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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, @08:52PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:52PM (#686477)

    *Yawn* You astroturfing pieces of shit sure are stupid.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:57PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @08:57PM (#686480)

    You've convinced me.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:35PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:35PM (#686498)

      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)

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Thursday May 31 2018, @04:43AM (#686594) Journal

    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)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @05:50AM (#686612)

      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

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 31 2018, @04:12PM (#686799)

        You burn every bridge people build towards you. Good luck with your insanity, please don't bomb anything/anyone when your self-delusion peaks.