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Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

theguardian.com

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Re: Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

#211

Post by beauzero »

mrfusion wrote: post #201
mekazu wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plastic is sometimes useful to preserve fresh food to some degree. Without plastic many goods wouldn’t be viable. Would be nice though if at least the necessary plastic was highly recycleable, as well as cost efficient etc.

My thoughts exactly. How will they sell ground meat, mayonase, salad dressing?

Go to a butcher and get it in paper. Make your own mayo...it's an egg, veg oil, and a little salt and pepper...store in glass. Salad dressing...store in glass. Metal tops. Pretty much the packaging up until the 70's.

Re: Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

#212

Post by dTal »

thechao wrote: post #152
wallace_f wrote: post #118

Why can't we agree to just do what Musk says about carbon: tax goods which create negative externalities for society? You could even do it this way: write the law such that an institution, whose job is to eliminate these externalities, is created, and then funded only with taxes on said products. There's two competing special interest groups to keep each in check so in theory it's even a institution which shouldn't h…

Carbon neutral atmospheric recapture of personal vehicle transportation carbon is probably about 600-700$ per ton of carbon. (Based off of practical experiments in the UK.) My read of the literature doesn’t show any hope of this number decreasing. A gallon of gasoline produces 20 lbs of carbon. This puts a carbon neutral tax on consumer gasoline at ~6-7$ per gallon. If you allow 20% “inefficiencies” (tax collection;…

Well, yeah, that's kind of the point - to disincentivize harmful behaviour. The solution is to commute less, or get a vehicle that isn't so terrible for the environment. You're not really supposed to just keep wrecking the Earth, heave a big sigh, and pony up the tax...

Re: Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

#213

Post by tomaskafka »

bunderbunder wrote: post #142
icebraining wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy from Amazon, but weren't they pushing for minimal and plastic-free packaging? Has the program been dropped?

I do, and, apparently, coming from Amazon, "minimal and plastic-free" means that, if I order a single item, it will come in retail packaging (plastic tray to immobilize and cushion, inside a cardboard box that is at least 6 times the size of the product - hence the need for that plastic tray - inside shrinkwrap), and then that item will be placed inside another cardboard box that is at least 6 times the volume of the…

Tyvek is a high density polyetylene. In other words, exactly same plastic as the bag you want to replace with it :).

Re: Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

#214

Post by Dirlewanger »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #78
sumedh wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand why we allow them. because some people like them. Should we ban Alcohol, fast food and sugar as well?

People like cocaine too; enjoyment of something isn't grounds to keep it legal. Smoking (and alcohol) just can't be made illegal now; the US tried that for a couple of years, and all it managed to do was give rise to organized crime and illegal (and dangerous) manufacture of alcohol. In my country, smoking and alcohol are more passively discouraged; high taxes, a ban on advertising, strict age checks, and (for smokin…

That's why you tax it. The benefits of taxing vices and other negative externalities like single-use plastic items is multifaceted: the consumer will start to think twice about the added cost, the firm providing the item is incentivized to look at alternative methods, and the government gets additional tax revenue (that ideally goes toward the damage that the item does to society/environment/etc).

It's not the state's job to tell me what I can and cannot do. They should, however, nudge me toward what they'd prefer.

Re: Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

#215

Post by state_less »

scotchmi_st wrote: post #207
state_less wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As long as plastics are disposed responsibly in ways that don't damage plants and animals, what's the issue? Please don't discount one of the biggest issues though. I've told folks their plastic bottle is about to blow away (overlooking lands end, right over the ocean). The person picks it up, walks a bit further up the trail and throw it in the bushes. I've had folks throw their cigarette butt on the side of the r…

You're referring to anecdotes. Maybe the sort of behaviour is widespread, but even if it is, you then need to prove it's having much of an impact on the environment, and even then it's a drop in the ocean compared with the damage done via climate change and water consumption. We need to get out of our parochial ideas about waste. Plastics are aesthetically bad, but other forces are quantitatively way worse.

It probably won't come as a big surprise that I also would like to address the larger forces as well. That doesn't mean that we can't also want to address the garbage that is littering our oceans.

Re: Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

#217

Post by slazaro »

riffraff wrote: post #198
EGreg wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arent there eco friendly alternatives already?

for some things sure e.g. Italy has had mandatory biodegradable shopping bags for a few years, but for other things, like coke bottles, it seems harder. I mean, you can enforce glass bottles but that does not seem like a major improvement.

Glass bottles can be reused, like Germany does, or Spain did (sadly not any more).

Re: Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

#218

Post by CarVac »

codeisawesome wrote: post #186
jdietrich wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Instead, government could've imposed ban on the consumer products which are wrapped using plastic material. Almost 50% plastic come directly from such consumer products sold by all FMCG companies. Such plastic material which is used as a wrapper (e.g. mineral bottles, wrappers of chocolates, biscuits, wafers, tobacco, etc.) is often useless and people tend to throw it right away. Broadly speaking, that would be a te…

Energy appears to be obtainable sustainably (so a feeling manifests that it’s okay to waste it right now as long as we keep pedalling hard toward a clean solution ASAP). Plastic degradation appears to be a much harder problem. Also of course, helps that plastic garbage is “visible and ugly”, whereas climate change is abstract.

The issue with food waste is limited phosphorus supplies for fertilizer.

Re: Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

#219

Post by francisofascii »

chestervonwinch wrote: post #87

Meanwhile in Texas, the supreme court has just ruled that city-wide bag bans are illegal: http://www.txcourts.gov/media/1441865/160748.pdf

In PA, there was an effort to pass a law to prohibit local or city-wide bans. The bill was vetoed. http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billinfo/billinfo.cfm?sy...

Re: Mumbai bans plastic bags, bottles, and single-use plastic containers

#220

Post by ryanianian »

jdietrich wrote: post #154
vishaltelangre wrote: post #105

Instead, government could've imposed ban on the consumer products which are wrapped using plastic material. Almost 50% plastic come directly from such consumer products sold by all FMCG companies. Such plastic material which is used as a wrapper (e.g. mineral bottles, wrappers of chocolates, biscuits, wafers, tobacco, etc.) is often useless and people tend to throw it right away. I agree that "we", the people need to…

>Instead, government could've imposed ban on the consumer products which are wrapped using plastic material. Almost 50% plastic come directly from such consumer products sold by all FMCG companies. Such plastic material which is used as a wrapper (e.g. mineral bottles, wrappers of chocolates, biscuits, wafers, tobacco, etc.) is often useless and people tend to throw it right away. Broadly speaking, that would be a te…

The decision to use glass as the de-facto re-usable container medium has always driven me nuts. I think the "marketing" is that it's slightly "harder" (mentally) to throw away a nice glass bottle than it is a plastic container because we've been so conditioned to throw out the plastic ones.

I've long wondered why retailers don't offer a "refill" option for items like milk and liquid cleaning products. The bottles for laundry detergent in particular are usually thick plastic that rightfully could serve their purpose for a very long time. The store could have a big tank of the stuff and consumers can bring the re-usable bottle in for a refill at a worthwhile discount. Similar to what some retailers do with water and those re-fillable 5-gallon jugs. Perhaps the economics don't favor this for other products, but it seems like banning plastic in favor of heavier and less-re-usable options is just political hype without real examination, as you point out.

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