European parliament approves sweeping ban on single-use plastics

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/24/european-parliament-approves-ban-on-single-use-plastics-uk-eu-brexit

Ok, great. Blue Planet has got people emotional and something has been done about it and swiftly.

So why hasn’t the same expediency been applied to decarbonising the energy market to do something about climate change? The risks, which have been known for decades, are far bigger and wide-ranging for the whole planet.

What’s more, I fear the replacements for plastic are unlikely to be sustainable. Plastic only becomes a nuisance post-use. Likely replacements will be more destructive before they even contain a product.

Or meringue?

What’s more, I fear the replacements for plastic are unlikely to be sustainable. Plastic only becomes a nuisance post-use. Likely replacements will be more destructive before they even contain a product.

In what way are such products likely to be unsustainable? Cellophane is a plastic that was commonly used for all sorts of wrapping, it’s a plant-based material, basically cellulose. You can’t tell me that cellulose is unsustainable.

<p>So why hasn’t the same expediency been applied to decarbonising the energy market to do something about climate change? </p>

<p>Because unfortunately a good protion of the energy market is subject to simalr knee jerk legislation resulting in at least one EU country shutting down all its nuclear and others on the way. Meanwhile coal is burned with gay abandon, but at least that’s not radioactive (barring the isotopes that are released in such quantities it wouldd be funny if it wasn’t completely ridiculous)</p>

So why hasn’t the same expediency been applied to decarbonising the energy market to do something about climate change?

Because it is far harder to do and has a far bigger impact on the public.

dunno, paper straws are rubbish though!

Do we need straws? Really? We shouldn’t be looking for replacements for what plastics have allowed us to do more get our heads around a different way of packaging goods. Or maybe even NOT packaging goods.

If it kills off Q-tips made from plastic that can only be a good thing.

Similarly for those crappy plastic spoons/straws/cups you get everywhere.

dunno, paper straws are rubbish though!

Our bio-degradable straws are made from reclaimed sea shells. Must really piss off the vegans!

I read recently there was widespread UK public support for a ban – FFS lets just get on with it

 You can’t tell me that cellulose is unsustainable.

The plants probably get grown intensively on land stripped of virgin rainforest and dosed up with fertiliser created at huge energy cost and shipped halfway across the world.

I say probably, because I have no idea, but the important point is if you replace disposable plastic with disposable something else you just shift the problem. We need to reuse, or just reduce. Or less humans.

Do we need straws? Really?

No but that can go for a lot of things and they’re available in other materials. It’s not too difficult to manufacture a long thing cylinder with one hole through it.

I heard on radio yesterday that seaweed was an option being looked at but there was not enough seaweed growing to meet the demand needed. Got to say the thought of growing/harvesting industrial amounts of seaweed doesnt sound good for the oceans.

It’s not, dredging oyster beds hasn’t been an ecological success story so why kelp is a better idea is beyond me. Of course so long as the actual sea bed is left intact it could be a sustainable option.

Note the word sustainable which is NOT synonymous with ‘silver bullet’.

I too wonder why 2021 is the end date, why not make it next year?

Don’t they grow the seaweed on ropes similar to mussle and oyster farming as opposed to dredging for it?

the important point is if you replace disposable plastic with disposable something else you just shift the problem. We need to reuse, or just reduce. Or less humans.

Exactly, thank you. Cellulose itself might be sustainable , the amount of additional land needed to grow whichever plants it comes from probably isn’t. Which in turn could contribute to the already bigger deal of climate change.

and the production of cellophane/rayon/viscose requires a lot of nasty chemicals and a lot of water. not an easy answer.

cellulose is just plant cell wall fibre.

Straws, yes my 4 and 2 year olds use straws, more so the 2 year old. The paper straw replacement that restaurants seem to think are ideal are useless, my 2 year old can chew through one in seconds making it completely useless as a straw.

All these plastic replacements need to be as said above sustainable and fit for purpose, I feel alot of whats going on at the moment is jumping on the bandwagon.

long thing cylinder with one hole through it

that’s called a “tube”, unless the hole’s going across it?

Buzz – why not buy a reusable straw rather than single use?

Drac – there’s talk of dredging kelp beds somewhere near me, just adding to the oceanic desert they are creating.

When that was announced I wondered, beyond not allowing people to use plastic cups, straws and bags, how far it would actually go. One of the largest users of single-use plastics is supermarkets – cherry tomatoes in little plastic boxes, sausages in plastic, chickens in plastic, cans held together in plastic loops. How come they get to continue using that but I’m not allowed to drink something through a straw?

Straws, yes my 4 and 2 year olds use straws, more so the 2 year old.

And let’s not forget, before the ubiquity of straws, many under 5’s died of dehydration.

I do worry that the current plasticageddon is a way for middle class people to make minor changes so that they can feel better about continuing to live an unsustainable lifestyle; “I may drive my Chelsea tractor to the countryside to walk my dogs and buy a steak in the pub for lunch, but at least I used a paper straw to drink the smoothie made from air-freighted mango.”

We’ve got a pretty good waste management system in this country, so the larger pieces of plastic in the ocean almost certainly aren’t coming from the UK. Microfibres from the disposable pair of lycra-added jeans and the wear and tear of car tyres and the fishing industry waste to get the seabass on your plate however…

I’m old enough now to remember lots of these seemingly earth shattering changes happening over the years, oh it’ll be terrible, oh we’ll all be broke, oh it’ll only make things worse etc etc – usually fed by the people who are set to lose a few quid in the short term.

This obsession with plastic is a relative new thing, decades at most, we all survived quite nicely before everything had to be sold in a hermetically sealed plastic box and we’ll all do just as well if we stop doing it and maybe 50 years from now, the few of us still lucky enough to be alive might have to live with a little less plastic clogging up the seas and rivers.

And let’s not forget, before the ubiquity of straws, many under 5’s died of dehydration

No, they died from communicable diseases from sharing drinking implements.

People with limited mobility consider the ban on straws to be a huge kick in the teeth, but, hey, at least you can be smug about it; you’re alright.

cherry tomatoes in little plastic boxes, sausages in plastic, chickens in plastic, cans held together in plastic loops. How come they get to continue using that

Because a little bit of plastic allows food to be made and transported safely, cutting down food waste. 3g of plastic can hold 3kg of potatoes through distribution. How else do you do it? Do you show up at the greengrocers with a basket like it’s the 1940’s? I bet 10p you don’t

And let’s not forget, before the ubiquity of straws, many under 5’s died of dehydration.

No luckily there are these devices called re-usable bottles, they each have their own which we take everywhere. On the odd occasion we dont have them the cardboard straws are useless, a bit like your reply.

Do you show up at the greengrocers with a basket like it’s the 1940’s?

No I have to admit I show up at the greengrocers with a hemp shopping bag and I do wish they would use paper bags like the greengrocer did when I was a lad. Similarly the butcher, but at least our baker uses paper bags and the milkman brings milk in glass bottles.

So far I’ve encountered steel and glass straws in bars trying to offer an “eco” replacement.

Both felt very weird to use and we did wonder how they ensured they are cleaned out / sterilised properly.

I’m all for it though. Not sure why straws got such a particular focus when unnecessary plastic is so prevalent in every day packaging.

I seem to remember a programme a while back that showed that children who drink through straws suffered more tooth decay than children who used other methods to drink.  They showed that the straw tends to direct the drink onto the same few teeth every time they suck.  This only really becomes an issue with sugary drinks but the acidity (and sugar) in fruit juice is a particular problem.

Complex problem with no easy solutions.

I do feel that the huge publicity around single use plastics is a good thing. However I’m concerned that it is a sop for some people so they can ignore the bigger problems around global warming.

Take milk bottles. I saw something along the lines that every bottle needs to be reused 60 or 70 times before the energy used in its production matches that of using a disposable carton. That ignores the energy and water used in cleaning them.

The average life of a milk bottle is something like 25 uses.

So reducing single use plastic by using glass milk bottles has a negative impact on energy use and water use.

Maybe mandatory use of easily recyclable cartons along with mandatory recycling (deposits on the containers?) would be an overall improvement. I don’t know

So far I’ve encountered steel and glass straws in bars trying to offer an “eco” replacement.

Both felt very weird to use and we did wonder how they ensured they are cleaned out / sterilised properly.

Probably in a very similar way to the glasses and cutlery they use there.

People with limited mobility consider the ban on straws to be a huge kick in the teeth, but, hey, at least you can be smug about it; you’re alright.

They are not banning straws just single use ones, other straw options are still available to people.

No, they died from communicable diseases from sharing drinking implements.

Cups you mean, I find that hard to believe, could you show your working out on this one.

People with limited mobility consider the ban on straws to be a huge kick in the teeth, but, hey, at least you can be smug about it; you’re alright.

No one is trying to ban straws, you can get metal, wooden or bamboo ones.

So reducing single use plastic by using glass milk bottles has a negative impact on energy use and water use.

But reduces plastic use.

I found this article an excellent insight into how difficult it is to enforce a society-wide change in how we think about climate change:

https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-31/september-2018/yawning-apocalypse

We also need to ban single use plastic Halloween and Christmas tat

Do you show up at the greengrocers with a basket like it’s the 1940’s? I bet 10p you don’t

Yes. Do I get 10p? Sometimes I have them delivered, they put my veg loose in a reused cardboard box. Sometimes I grow my own.

The arguments for plastic packaging generally support the continuation of an inherently unsustainable system.

2 months ago I helped pick up 35kg of plastic on a beach no bigger than my cul de sac.

Something needs to be done about reducing or turning it back into a new product. Banning it is the easy option. We could just send it China so they can burn it, oh wait they don’t want our crap anymore.

Like I typed banning is the easy option and people love easy.

Generally humans don’t take action until it’s too late and the planet swimming in waste plastic is arguably too late, plus it’s a relatively easy step/cheap win to take. Carbon based energy and other anthropogenic causes of climate change are much larger scale than the disposable plastics industry and intrinsically part of everyday life and the foundations of global economy. Everything comes down to money and as long as oil, coal and farming etc make people rich and influence our governments it will be harder to force change.

Once we reach the too late stage, as in people in the first world dying in large numbers and economies being adversely affected by climate change, we’ll see (hopefully) some panicked action taken beyond the current pissing on the bonfire. I think it will really come down to money and developed world beginning to suffer before we see action, because humans are stupid beings, by which point it will be too late.

cherry tomatoes in little plastic boxes, sausages in plastic, chickens in plastic, cans held together in plastic loops. How come they get to continue using that

Because a little bit of plastic allows food to be made and transported safely, cutting down food waste. 3g of plastic can hold 3kg of potatoes through distribution. How else do you do it? Do you show up at the greengrocers with a basket like it’s the 1940’s? I bet 10p you don’t

But that’s the problem – 90% of the plastic disposed of in my house is packaging that’s beyond my control. Plastic punnets, juice bottles, yoghurt pots. Legislate on that and the government might convince me it’s serious about solving plastic problems, not just grandstanding to distract attention from (for example) how badly it’s handling Brexit.

Because a little bit of plastic allows food to be made and transported safely, cutting down food waste. 3g of plastic can hold 3kg of potatoes through distribution. How else do you do it? Do you show up at the greengrocers with a basket like it’s the 1940’s? I bet 10p you don’t

So far we’ve taken the simple step of shopping at a greengrocers down the road instead of ordering on line from Tesco, using soap instead of shower gel, cans and glass bottles drinks instead of plastic buying stuff like rice and pasta in bulk, all very small steps in the scheme of things but in the right direction I think & yes we could do a lot more – the bans at least focus people on the problem