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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

#41

Post by uhhhhhhh »

nostromo wrote: post #35
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.

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

A large amount of that is waste exported to those third world countries, especially plastics for recycling.

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

#42

Post by amyjess »

nickserv wrote: post #8
Tiktaalik wrote: post #6

Not mentioned in this article but worth noting that the City of Vancouver was interested in pursuing a single use plastics ban taking effect this summer in 2019, but backed away when disability rights activists protested that plastic straws are very important for people with mobility challenges, and they considered the non-plastic alternative straws available to be poor and not viable options.

What's wrong with carrying your own stainless steel straw? I mean if you know you need one it makes sense to me to have your own. Not being snarky, just curious.

* Many disabled people cannot wash their own straws, due to both cognitive load and lack of manual dexterity.

* Stainless steel causes sensory issues for autistic people and can destroy your teeth if you accidentally bite into one. (edit: and lets also add that they conduct heat, so putting a metal straw in hot coffee and drinking out of it could seriously burn your lips)

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

#43

Post by stronglikedan »

LinuxBender wrote: post #19

Does this mean people will have to refill their prescription medications into the same bottle?

Probably wouldn't work, since a lot of people get refills before they run out. Maybe glass bottles, or bottles made of paper like those insufferable paper straws?

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

#45

Post by sampo »

uhhhhhhh wrote: post #38
sampo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Past 10 years, Europe is increasing burning waste for generating electricity, and heat for district heating. Especially Sweden is burning 50% of the waste they generate. Waste plastic makes pretty good fuel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incineration#Incineration_in_E...

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

#46

Post by sunkenvicar »

For decades I have meticulously washed and sorted my blue bin recyclables. Now they are banning plastics because people on the other side of the world treat their rivers as garbage dumps.

I don’t litter. Don’t punish me.

I see this as a cynical re-election strategy. The election is in four months and the polls are not looking good for Trudeau. Awash in scandal and forseeing a strong Conservative turnout, he’s trying to grab votes from the Greens and NDP.

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

#47

Post by asark »

baron816 wrote: post #39
petschge wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

On the landfill topic, I found this Slate Star Codex post very interesting:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/01/what-happened-to-90s-e...

I'd been idly wondering about the topic for years—specifically, WTF happened to all those environmental things schools & kids' nature magazines & cartoons had all the students worked up about back in the 90s? Are they fine now? Did it all go poorly so they gave up? You know, save the rainforest, we're running out of places to put trash, and so on.

The TL;DR on "ZOMG we're gonna drown in trash if we don't do something!" is that it was always basically bullshit—we didn't fix it, it was just a made-up problem to begin with. Other things the post covers are less rosy. The rainforest issue... yep, still going on, still very bad, we're just not talking about it as much.

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

#48

Post by nickserv »

amyjess wrote: post #42
nickserv wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with carrying your own stainless steel straw? I mean if you know you need one it makes sense to me to have your own. Not being snarky, just curious.

* Many disabled people cannot wash their own straws, due to both cognitive load and lack of manual dexterity. * Stainless steel causes sensory issues for autistic people and can destroy your teeth if you accidentally bite into one. (edit: and lets also add that they conduct heat, so putting a metal straw in hot coffee and drinking out of it could seriously burn your lips)

Makes sense, thanks for the info.

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

#49

Post by mmartinson »

barking wrote: post #17

Canada is not where the problem is at, so to speak By analyzing the waste found in the rivers and surrounding landscape, 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; and two in Africa – the Nile and the Niger. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plast…

>> For years the country (China) had imported millions of tons of recyclable waste from overseas, but a growing recycling burden at home prompted the government to shift its policy.

Until recently, Canada, like the US, shipped most of its plastic to China. Does making it a different country's problem absolve responsibility?

I found this quite eye opening. https://www.plasticchina.org/

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

#50

Post by srj »

sunkenvicar wrote: post #46

For decades I have meticulously washed and sorted my blue bin recyclables. Now they are banning plastics because people on the other side of the world treat their rivers as garbage dumps. I don’t litter. Don’t punish me. I see this as a cynical re-election strategy. The election is in four months and the polls are not looking good for Trudeau. Awash in scandal and forseeing a strong Conservative turnout, he’s trying…

Your blue bin recyclables were shipped to Asia and then dumped into a river. There's no economic sense to plastic recycling. The only viable strategies are to standardize on reuse or promote materials that are recyclable (i.e. aluminum).
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