EU To Ban Plastic Plates, Cups, and Cutlery by 2021; Will Require Plastic Bottles Be Made of 25% Recycled Content By 2025 (fastcompany.com)

The European Union has decided to ban plastic consumer items including plates, cutlery and straws as of 2021 to help clean up oceans. The prohibition on single-use plastics approved by the European Parliament this week in Strasbourg, France, also applies to beverage cups, food containers and cotton bud sticks. A report adds: The new legislation also states that by 2025, plastic bottles should be made of 25 percent recycled content. The new legislation also sets an admirable target of recycling 90 percent of plastic bottles by 2029 -- as well as a goal of making them out of 30 percent recycled material by 2030. Parliament originally rolled out its plan at the end of 2018 and have now made good on the ambition directive.

Comments

Re:good job

[calebb]

Relative to cargo ships (emission equivalent of 50,000,000 cars) and maritime waste due to environmental policies of certain leading export countries, this is relatively unimportant.

Instead, perhaps we could focus on reducing our practice of shipping raw materials via cargo ships to countries without environmental regulations or labor laws. Currently, these countries manufacture many of our goods at a much lower cost - by dumping waste into the ocean, employing children, and using components that are known by the state of California to cause cancer.

Then they burn even more oil to ship the finished product back to our country.

Here's an extremely understated introduction to the problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... (all the statistics cited are from the International Maritime Organization, and are substantially lower than what is now (12 years ago) known: https://www.theguardian.com/en... )

Not exactly correct

[WillAffleckUW]

You can still make "plastic" plates cups and cutlery that are derived from:

seaweed (in fact the basic science for this has been known for a decade) - this composts naturally, and is usually coated with a thin film that is not water soluble, but will eventually biodegrade if exposed to sunlight (will take longer if kept in landfills)

vegetable fibers (we've used these in entire countries, and at most major universities - anyplace that you see the compost bin says "university plates, utensils and food containers are compostable") - made in large scale, these are fairly close to the costs of plastic.

The early ones from around the 1990s melted too fast, the 2000s were a bit better, but the 2020 version is fairly good - the only exception is if you leave it in your hot (not warm, hot) drink for more than an hour. Why are you taking up a seat for that long? Use a biodegradable ceramic or metal or glass container if you're taking that long, slacker!

Re:Thats communism

[ShanghaiBill]

I want my stuff made of new virgin plastic.

There are several bioplastics made from starch or cellulose that are good substitutes for petro-plastics in many applications. The biggest drawback is cost. We need more R&D to bring the price down.

Some of the starch-based plastics are edible. Where I work we bought a big box of bioplastic packing peanuts. We soon had an infestation of mice in our warehouse. They were munching down on the peanuts, and had chewed through the cardboard boxes they came in. That was over a year ago, and the warehouse still smells like mouse poop.

Re:Sure, just wait a few million years.

[WillAffleckUW]

Have you ever actually seen a recycling bin that was sorted correctly? I haven't.

I see you've never been to Japan.