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Canada Plans to Ban Single-Use Plastics, Joining Growing Global Movement

nytimes.com

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Re: Canada Plans to Ban Single-Use Plastics, Joining Growing Global Movement

#31

Post by kilo_bravo_3 »

benj111 wrote: post #28
kilo_bravo_3 wrote: post #10

Hopefully mankind's addiction to single-use plastics and the negligent disposal of all plastics can be stopped before exposure to, inhalation of, and ingestion of large quantities of microscopic shards of poly-whatever start shredding and poisoning our bodies from the inside.

"microscopic shards of poly-whatever start shredding and poisoning our bodies from the inside" Is there any evidence that this could happen? It's the first I've heard of it.

The effect has only been seen in aquatic animals so far, but they are exposed to much more microplastics than humans are.

But microplastics don't (on a human timescale) go away.

They just continue to accumulate as plastic items degrade in UV light and water, breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces.

Microplastics have been detected in the feces of humans: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/10/22/659568662/mi...

And the bottom of the Marianas trench: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/12/micro...

And they're harmful to sea life: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/from-fish-to-huma...

And smaller microplastic particles, which all larger particles eventually become, can float through the air.

It is not unreasonable to assume that the problem is going to keep getting worse and worse as time goes on until it gets to a point where every breath we take is contaminated shards of plastics: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Photographs-of-microplas...

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/04/micro...

I'm not a doctor, or a plasticsologist, or a breathing-things-in-ologist, but breathing in large quantities of plastic shards seems less healthy than not doing so and just from a layman's perspective it seems that exposure to microplastics in the air and water should be minimized to the greatest extent possible.

Re: Canada Plans to Ban Single-Use Plastics, Joining Growing Global Movement

#32

Post by sampo »

ridicter wrote: post #25

I see comments pointing out that the majority of plastic pollution in oceans come from Asia/Africa. This is true, but there are two points worth considering: 1) Whenever you pay cheaply for anything made in any third world country, you're externalizing the societal cost of pollution to that country (and if it gets into the oceans, to everyone). In other words, you're not paying the true cost of that item--economicall…

> first world nations often export their trash to third world nations

Not anymore, pretty much all Asian countries have stopped accepting plastic trash.

Re: Canada Plans to Ban Single-Use Plastics, Joining Growing Global Movement

#33

Post by toomuchtodo »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #26
gnicholas wrote: post #16

> The World Economic Forum estimates that 90 percent of the plastic ending up in the oceans comes from 10 major rivers, and that currently there are 50 million tons of plastic in the world’s oceans." from the WEF: researchers were able to estimate that just 10 river systems carry 90% of the plastic that ends up in the ocean. Eight of them are in Asia: the Yangtze; Indus; Yellow; Hai He; Ganges; Pearl; Amur; Mekong; a…

I'd prefer to hear about things on a per capita level. What other stats do we hear about per river?

You either are or aren't dumping waste into moving bodies of water. Whether you're efficient about it ("per capita") is of little concern.

Use economic incentives to penalize countries that allow dumping into their rivers. The first world is no longer able to export their "recyclables" to Asia, and as such, are landfilling/incinerating it. It's time for Asia to clean up its act (regardless of how poor of a country you are).

Re: Canada Plans to Ban Single-Use Plastics, Joining Growing Global Movement

#34

Post by gnicholas »

petschge wrote: post #21
gnicholas wrote: post #16

> The World Economic Forum estimates that 90 percent of the plastic ending up in the oceans comes from 10 major rivers, and that currently there are 50 million tons of plastic in the world’s oceans." from the WEF: researchers were able to estimate that just 10 river systems carry 90% of the plastic that ends up in the ocean. Eight of them are in Asia: the Yangtze; Indus; Yellow; Hai He; Ganges; Pearl; Amur; Mekong; a…

It's not quite that simple to absolve Canada (and Europe and the US) from their responsibility for this problem. Quite a bit of the plastic that ends up in those rivers far away was exported "for recycling" to the countries where it gets miss-handled and ends up in the landscape.

Sure, everyone needs to do their part. But people hear about the pacific garbage patch, and they might think that laws like this will materially affect phenomena like this. But it's possible (I'm not an expert) that a law like this would have very little impact because the vast majority of the trash comes from different regions.

Re: Canada Plans to Ban Single-Use Plastics, Joining Growing Global Movement

#35

Post by nostromo »

ridicter wrote: post #25

I see comments pointing out that the majority of plastic pollution in oceans come from Asia/Africa. This is true, but there are two points worth considering: 1) Whenever you pay cheaply for anything made in any third world country, you're externalizing the societal cost of pollution to that country (and if it gets into the oceans, to everyone). In other words, you're not paying the true cost of that item--economicall…

> Whenever you pay cheaply for anything made in any third world country, you're externalizing the societal cost of pollution to that country

That's true maybe when it comes to atmospheric pollution, but not with plastic waste in rivers and the ocean.

The majority of plastic found in rivers and the ocean are not industrial waste but post consumer waste... things like cigarette butts, plastic bags, and food wrappers.

Re: Canada Plans to Ban Single-Use Plastics, Joining Growing Global Movement

#36

Post by radcon »

Weren't plastic bags created because they have a significantly smaller environmental impact than paper? You need to re-use a paper bag at least 3 times before it's better than using a plastic bag[1]. And let's face it, no one re-uses those flimsy paper bags from grocery stores, but they're becoming the standard wherever plastic is banned.

Those "environmentally friendly" re-usable grocery bags aren't much better either. Depending on the material, they need to be used anywhere from 30 to 300+ times before they're less harmful than plastic bags[2].

Am I missing something or are regulators overreacting here? Clearly some countries have serious litter issues (sounds like the vast majority comes from Asia and Africa), but does that justify the rest of the world trading one type of pollution for another? Are we even fixing the problem or just making ourselves feel better?

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/life-cycle-assess...

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/09/to-to...

Re: Canada Plans to Ban Single-Use Plastics, Joining Growing Global Movement

#37

Post by nostromo »

I really wish they would include exceptions for biodegradable plastics -- which are increasingly indistinguishable from polymer plastics.

When you ban "single use" plastics, people often buy "multi-use" plastics -- which are actually worse for the environment if not used many times, and people often only use them once. There are a number of stores around me where they have thick, heavy plastic bags for purchase for 5 cents that I doubt are actually being reused much at all.

Re: Canada Plans to Ban Single-Use Plastics, Joining Growing Global Movement

#38

Post by uhhhhhhh »

sampo wrote: post #32
ridicter wrote: post #25

I see comments pointing out that the majority of plastic pollution in oceans come from Asia/Africa. This is true, but there are two points worth considering: 1) Whenever you pay cheaply for anything made in any third world country, you're externalizing the societal cost of pollution to that country (and if it gets into the oceans, to everyone). In other words, you're not paying the true cost of that item--economicall…

> first world nations often export their trash to third world nations Not anymore, pretty much all Asian countries have stopped accepting plastic trash.

They still have tons of it to dispose of, and still have lower regulations/controls on how it gets disposed of.

And now there is a backlog of recycling plastics in north america that is increasingly likely to get thrown in landfills, some of that may make it to waterways.

Re: Canada Plans to Ban Single-Use Plastics, Joining Growing Global Movement

#39

Post by baron816 »

petschge wrote: post #21
gnicholas wrote: post #16

> The World Economic Forum estimates that 90 percent of the plastic ending up in the oceans comes from 10 major rivers, and that currently there are 50 million tons of plastic in the world’s oceans." from the WEF: researchers were able to estimate that just 10 river systems carry 90% of the plastic that ends up in the ocean. Eight of them are in Asia: the Yangtze; Indus; Yellow; Hai He; Ganges; Pearl; Amur; Mekong; a…

It's not quite that simple to absolve Canada (and Europe and the US) from their responsibility for this problem. Quite a bit of the plastic that ends up in those rivers far away was exported "for recycling" to the countries where it gets miss-handled and ends up in the landscape.

My theory (no evidence) is that the whole recycling movement has been completely counter productive since most of that material has been shipping abroad to countries that are poorly regulated. Had we just stuffed it into landfill (we have no shortage of space to take care of it, despite what the media says), we would be fine.

Re: Canada Plans to Ban Single-Use Plastics, Joining Growing Global Movement

#40

Post by nostromo »

radcon wrote: post #36

Weren't plastic bags created because they have a significantly smaller environmental impact than paper? You need to re-use a paper bag at least 3 times before it's better than using a plastic bag[1]. And let's face it, no one re-uses those flimsy paper bags from grocery stores, but they're becoming the standard wherever plastic is banned. Those "environmentally friendly" re-usable grocery bags aren't much better eith…

It really depends on what you're measuring.

Plastic bags are very bad when they end up in rivers or the ocean.

But yes, plastic bags might be better on CO2 depending on where they are made and how they are shipped.

But paper bags can be made carbon neutral, which is fundamentally impossible with plastic bags.

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