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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

#141

Post by bacon_waffle »

fooblitzky wrote: post #116
rb808 wrote: post #96

I need bags for a bunch of things and now have to buy plastic bags online. I'd like to buy biodegradable ones, does anyone have any recommendations how to check for bags really will degrade?

You can look for logos showing the product is certified to compost in different environments, e.g.: BPI: https://bpiworld.org/BPI-Public/Program.html OK Compost: http://www.tuv-at.be/home/ There are others. Note that for most it still requires industrial composting to really decompose, and a bio-plastic bag in the ocean will be just as bad as a regular one.

> a bio-plastic bag in the ocean will be just as bad as a regular one.

Curious if you could provide justification for this; do you mean that an animal could just as easily choke on a bio plastic bag as a petro plastic one?

My non-biologist assumption had been that compostable plastic would just take longer to compost without the heat and high activity in a commercial situation. IOW, I think that we need to assume some fraction of manufactured stuff will always end up in the ocean, so it's better that is made from bio- than petro- materials.

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

#142

Post by rocky1138 »

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…

Our current recycling methods are not working. Less than 11% of plastic in Canada is recycled.

https://www.narcity.com/news/environment-officials-reveal-th...

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

#144

Post by rocky1138 »

LinuxBender wrote: post #19

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

This is a great idea and follows many of the behaviours found around the world for refilling existing containers rather than starting anew each time.

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/waitrose-plastic-pa...

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

#145

Post by whatshisface »

devy wrote: post #73
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.

The damages has been done. It could take hundreds of years and an order of magnitude's financial resources to clean it up land and underground water pollutions. But the air/ocean/atmosphere/carbon footprints are shared and affecting globally.

We should take a break from games and adtech and save the earth.

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

#146

Post by gpm »

soperj wrote: post #132
zcid wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this tossed around a lot the last few months, but I've yet to see any evidence of its truth. Do you have a link to a study or some other source for this?

The US was a major destination for Toronto waste. Don't know where it ends up afterwards.

Uh, I don't think the US has declined quite far enough to be called third world yet.

Disclaimer (?): Am from Toronto

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

#147

Post by mantap »

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…

Imagine you live in a place that has no waste collection services. You have the same kind of inorganic waste such as plastic food packaging as people in the US, albeit a bit less.

What are you going to do with your trash? You could burn it, but that would release a lot of noxious fumes and make your neighbors unhappy. So you just throw it in the river, and it floats away, out to sea. Problem "solved".

I don't know what the solution is, but the problem cannot be solved by the west at a distance.

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

#148

Post by fouc »

Kluny wrote: post #100
nostromo wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... according to a "a student researcher from UVic who assisted" a surfing advocacy organization and some other randos. Yes, litter will still be an issue, and no, you shouldn't just throw compostable things on the beach -- but comparing polymers which will float in the ocean for hundreds of years vs some compressed corn starch is no contest.

Look, this is my organization (Surfrider) and we put on a talk to learn about compostables. Two of the others were professionals who run industrial composting facilities. If you want a better source you can check out the 5 Gyres report linked in the article (BAN Report). It shows time-lapse photographs of so-called biodegradable items over time. The term biodegradable is itself problematic - everything is biodegradab…

Might be helpful to classify everything by different levels of biodegradability.

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

#149

Post by p1necone »

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…

It's the same inane naysaying that pops up on anything about environmental concerns. "Look those other people are bad too, therefore we don't have to improve".

That logic is bullshit and lazy, and we should call people out when we see it.

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

#150

Post by xsmasher »

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…

Aside: as far as I can tell, the factoid as usually stated is not true. It should be "90% of Ocean plastic that comes from rivers comes from just 10 rivers" and not "90% of all ocean plastic comes from rivers."

There's a graph from the paper (and the name of the paper) here that shows how much ocean plastic is from rivers; it's a lot but not 90% https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plas...

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