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posted by mrpg on Wednesday July 04 2018, @12:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the pollution dept.

[...] "Plastic pollution is surpassing crisis levels in the world's oceans, and I'm proud Seattle is leading the way and setting an example for the nation by enacting a plastic straw ban," Mami Hara, the general manager of Seattle Public Utilities, told KOMO News.

The National Park Service estimates 500 million straws are used by Americans each day.

The Seattle ban actually began with an ordinance prohibiting one-time-use food service items in 2008, but the city has allowed exemptions on certain items every year since. For example, Styrofoam food packaging was banned in 2009, according to the Seattle Times. But because of the market, plastic utensils and straws have been exempted in Seattle's ban until now, the newspaper reported.

Seattle bans plastic straws, utensils, becoming first major US city to do so


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  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday July 04 2018, @06:33PM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 04 2018, @06:33PM (#702666) Journal

    Plastic has several benefits over other materials. It's also got unique costs.

    E.g., plastics are much lighter than unglazed not-highly-fired ceramics of nearly equivalent strength. (You did say it breaks down quickly, so it can't have been highly fired. Even adobe doesn't break down quickly.)

    In your comparison you're probably imagining unglazed china as the ceramic, but that wouldn't meet your description. I'm actually having trouble thinking of a ceramic that *does* meet your description. Possibly something fired in a cooking oven, but I would think that would break down to quickly to be cleaned several times, unless the cleaning didn't involve water.

    FWIW, if you want a good choice that's fairly light, durable, and ecological, try wood. You shouldn't soak a wooden plate, but an unfinished wood is naturally anti-bacterial, and you could wash it briefly, and clean anything stubborn off with sandpaper. (This would probably not be acceptable in the US for commercial use. But cutting blocks are used in kitchens all over the world.)

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