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: 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]