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Hawaii Lawmakers Chewing on Ban of Plastic Utensils, Bottles and Food Containers (hawaiinewsnow.com)
Plastic bags are out. Plastic straws are on their way out. Now Hawaii lawmakers want to take things a big step further. From a report: They're considering an outright ban on all sorts of single-use plastics common in the food and beverage industry, from plastic bottles to plastic utensils to plastic containers. Senate Bill 522 has already passed through two committees and is on its way to two more. Supporters say it's an ambitious and broad measure that would position Hawaii as a leader in the nation -- and ensure that Hawaii's oceans have a fighting chance as the global plastic pollution problem worsens. But others worry about the practicality of such a proposal.
I thought the predecessor to plastic straws were paper ones?
While many feel this necessitates having straws that turn into cellulose pulp in your mouth, this is not true. Coating the paper with a biodegradable wax, like carnuba, would solve the problem nicely, as would the use of modified starch coatings.
I agree that biodegradable plastics are ideal for disposable cutlery and pals, but they also tend toward being brittle and crack prone, which makes straws problematic.
For much of packaging that currently uses plastic, we can be using a variety of other, much more environmentally sensible materials, which would do the job just as well-- not necessarily biodegrading plastics.
And yeah, we SHOULD be doing it everywhere.
Industry doesn't want to do it. Plastic is a very versatile and inexpensive material that lends itself very well to commercial mass production. Getting food vendors away from that inexpensive and versatile packaging is hard. Especially when the packaging companies themselves lobby to deter that thinking.
Ever been to Glass Beach?
No, but I've been to Glass Beach. (Sadly, most of the glass is gone now, but I got a great piece on my last visit, it's the Coca-Cola script logo off an old bottle on which the words were highly raised.)
Everybody loves beach glass. I've previously proposed that what we do with glass instead of recycling it is just dump it, at least for glass near a coast. But then there's the problem of peak sand...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
https://www.usatoday.com/story...
Topping the list of items found polluting our beaches and waterways were 2.4 million cigarette butts, which contain plastic filters. That was followed by 1.7 million food wrappers and 1.6 million plastic water bottles.
Forgot about cigarette butts. And that is one of the major polluters. First world nations may be cutting back on this product, but that is not necessarily the truth in third world nations.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time