The European Commission has proposed new rules to ban certain plastic products in order to reduce the waste filling our oceans, it announced Monday.
The EU's measures tackle the top 10 plastic products that wash up on Europe's beaches and fill its seas, including a ban on the private use of single-use plastics like plastic straws, plates and utensils and containers used for fast food or your daily takeaway coffee.
The measures would also have each country in the EU come up with a system that would collect 90 percent of plastic bottles by 2025.
"The proposed ban in the European Union of single use plastics, notably plastic straws and cotton buds, is welcome and very promising news," said Dr. Paul Harvey from Macquarie University in a press release. "Single use plastic pollution is one of the biggest environmental catastrophes of this generation."
You can see why the EU is making the proposal. Single-use plastic objects and fishing gear account for 70 percent of waste in the ocean, according to the EU. In 2017, researchers found 38 million pieces of plastic waste on an uninhabited South Pacific island. Figures from the same year showed that a million plastic bottles are bought around the world every minute, a number predicted to jump 20 percent by 2021.
Fortunately, others are tackling the plastic problem, including scientists and environmentalists who've come up with one solution involving mushrooms that can eat plastic.
(Score: -1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @02:55PM (35 children)
First, you need a viable alternative.
The Kings of yore used to do the right thing: Set up a prize for an inventor to come up with a solution.
When a solution has been founded, and the prize awarded, then you declare the old way dead and grant the rights to anyone to implement the alternative.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @03:06PM
Ok Von Bismarck, you keep selling the Monarchy system, we'll see how that works out for you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @03:15PM (17 children)
The viable alternative was people disposing of their rubbish properly. Now we ban plastics and share the bill for cleaning up the mess created by people so irresponsible that they can't put food containers in a bin.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @03:21PM (9 children)
When you tax something, you get less of it.
When you subsidize something, you get more of it.
When you tax responsible people subsidize irresponsible people, then you get fewer responsible people and more irresponsible people.
Enjoy.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @06:56PM (6 children)
What an incredibly naive little soundbite you've got there, but hey it lines up with some people's beliefs. You are a fool who tries to apply your common sense to an incredibly complex issue. I'm waiting for the moneyball that proves unemployment doesn't exist.
Here is your theory modified for a different use: Everyone says not to believe anything you read online. You posted online therefore you are full of shit.
QED, no discussion needed, you are wrong, lovely bit of simplistic crappy logic right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @07:09PM (1 child)
Take note, folks.
That is what cognitive dissonance looks like.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:10PM
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cognitive%20dissonance [merriam-webster.com]
Are you mentally impaired? I'm guessing you are trying to say it was due to
Perhaps you need to go back to middle school when they start teaching more advanced critical thinking skills and reading comprehension? Cause that is the only part I can imagine you are declaring cognitive dissonance, and amusingly it only shows a complete lack of understanding on your part.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:32PM (3 children)
Do you have better logic, or just an ad hominem?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:05PM (2 children)
Let's see, Marijuana is being taxed and I see no decrease. Cigarettes are taxed beyond belief but many people still smoke, what caused the decline was health awareness. Gasoline is highly taxed, yet I don't see any massive drops in usage.
I'm tired of arguing with people who can't see beyond one dimension, and sadly a good % of the vocal users around here fall into that category.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @11:24PM (1 child)
You've clearly shown that you don't understand what's being said.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @03:52PM
I'm sorry you have such trouble communicating with people, best of luck.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @03:19AM (1 child)
Ah! A fellow member of tautology club! As you're well aware, comrade, the first rule of the tautology club is the first rule of tautology club!
The definition of responsibility hinges on their economic position. You're begging the question.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @02:19PM
If the definition of one's quality of responsibility hinges on one's economic position, then one's economic position implies one's quality of responsibility.
Yet, counter examples are readily available; a very rich person can be incredibly irresponsible, and a very poor person can be incredibly responsible, etc.
That is, your premise may be thrown out, and you are therefore just plain wrong.
You might counter by saying that this also destroys the original argument: What you meant is that taxation is applied to not the responsible, but to the rich; and, that subsidies are given not to the irresponsible, but to the poor. However, there are 2 points here:
By the original logic, this just means that you'd get fewer rich people and more poor people (which is exactly what the Welfare state has delivered, in terms of relative proportions).
The original conclusions still make sense in the grand scheme, because of the following:
In a society of voluntary association, if you are responsible, then you have a high chance of achieving a productive economic position.
In a society of voluntary association, if you are irresponsible, then you have a low chance of achieving a productive economic position.
Therefore, by Bayes's rule: Assuming a society of sufficiently voluntary association, the responsible are over-represented among the rich, and thus taxing the rich is a good approximation of taxing the responsible; similarly, the irresponsible are over-represented among the poor, and thus subsidizing the poor is a good approximation of subsidizing the irresponsible.
Taxation decreases one's economic position without decreasing one's quality of responsibility.
Subsidy increases one's economic position without increasing one's quality of responsibility.
You might counter by saying that taxation could increase everyone's economic position by putting those tax monies to good use, but that depends on government being a necessarily good steward of capital, in which case one might as well have Mussolini's "Everything in the State; nothing outside the State", which history has shown doesn't really work—people want some things in the State, not because it is the best idea, but because it is the quickest way to get things done.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gaaark on Wednesday May 30 2018, @04:22PM (6 children)
Ummm...
you do realize that a lot of the plastic that DOES end up in the bin just gets dumped into the ocean?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Ocean_garbage_patch [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_garbage_patch [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pacific_garbage_patch [wikipedia.org]
Getting rid of single use plastic is A GOOD THING.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Insightful) by unauthorized on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:32PM (1 child)
Getting rid of our current garbage processing techniuqes is a good thing. I'm not a massive proponent of plastic wrappers, but what you are suggesting only addresses the symptoms, rather than the issues.
Either way, I wouldn't be surprised if most of that crap comes from the developing world, banning plastics in Europe isn't going to do much for those.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday May 31 2018, @12:47AM
I know New York USED to barge all its garbage out into the ocean, but dunno if they still do.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday May 31 2018, @06:28AM
Fake News! They call it the Garbage Patch, it's not the garbage you put in your garbage can. And it's not the garbage I put in mine. So much of it comes from foreign Countries. And it's not an island. Sounds like an island, it's not. They gave it a very fake name to sell newspapers. It's just loose plastic. And it's not great for our incredible fish. It's not a pretty picture, believe me. But it's nothing compared to what the wind turbines, the wind farms, are doing to the birds. Our bird lovers have given them the name "wing bangers." That's the name they've given to wind turbines for the thousands of birds they kill in the U.S.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @08:48AM (2 children)
1) Where's your proof that is really what is happening? There's a huge hole between your claim and your so called evidence.
2) If your garbage collectors are dumping the trash from bins into the rivers/oceans then that's the far bigger problem that should be urgently solved and not the use of single-use plastic.
3) Seems more likely that the plastic in the ocean comes from other places: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plastic-tide-10-rivers-contribute-most-of-the-plastic-in-the-oceans/ [scientificamerican.com]
Some of you are starting to sound like those religious fanatics. Making leaps of faith and ignoring logic and facts (and often so that you can feel holier than others who don't follow your practices).
The fact is a plastic bag or straw in a landfill or burnt in an incinerator is extremely unlikely to choke a sea turtle or whale swimming in the ocean. The real danger to the sea life are people who litter and other improper garbage disposal, handling and storage.
Just China reducing their littering and similar by 30% will do more than the whole of Europe not using plastic. China still burns a lot of dirty coal so if they collected and incinerated their plastic trash for fuel it could help them and the rest of the world.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Gaaark on Thursday May 31 2018, @10:51AM (1 child)
So, China is the big polluter of the ocean? And where does that garbage come from? Your bin.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/05/09/chinas-crackdown-on-trash-could-make-it-harder-for-u-s-cities-to-recycle/?utm_term=.3bf3fa161081 [washingtonpost.com]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @10:19AM
So see: "2) If your garbage collectors are dumping the trash from bins into the rivers/oceans then that's the far bigger problem that should be urgently solved and not the use of single-use plastic"
Doesn't come from my bin by the way. I don't live in the USA.
(Score: 5, Touché) by tfried on Wednesday May 30 2018, @05:12PM (13 children)
I'll bite:
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @05:34PM (12 children)
You want to re-jigger an entire sector of the economy.
You have to set up business relationships, secure flows of resources, re-establish production facilities, and find the right prices for everything so that all of these moving parts continue to work in tandem without halting.
This is an enormous and expensive undertaking, which leads us to the folly of Authoritarian (e.g., socialist) organizations of society: An attempt at a command-and-control economy, whereby top-down decrees are made according to the fantastical whims of know-nothing bureaucrats.
Every sufficiently complex system requires that its design be found through evolution by variation and selection; in these systems, there is no such thing as Intelligent Design.
Sure, throw a giant asteroid at a part of your economy. If you can stomach a mass-extinction event, then you might end up with a novel design, but you might just fuck everything up, too.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:13PM (5 children)
An effective political litmus test is the left sees that as ha ha funny can't be serious, and the right sees that as "duh obvious!"
The purpose of a lot of leftism is simply destruction. Its like asking the intelligent design behind the Heavens Gate Upload Event or the Russian Revolution, there is no intelligence just destruction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:23PM
There is no cure for stupid, especially when it thinks it is the smartest thing in the room. You are too stupid to understand the role of government and regulations and you apply edge cases to the whole.
I'm more curious why such beliefs seem to dovetail so nicely with prejudice, as you so amply demonstrate all the time.
(Score: 3, Funny) by tfried on Thursday May 31 2018, @07:22AM (3 children)
Exactly. You see, and that's why we cherish these moments so much, when frightened libertarians predict mass-extinction(!) as a result of going back to paper straws. (On the day that the bans become effective - sudden and unexpected - paper will immediately be in short supply, leading to a screeching halt of all printing, followed by a wave of raids on public and private libraries for recyclable paper, led by an army former-top-earning-now-starving plastic straw engineers, while the police forces are effectively tied to their desks trying to sip their coffee through ball-pen casings, because they can no longer afford any straws, ..., all because we deliberately failed to wait for the invention of a viable alternative to plastic straws).
We rate this funny, not because we disagree, but because we always value the expression of terror on our victims' faces, when they come to see through our subtle plans, and realize they are doomed. That and the fact that +1 Funny comes closest to the missing +1 Maniacal Laughter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @02:40PM (2 children)
The libertarian AC above is extrapolating from straws to the general case.
Meanwhile, you seem to be quite content to ignore the general ramifications of your leftism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @03:59PM (1 child)
Ah yes, saving the planet is suuuper scary. Leftism? OK if we're gonna reduce smassive systems to a single word then I'll saddle you with "Racism". Your racism was best left in the past, it is an ignorant harmful mode of being and led to genocide. Why do you wantyo commit genocide???
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @06:02PM
Try again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:15PM (5 children)
Lol, and what exactly would you call corporate structures? Through your reasoning they are "An attempt at a command-and-control economy, whereby top-down decrees are made according to the fantastical whims of know-nothing bureaucrats."
Guess it is time we tossed out corporations and let all the "moving parts" FIND the optimal solution through variation and selection. That means the workers need to find the optimal solution and toss out the no-nothing "bureaucrats".
Finally you've said something approaching useful!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:50PM (4 children)
A corporation is a hierarchical centralization that emerges within a decentralized system of voluntary interaction.
It's form or very existence is NOT guaranteed in perpetuity; unlike a government, a corporation does NOT get to decree its income regardless of performance.
Should a corporation become dysfunctional, the wider society can (without even realizing it) deem that dysfunction to be damage and then go about the business of routing around it! By dropping back down into the underlying decentralized market place, society can find a new solution, which may result in the emergence of a new, functioning centralization to replace the old dysfunctional one.
DO YOU GET IT YET????
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @03:23AM
no, i don't think we get it yet, and you clearly don't get the inherent contradictions of capitalism yet
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @04:49AM (2 children)
No we don't get it yet. things aren't that simple.
Case in point, Microsoft Windows is still dominant, although it's pretty clear that MS as a company has been pretty dis-functional for many years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @05:26AM (1 child)
You are begging the question; your logic is circular.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @03:56PM
You learned how to argue through mimicry. Introspection is important, grow into a better person.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @06:54PM (1 child)
Gluten free napkins
https://www.amazon.com/World-Centric-NP-SC-DN-Compostable-Unbleached/dp/B0114EDWMS/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1527702167&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=paper+straws+biodegradable&psc=1 [amazon.com]
Biodegradable yet reusable paper straws of diversity
https://www.amazon.com/Party-Bargains-Biodegradable-Reusable-Smoothies/dp/B079RMGG72/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1527706049&sr=1-2-spons&keywords=paper+straws+biodegradable&psc=1 [amazon.com]
Tree free plates of the Earth
https://www.amazon.com/Biodegradable-Plant-Based-Compostable-Eco-Friendly-Microwavable/dp/B0793CQDYY/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?s=hpc&ie=UTF8&qid=1527706278&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=biodegradable+plates&psc=1 [amazon.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @06:57PM
A niche flow of resources is not necessarily a viable alternative to a staple flow of resources.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday May 30 2018, @03:11PM
Does anyone else foresee a surge in promotions like "Free Handy Reusable Coffee Cup For Life™", "Free Arty Plastic Straw to Take Home and Cherish"? They've already done similar things with the plastic bags which is why I'm thinking this sort of nonsense might be tolerated.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday May 30 2018, @03:14PM (17 children)
I already have my many-times-reusable coffee cup. I never use straws. I hate those disposable plastic bags. I don't much like plastic in general, but most plastics CAN be recycled. I've never seen a recycled plastic bag in my life. In some places, they actually recycle soda bottles, milk bottles, and the like. Of course, we can't be bothered with that kind of thing in Backwoods, Nowhere. Less plastic sounds like a "good thing" to me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @03:18PM (1 child)
This will lead to nothing, because my money is that the pollution comes from outside the EU.
Also I have glass straws, pretty cool actually.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday May 30 2018, @03:28PM
So . . . you're saying that the EU doesn't produce pollution?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by schad on Wednesday May 30 2018, @04:04PM (9 children)
Reduce, reuse, recycle. In that order.
The problem is that there are a ton of cases where you can't do anything except recycle the plastic. Like blister packs. How can you reduce your consumption of blister packs? You can't. How can you reuse them once you cut the packaging open? You can't. The only thing you can do is recycle them. And the problem there is that there's just so much plastic waste that most places can't handle the volume, and it's not cost-effective to add capacity. Thus even if you put it in the recycling bin, it's likely to end up in a landfill anyway.
Thing is, sellers really love blister packs. It lets you see the product while protecting it from dust, dirt, breakage, and so on. They're not gonna get rid of them unless forced to. Even if one big chain decided to act unilaterally, it wouldn't matter because the packaging is controlled by the manufacturer. As long as most sellers still want blister packs, the manufacturer isn't going to package one seller's goods specially. It may, unfortunately, be the case that regulation is actually the only way to solve this problem.
Of course, you could also just add a tax that reflects the actual disposal cost of the good. In the case of plastics, that would be the cost of recycling the bits that are recyclable and indefinitely sequestering the bits that aren't. Pretty sure that would drive up costs enough that we'd suddenly see a lot of "green" packaging appear.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Snow on Wednesday May 30 2018, @04:19PM (2 children)
Back in the day, I worked at Future shop (basically a Best Buy). I sold discmans. When I started, they would be sold in cardboard boxes. They would be a box with a cardboard sleeve that slipped over it. It was nice. Unboxing them was satisfying.
By the time I left, pretty much everything was in those blister packages. I've cut my hands pretty badly at least twice trying to open those things.
From a merchant perspective, they are way better though. You can hang them on a hook. They are difficult to open, which reduces 'shrinkage' (theft). The packages don't get wrecked over time (the cardboard boxes would look worse the more they got handled).
I would love a return to cardboard boxes for electronics. It's a much more satisfying unboxing experience.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @06:56PM (1 child)
What is an unboxing experience? Is that like opening up a birthday present?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @04:53AM
film some boxers. Run the film backwards?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:30PM
I reuse my plastic grocery bags four or five times before i eventually use them as trash bags.
Since I'm required by the government to wrap my trash in plastic bags, I use grocery bags instead of paying extra for large 200l garbage bags.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:17PM
Aiming at the wrong problem in that most of the crap in blister packs represents several kilos of petroleum turned into plastic and diesel fumes from shipping it and it'll be in a landfill at most a couple years after the milligrams of blister pack end up in the same landfill. Its a feel good measure.
Besides with the death of retail and the rise of online, most of the stuff I get from Amazon does not benefit from the miligrams of blister pack, so the bean counters annihilate it, so I get stuff in three or four layers of cardboard boxes, sometimes packed in biodegradable (or not..) shipping peanuts, etc. I'm sure paper and ink telegrams were bad for the environment too, but in 2018 thats "whatevs" much like brick and mortar retail is soon to be "whatevs".
(Score: 2) by BK on Thursday May 31 2018, @02:34AM
If the government allocated the revenue from the tax exclusively to dealing with problem they hoped to tax away, I could support a measure like this. Unfortunately, it will be used for this, AND the children. AND education. AND road construction. AND AND AND.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Thursday May 31 2018, @12:45PM (2 children)
Like most politicians do, you left out "repair". That is because the corporates (Apple for example) want you to buy a new thing from them rather than have you repair your adequate old one.
You can burn it. I burn tons of stuff, largely to avoid issues with the Local Authority rubbish collection people who want everything they collect to fall into one of their neat categories (and to be pre-segregated by you accordingly), and lots of my rubbish does not.
Funny how your post shows the corruption of the word "recycle" which has come to mean in common parlance "throw away; get rid of; pass onto someone else". People today say that something is "recycled" simply because they have put it in a bin marked "recycling", even though as you say it is likely to end up in landfill, probably after an expensive journey to China (or India next? or Africa after that?) where a team of 8-year olds has been trained to look through for anything valuable first.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @04:06PM (1 child)
"Reuse" is the repair bit. Recycle is last because in the three Rs because it requires a lot of effort and energy. You are right that a lot of recycling is not done properly, my own garbage company puts the recycling right into the same bin as the garbage.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Thursday May 31 2018, @10:21PM
No it isn't. "Reuse" is using a plastic shopping bag for several occasions, or giving your old phone to your kid when you upgrade. Repair is a different issue, and a massive issue in its own right that is far too important to be submerged under "Reuse"; when someone replaces a leaky car radiator with a new one, no-one calls it "reusing" the car, not in the English language anyway. The issue is that manufacturers are wanting and tending to make it difficult for anyone but authorised dealers to repair things*, giving dealers a monopoly on repair and hence driving up repair costs and hence making people more inclined to toss the old and buy new than to get repaired. In this the manufacturers are joined by the health and safety nazis who never did like things being repaired. Unfortunately these groups tend to get their way with politicians, who rarely have much grasp of technology.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/06/nebraska-farmers-right-to-repair-john-deere-apple [theguardian.com]
https://www.eff.org/issues/right-to-repair [eff.org]
* Eg by making components like windscreen wiper motors "smart" so a new one does not work until it is "registered" by the car's central computer, and only dealers have the software to do this. Right now it would cost me ~£100 just to rotate my tyres myself, as the tyre pressure sensors would then need to be re-registered in the new positions - can only be done at a main dealer.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday May 30 2018, @04:17PM (4 children)
I've never seen a recycled plastic bag in my life.
Have you never been to Walmart? Every Walmart I've been to in recent memory, even in rural locations, has a big bin for plastic bags in the front entranceway.
Other grocery stores usually do the same.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday May 30 2018, @04:22PM
Never noticed. Maybe I'll look the next time I'm in there.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @05:09PM (1 child)
What's a "Walmart"?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @05:43PM
A store that sells walls?
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Thursday May 31 2018, @10:26PM
What makes you so sure they are then "recycled" (whatever it is you understand by that) ? Oh wait, it says "Recycling" on the bin of course.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 30 2018, @03:44PM (12 children)
If you mount the cotton bud on rolled up paper, doesn't that a) sink in water, and b) degrade just about as fast as leaf-litter?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @03:55PM
... then, AFAIU, it is not banned by the new rules.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday May 30 2018, @04:54PM (6 children)
I remember back in the 80s, someone invented the concept of "biodegradability", which was being applied to a range of things - I wonder why we've forgotten about that concept?
Drinking straws typically have to survive a wet environment for less than an hour - there's no reason why they shouldn't be made of something which happily degrades and dissolves in a wet environment over a span of a week or so, say.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Snow on Wednesday May 30 2018, @05:07PM (2 children)
Make them out of pasta or a pasta-like substance.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @05:56PM
Make them out of Italian Government and they'll degrade before they even start.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday May 31 2018, @12:00PM
I find it hard to believe that in 2018 there aren't a dozen well-known (at least to (bio-)chemists) solutions to this problem.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @06:59PM
So they're sequestering Carbon?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @03:44AM
Speaking of the 80s, I ran a 8 year experiment back in the 80s when one of the politicians was singing the praises of their paper straws. Tacked a couple to the sunny side of a shed, and staked a couple more on the ground. Ten years later my wife took them down and threw them in the recycle when we moved out of that house.
Statute of limitations on false advertising had already expired.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Thursday May 31 2018, @12:54PM
Are people here aware that drinking straws used to be made of paper, waxed I believe, until relatively recently (at least the 1970's)? I found a packet of them in my parents' sideboard cupboard recently when I was dealing with their effects, and I can remember using them as a child. No-one had any problem with them. I suppose that making plastic straws just became cheaper (by 0.001 pence?) at some point, but the World is not going to end over this.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @05:21PM (1 child)
we had paper straws that were lightly waxed. I'm sure this can be re-imagined once again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @03:17AM
Wax on, wax off
(Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Thursday May 31 2018, @06:02AM (1 child)
You nailed it right there. It acts no different to the plastic stick with the cotton, but doesn't contain the plastic stick.
Look at the time it takes for things to break down:
Waste Product Decomposition Time
Item Breakdown time
Banana Skin 3 - 4 weeks
Paper Bag 1 month
Cardboard 2 months
Apple core 1 - 2 months
Aluminium Cans > 1 million years
Orange Peel Up to 2 years
Cigarette Butts Up to 12 years
Plastic Bags * Up to 20 years
Plastic Bottle * 450 years
Glass 1-2 million years
Take from Keep Australia Beautiful giv site: Link to PDF Warning [wa.gov.au].
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 31 2018, @11:45AM
Our local grocery mega-chain's favorite question: Paper or Plastic?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @03:59PM
First, you need a viable alternative.
The Kings of yore used to do the right thing: Set up a prize for an inventor to come up with a solution.
When a solution has been founded, and the prize awarded, then you declare the old way dead and grant the rights to anyone to implement the alternative.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @04:03PM
First, you need a viable alternative.
The Kings of yore used to do the right thing: Set up a prize for an inventor to come up with a solution.
When a solution has been founded, and the prize awarded, then you declare the old way dead and grant the rights to anyone to implement the alternative.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @04:18PM
First, you need a viable alternative.
The Kings of yore used to do the right thing: Set up a prize for an inventor to come up with a solution.
When a solution has been founded, and the prize awarded, then you declare the old way dead and grant the rights to anyone to implement the alternative.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday May 30 2018, @04:21PM (15 children)
The really annoying part is that there's no good reason for this: we *have* recycling facilities in most places now, and these plastics *are* recyclable. The problem is stupid, lazy people who don't bother to recycle things, or worse, litter instead of at least putting them in a proper trash receptacle.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @04:40PM
That's why Socialist regimes always end up discussing the need to induce the emergence of a New Man.
They start out with education programs for the children, but then come to realize that it's not working. So, they set up re-education camps for the adults. Of course, because governments are inherently inept (and socialist governments the most inept), these programs devolve into concentration camps for the undesirables, and all modes of re-education are abandoned. Of course, the term "undesirables" expands to include political dissidents, who merely disagree with the tenets of The Party, and hence the concentration camps are morphed into dilapidated gulags, which become a source of murderous slave-labor for the failing Socialist "economy".
Better instead to accept that Men are NOT angels, and never will be.
With this axiom in the toolbox, it becomes clear that the only solution to organizing society workably is a philosophy based around self-interest and voluntary interaction as defined by contracts.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @05:04PM
That's why Socialist regimes always talk about the "New Man".
They start out with education programs for the children, but then come to realize that it's not working. So, they set up re-education camps for the adults. Of course, because governments are inherently inept (and socialist governments the most inept), these programs devolve into concentration camps for the undesirables, and all modes of re-education are abandoned. Of course, the term "undesirables" expands to include political dissidents, who merely disagree with the tenets of The Party, and hence the concentration camps are morphed into dilapidated gulags, which become a source of murderous slave-labor for the failing Socialist "economy".
Better instead to accept that Men are NOT angels, and never will be.
With this axiom in the toolbox, it becomes clear that the only solution to organizing society workably is a philosophy based around self-interest and voluntary interaction as defined by contracts.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday May 30 2018, @05:39PM (2 children)
Are you sure? Last time I checked, most plastic 'recycling' processes were actually downcycling: they produce a lower grade of plastic than you started with. This means that you eventually get lots of low-grade plastic that needs to be disposed of (and the cleanest way of doing that is incineration, which isn't great) and you need to keep putting oil into the system to produce the higher grades of plastic.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday May 30 2018, @06:07PM (1 child)
From what I've read, not so much. There's plenty of uses for recycled plastics; check out some YouTube videos on the processes and how they're able to produce clean plastic chips from recycled products using automated processes, which can then be used just like virgin plastic. It's quite impressive.
Even if you had a bunch of low-grade plastic, why would you need to incinerate it? If you really can't use it for park benches or plastic lumber (which are great uses for it BTW), you could just put it in a landfill where it'll just sit indefinitely. You don't need to burn it. But considering how much we use plastic for applications where high purity really isn't necessary, and how many applications could use such plastic (like again, plastic lumber), I fail to see how we would ever need to dispose of it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @03:19AM
I was going to ask: why can't plastic be compressed into a cubic block with heat to make it solid then buried?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:22PM (7 children)
That's why Socialist regimes always talk about the "New Man".
They start out with education programs for the children, but then come to realize that it's not working. So, they set up re-education camps for the adults. Of course, because governments are inherently inept (and socialist governments the most inept), these programs devolve into concentration camps for the undesirables, and all modes of re-education are abandoned. Of course, the term "undesirables" expands to include political dissidents, who merely disagree with the tenets of The Party, and hence the concentration camps are morphed into dilapidated gulags, which become a source of murderous slave-labor for the failing Socialist "economy".
Better instead to accept that Men are NOT angels, and never will be.
With this axiom in the toolbox, it becomes clear that the only solution to organizing society workably is a philosophy based around self-interest and voluntary interaction as defined by contracts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:52PM (5 children)
*Yawn* You astroturfing pieces of shit sure are stupid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:57PM (1 child)
You've convinced me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:35PM
The bots are learning how to use sarcasm everybody! Skynet is next
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday May 31 2018, @04:43AM (2 children)
He's not wrong that socialism/communism depends on humans being angels, but what he misses (on purpose) is that so does capitalism. The best approach is a blend of the two, where the degree of social vs "market" control over a particular good or service is proportional to the elasticity of its demand curve.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @05:50AM (1 child)
The only guard against Tyranny is the Separation of Powers, the most robust form of which is competition over resources.
Socialism does not allow for the Separation of Powers; it is doomed to Tyranny.
Capitalism does allow for the Separation of Powers, but restricts the form to competition according to contracts established in advance of interaction. This restriction is not circular logic, because Capitalism permits an iterative process of dispute resolution, and because enforcement is also recognized as just another set of interactions for which competition is a permissible form.
If you want Socialism, it must be built atop Capitalism, and be restricted by it (not the other way around).
It should be noted that the Separation of Powers in modern governments is smoke and mirrors; it is not recognized that they should compete over resources, and it is not considered permissible for non-governmental agencies to compete with them (especially with regard to enforcement).
Thank goodness there is no such thing as One World Government; at the level of the nation, there has always been total anarchy, and increasing adherence to capitalism is what has led to an evermore civilized, prosperous interactions among those nations.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @04:12PM
You burn every bridge people build towards you. Good luck with your insanity, please don't bomb anything/anyone when your self-delusion peaks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @03:34AM
capitalism is the current step and human show no signs of emerging from it any time soon
socialism is their next step if men become more angelic over 100,000 years or so
anarcho-capitalism is the step after that when men become angels perhaps in 500,000 to 2,000,000 years
finally anarcho-capitalism evolves into anarcho-socialism
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday May 30 2018, @10:58PM
The Starbucks on Pioneer Square in Portland recently rearranged its furniture. In the process it removed its recycling bin for no apparent reason.
But now I go to Case Study Coffee which is patronized by many of Portland's youthful, t-shirt and jeans wearing, MacBook Pro using venture-funded startup set.
Case Study uses ceramic mugs.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 31 2018, @11:50AM
Agreed, people could be better - but they're not, and the only real difference between a herd of Wilderbeest and a herd of Liverpool fans is that you can pass laws and taxes that influence the behavior of the Liverpool fans, at least a little.
The legal/economic incentive/enforcement structure for recycling is still on the very weak side. Recyclers make more money pulling valuable waste out of the main waste stream than they do from the specialized recycling bins, at least the ones they pass out in Florida.
Having failed to control the crowd at the exits, EU is looking to control the producers at the entry - they have slightly better legal/economic handles on the producers than they do the consumers.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Zinho on Wednesday May 30 2018, @04:28PM (7 children)
Between the folks mentioned in the summary who are training fungus to eat plastic, others who are training bacteria to do the same, and Mother Nature / Darwin encouraging spontaneous evolution of plastiphages we are rapidly reaching a threshold where plastic containers will no longer be suitable for long-term storage. It will become similar to wood/paper products which will be expected to degrade over time if left wet or dirty. This will be similar to when bacteria/fungi learned to eat lignin, ending the carboniferous era.
I expect that as these plastiphages permeate the environment we'll start to see a resumption of using metal and/or glass containers for many things that used to be shipped/stored in plastic. Costs of these products will probably go up as a result of the increased cost of the packaging. By the time this happens, we'll perhaps be used to just keeping our plastic in cool, dry locations and no longer expecting them to last forever. I predict that will be a long, gradual process punctuated by a few surprise spills. Should be interesting to watch.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 4, Interesting) by FatPhil on Wednesday May 30 2018, @05:14PM (4 children)
I have no idea why more places, at least in urban areas where the offence rate would presently be quite high, and an improvement would be both noticeable and appreciated, haven't gone the on-the-spot-fines-for-littering route. (Maybe because the enforcers would shoot too many of the perpetrators who were waving their straws in a threatening manner?)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @07:01PM (3 children)
What's wrong with paper straws? They used to be the norm up until 20-30 years ago.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday May 31 2018, @11:54AM (2 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Thursday May 31 2018, @01:00PM (1 child)
I dont remember soggy ends. If you took long enough to go soggy you can't have been very thirsty, and you'd be better off drinking from a mug/glass/the can which I prefer to do anyway..
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday May 31 2018, @02:00PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @07:04PM
plastic-eating fungi and bacteria are irrelevant.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 31 2018, @12:19PM
Agreed, although the buildup of plastics is many orders of magnitude smaller (and more toxic) than the buildup of carbon was.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @04:30PM
First, you need a viable alternative.
The Kings of yore used to do the right thing: Set up a prize for an inventor to come up with a solution.
When a solution has been founded, and the prize awarded, then you declare the old way dead and grant the rights to anyone to implement the alternative.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday May 30 2018, @05:44PM (3 children)
So is EU responsible for all the straws (or even a very large part of them) of things that clog some beach or uninhabited island in the south pacific? The EU isn't even connected to the pacific directly. So the EU banning this or picking up plastic garbage on our beaches will do what if countries that are just outside the EU keep dumping shit in the ocean floating our way? I'm sure every little bit helps and all but I doubt this will be some kind of large effect over all on the global ocean plastic content. If these things are not done a global scale I doubt it will really have the desired effect, sort of like banning coal burning and then have the country next door burning fucktons of it.
Plastic eating mushrooms? Are we just going to release them into the wild or? That seems like a potential future disaster waiting to happen, or are we going to collect the plastic in some specific area and then have the shrooms there or? The article was a bit thin or unclear on that part, something about massive funnels collecting and then something about mushrooms eating plastic.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by tfried on Wednesday May 30 2018, @07:35PM (1 child)
Sure, an EU-wide ban is not going to help that south pacific island too much, esp. as long as the US does not follow suit. OTOH, I image that it will have a more noticeable impact on the amount of trash clogging the EU beaches. Not to mention the amount of trash to clean from side walks, public parks, city sewage systems, and other inland places inside the EU.
So there's actually reason to believe this measure will provide immediate real benefits to the EU itself, at a manageable cost. But beyond this, whatever happened to the idea that no matter what others are going - if there is no compelling reason to do otherwise - you should simply do the right thing? Even when looking at it from a fully utilitarian perspective, don't forget about the long term return in reputation.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:39PM
China Leads in Contributions to Pacific Garbage Patch
https://www.triplepundit.com/2015/02/china-leads-plastic-donations-pacific-garbage-patch/ [triplepundit.com]
Sea of Japan Becoming a Dumping Ground for Trash From China and South Korea
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeb-harrison/sea-of-japan-becoming-a-dumping-ground-for-trash-from-china-and-south-korea_b_8005772.html [huffingtonpost.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 31 2018, @01:00PM
Take a view from the south pole, they're more directly connected than you think.
🌻🌻 [google.com]