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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.
It's a great idea so long as they still permit compostables. Compostable plastics are produced from renewable sources, so they even have the potential to be carbon-neutral. They do have to be tested to make sure they only break down into harmless compounds, though. We should be doing this everywhere.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
We've had what, 50-60 years now where companies have done whatever they wanted with packaging and we can see the results. The problem is that the financial interests of the polluter (business) don't align with good of society or the financial interests of the public, because ultimately we the tax payer are going to get stuck cleaning up this shit.
no get yourself glasses.
Also, the government should never have banned lead-based paint or gasoline. Drunk driving can be handled by private industry putting breathalyzers on the steering wheel if the buyer wants it. The FDA should be abolished.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
Lots of compostable, corn-based or other plant-based single use silverware avalible now. It's about 10-15% more expensive, but right now the cost is about $free so,
Paper bags are pretty popular in larger cities, Safeway near my house has tried to introduce thicker plastic bags to meet the "Reusable" mandate by the city, but locals are still requesting paper.
moox. for a new generation.
Ever been to Glass Beach?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I always wonder how this really works in the food service industry, beyond the customer-facing stuff. Much of the single-use product in the kitchen is to prevent contamination. It would be great though if Starbucks stopped pouring my iced tea in a disposable plastic cup before pouring that into my reusable cup though.
Hawaii will not be able to pull this off though. They have so little local packaging (or production) of products that they lack any control of what is in the grocery stores. Maybe they can just tax it extra to pay for the rail...
This is correct. Example:
0.001% of the plastic in the ocean is plastic straws
60% is discarded fishing equipment
The neo-liberal reaction was to ban plastic straws. This is pure propaganda, and in their ignorance makes middle class people feel good about themselves.
Normal people (in aggregate) simply don't consume enough of literally anything (including gasoline) to make an impact.
The super-rich cause the vast majority of all environmental degradation. The rich foul the environment, and we have to clean it up when that's even possible.
Everyone could switch to electric cars ... won't make a fucking bit of difference.
Nothing you do as an individual will make any difference.
No consumer choices you make will make any difference.
Nothing we do in aggregate as normal people will be any difference.
We have to rein in the super-rich. They damage our environment and make real democracy impossible. Basically they can't be allowed to exist any more.
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.'"
There is no problem with plastic. There is only a problem with garbage being dumped at sea. Changing packaging to reduce our standard of living doesn't address the problem of garbage being dumped at sea.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Compostable plastics are produced from renewable sources, so they even have the potential to be carbon-neutral.
There is no requirement that something that is compostable be produced from renewable sources. It can be but it does not have to be. Being compostable just means it can break down safely into compost. And just because something is derived from renewable materials does not automatically mean it is carbon neutral. If the energy inputs to process the material are not carbon neutral then it is unlikely the product itself will be.
They do have to be tested to make sure they only break down into harmless compounds, though.
I think you are conflating biodegradable plastic with compostable. Compostable is a subset of biodegradable. A product can be biodegradable but not break down into usable compost. If it cannot be turned into compost then it isn't compostable.
Plastic utensils are off course overused, but will you make sure both the food and health industry sanitizes whatever other method available properly?
Such requirements are already in place. Ever eaten at a non-fast food restaurant? It's a solved problem. A dishwasher is entirely adequate when dealing with "real" utensils.
What is the cost of acquiring, operating and inspecting an autoclave system with the volume required for eg. a McDonalds.
Zero because they don't need one. There are perfectly viable alternatives to plastic utensils. Not to mention that most of their menu does not require cutlery of any description. In case you weren't aware most of their menu is sandwiches and finger food.
How will we deal with the massive amounts of trash and green house gasses metal utensils will generate for both more resource intensive production, heavier transportation and proper disposal (as well as people simply throwing them into the landfill-destined garbage)?
Nobody is going to use disposable metal utensils. Nobody is even proposing that idea.
Perhaps we need to develop non-plastic, compostable utensils
Already done. They exist today.
Most ocean pollution comes from litter in fast-growing coastal cities in Asia, Africa and South America. It would make a lot more sense to deal with litter in emerging markets than to tinker with the kind of waste that goes into rich country waste treatment facilities. I say this as a professional recycler and environmentalist. The "grasping at straws" approach makes people (and journalists) feel like their doing something, which can actually result in "moral licensing".
A better approach is "fair trade recycling offsets", which are patterned after carbon trading. Let plastic utensil makers sell to people who want / need them, but let them offset by collecting as much litter from places like Lagos and Jakarta as they produce. It would mean less command-and-control by government, and reduce a lot more ocean waste.
Gently reply
You should actuallty talk to someone in the industry before spreading FUD. The materials dumped from 50-60 years ago were much more dangerous and hard to break down than the waste produced today (Asbestos, Lead, etc). All the news stories about plastic taking hundreds or thousands of years to degrade is utter nonesense. In modern waste management, waste is composted and reaches extremely high temperatures where plastics readily break down. In fact most of it is turned into energy, since plastic comes from hydrocarbons. That is, of course, all the stuff that isn't recycled, since modern countries have great recycling infrastructure. As for the stuff out in the ocean? It photodegrades rapidly since the ultraviolet light of the sun breaks it apart.
The main problem with plastics is not people in Hawaii or California drinking out of plastic straws. It's third world countries that don't give a damn about the environment, don't recycle, and spew their waste everywhere. In fact most US Corporations do give a damn about product lifecycle because the people who work in, and own those corporations are Americans, and don't want to live in a polluted S***hole. That's why the US doesn't have garbage in the streets and generally has a good handle on waste management.
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
I've seen similar disturbing images, but an interesting aspect of all the ones I have seen is they involve sea life. Why should people well away from any coast have to cease using plastic straws as well? Straws on land are ugly but they don't seem to attract animals in the same way that harms them (that said, if I say any straws laying on the ground now when out walking I pick them up and throw them out).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Oh wait...
I saw a stat that suggest that as much as 80% of the plastic waste in the ocean is fishing netting. The vast majority of the rest is supposedly from underdeveloped counties. Something like 0.1% of the plastic waste in the ocean is from the U.S. So these laws won't make a difference in the whole scheme of things.
Why not focus on the real problems that will have a real effect?
Are are there alternative motives involved?
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Start by requiring manufacturers to identify themselves on the actual product or face a fine unless, of course, they make compostable products. Then fine them when their plastic products are not disposed of properly. "Found your fork on the beach. $2500 fine" They will quickly switch to compostables. Won't need any laws just regulations by the EPA. Of couse our EPA right now is the Environmental Rape Agency... So maybe Europe can start this.
Yes, and unlike plastic straws, cocaine didn't tend to stick to the inside of paper straws.
Um, at least that's what I've heard. I think I read it in a book.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Compostable alternatives do not (yet) exist. There are some on the market, but as I pointed out above, they generally contain language like "not for backyard composting" or "compostable in industrial facilities only". Most of them still contain plastics or are coated with them and the jury is still out on whether they are better or may even be worse (plastic granules and chemicals worse than plastic in production and decomposition).
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
On the subject of peak sand, it's my understanding that there are companies that are actively working towards solutions for using desert sand for construction. Unfortunately, the companies that are making the most progress in this front are also evidently less interested in actually making a scalable solution for this issue than in keeping their technologies secret and making money through the scarcity of their implementation, resulting in not very widespread use
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Most ocean pollution comes from litter in fast-growing coastal cities in Asia, Africa and South America.
You know, maybe, just maybe Hawaii is most concerned not about plastic in the 350 million odd square kilometers of open ocean, but in the few hundred square kilometers of ocean around the Hawaiian islands.
And guess where most of the plastic just off the Hawaiian coast (you know, the plastic that impacts fishing, beach culture, and via tourism the economy) comes from?
Most plastic doesn't travel that far. Your recycling trading scheme would be utterly useless for cleaning up the waters around Hawaii & makes it obvious that you think of plastic in water in generalized terms & have no understanding of the direct economic benefits that come from having clean coastal waters.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
This is a stupid idea because Hawaii is not the problem. over 90 % of ocean plastic waste comes form 10 rivers in asia and africa A fraction of a percent of the problem is caused by the first world. Spending all this money trying to scrape the last fraction of a percent out of the first world is really stupid when there are people in the third world literally dumping their plastic trash right into the river. If you want to actually solve a problem focus on the biggest causers of the problem first!
No soda, no dish soap, no salad oil, fresh meat, frozen vegetables, fresh vegetables (packaged).... it goes on.
Take a walk down the aisle of a grocery store and see how many food items are packaged in plastic.
Now eliminate all of them from the shelves of the grocery store.
That's what you'll have.
Except those little wood sticks that came with the ice cream cups. Eating off those is the culinary equivalent of nails on a chalkboard.
And yet it's not even close to being the first time that was used to promote legislation.
All we have to do is make it illegal, and then everyone will stop doing it!
You go after the suppliers because there are less of them, not because they are the whole problem. You tackle problems in ways that will let you feasibly solve them, not the way in which you'd like to.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
We've had what, 50-60 years now where companies have done whatever they wanted with packaging and we can see the results.
You should actuallty talk to someone in the industry before spreading FUD. The materials dumped from 50-60 years ago were much more dangerous and hard to break down than the waste produced today (Asbestos, Lead, etc).
Asbestos was never a common constituent of disposable packaging. Lead was, and it took legal action to get it out. All you've done here is proven that the industry won't wipe its own ass unless required to do so by law backed up by stiff penalties.
All the news stories about plastic taking hundreds or thousands of years to degrade is utter nonesense. In modern waste management, waste is composted and reaches extremely high temperatures where plastics readily break down.
If only that were germane to the current discussion, you might have a point, but we're talking about unmanaged waste and as such you do not.
The main problem with plastics is not people in Hawaii or California drinking out of plastic straws. It's third world countries that don't give a damn about the environment, don't recycle, and spew their waste everywhere.
The main problem with plastic trash on Hawaiian beaches is people in Hawaii mishandling plastic trash. And plastic from America often gets shipped to third world countries that don't give a damn about the environment, because most of the waste disposal companies don't give a damn about the environment either — provably, or they wouldn't ship it to those places.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I thought that was why people rolled up paper money instead of using straws?
So I heard from associates.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
One has already been pointed out. Pasta straws. I'm sure they have downsides such as cost, shelf life, etc., but they do serve them at one of the very few restaurants I frequent, Cleveland Vegan near Cleveland, Ohio, and they seem eminently practical to me.
Nonaggression works!