a long time is that plastic bags were the single most important factor in the decrease of infectious and mold-caused diseases in the 20th century."

Thanks.

Do you happen to know of any supporting references?

Re: EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021

#185

Post by joshuaheard »

mips_avatar wrote: post #148
joshuaheard wrote: post #95

If you could build a machine that sterilized the utensils, shredded them, and then 3d printed them. If the machine was the size of a microwave, and cost under $200, you could make a fortune.

People keep trying to do this. The problem is the grade of plastic is awful, and 3d printing isn’t that fun/useful with bad filament.

What about a small injection mold?

Re: EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021

#186

Post by NikkiA »

thatoneuser wrote: post #176
Mirioron wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They were likely downvoted because...

> 150,000 tons of plastic are tossed into European waters per year. Single use plastics make up about half of that

Regardless of the worldwide issue, the poster themselves states it's 50% of the plastic in european waterways, why shouldn't europe care about reducing 50% ?!?

Re: EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021

#187

Post by thatoneuser »

ac29 wrote: post #181
thatoneuser wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Reducing demand for disposable goods that are likely manufactured in China would eliminate any pollution associated with its manufacture.

OK. You're still ignoring the problem that China pollutes way more. Us not buying their plastic crap doesn't change that.

Re: EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021

#188

Post by thatoneuser »

NikkiA wrote: post #186
thatoneuser wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

They were likely downvoted because... > 150,000 tons of plastic are tossed into European waters per year. Single use plastics make up about half of that Regardless of the worldwide issue, the poster themselves states it's 50% of the plastic in european waterways, why shouldn't europe care about reducing 50% ?!?

Because 50% of very little isn't a big impact. Look into Asia and Africa for plastic pollution. At the rate they produce Europe could literally be plastic free and it would barely make an impact.

Re: EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021

#189

Post by happymellon »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #73
happymellon wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would love to see more public bathrooms that are well maintained and genuinely accessible to the homeless. The public library is often the only obvious source for a public bathroom available to absolutely anyone and homeless people are frequently asked to leave the library for various reasons and sometimes banned from it. But way to go to completely miss the point. Disposable plastic bags have myriad other uses, su…

I didn't miss the point, I only targeted the main one you brought up.

I think we need to evaluate public facilities. As for them replacing "trash bags" that's fairly tenuous.

All I can do is target problem areas. Personally, if I could make the rules, I would force all plastic bags to be industrial compostable so that whenever plastic is found, it can be put into the recycling.

We eliminated single use plastic bags in the UK, and there have been very few side effects, and your concept of homeless pooping in them is a new one. Though we may just have better facilities than you.

The rest are mitigated by forcing people to think about what they are doing in advance, in the same way they don't generally forget about putting fuel in the car.

Re: EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021

#190

Post by happymellon »

jacobolus wrote: post #140
DoreenMichele wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see more public bathrooms that are well maintained and genuinely accessible to the homeless. The public library is often the only obvious source for a public bathroom available to absolutely anyone and homeless people are frequently asked to leave the library for various reasons and sometimes banned from it. But way to go to completely miss the point. Disposable plastic bags have myriad other uses, su…

If people need certain necessities to live, the way to help them best is not to provide them a random assortment of free (subsidized) materials without consideration of the negative side effects of the subsidy, but to directly give them money.

Or directly give them the service they need. The example provided was that essentially the city they are in needs public toilets.

The plastic bags being a solution is a misdirection as it is a major health hazard for the people dealing with the poop bags in the trash.

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