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posted by CoolHand on Wednesday May 30 2018, @02:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the taking-care-of-the-place dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @03:15PM (17 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @03:15PM (#686301)

    First, you need a viable alternative.

    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)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @03:21PM (#686303)

    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)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @06:56PM (#686406)

      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)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @07:09PM (#686416)

        Take note, folks.

        That is what cognitive dissonance looks like.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:10PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:10PM (#686487)

          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

          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?

          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)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:32PM (#686466)

        Do you have better logic, or just an ad hominem?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:05PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:05PM (#686486)

          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)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @11:24PM (#686537)

            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

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @03:52PM (#686789)

              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)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @03:19AM (#686575)

      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

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @02:19PM (#686741)
        • 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)

    by Gaaark (41) on Wednesday May 30 2018, @04:22PM (#686328) Journal

    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)

      by unauthorized (3776) on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:32PM (#686495)

      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

        by Gaaark (41) on Thursday May 31 2018, @12:47AM (#686548) Journal

        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

      by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Thursday May 31 2018, @06:28AM (#686625) Homepage Journal

      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)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @08:48AM (#686643)

      you do realize that a lot of the plastic that DOES end up in the bin just gets dumped into the ocean?

      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)

        by Gaaark (41) on Thursday May 31 2018, @10:51AM (#686661) Journal

        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

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01 2018, @10:19AM (#687175)

          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.