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posted by martyb on Thursday March 28 2019, @04:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the California:-'We're-banning-straws!'-EU:-'Hold-my-big-gulp.' dept.

On Wednesday the EU Parliament voted to ban

single-use plastic products such as the straws, cutlery and cotton buds that are clogging the world's oceans.

The ban will take effect in 2021.

Product categories banned include: Cutlery, plates, straws, polystyrene food and drink containers, cotton swabs with plastic stems, and plastic grocery bags. Additionally,

Rules insisting that polluters pay the costs of a clean-up are strengthened, particularly for cigarette manufacturers, who will have to support the recycling of discarded filters.

According to the EU Commission, the waste caused by these products poses a threat to wildlife and fisheries.

No word on disposable diapers.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @08:57PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @08:57PM (#821513)

    I live in EU country and few years ago we implemented another directive, I don't remember was it European or our own, about banning plastic bags from being added to purchased products in supermarkets. This law became a nice tool to pull money from customer's pockets.
    So supermarkets started to sell bags and it goes on. There is still a lack of good-quality and reliable fabric bags. Additionally these sold bags are of a type which dissolves on air to a fine powder and what I see the gradation of its grains certainly WILL have influence on ecosystem. I don't have any research on it, but it's so fine and non-dissolvable that most powders with such properties are considered hazardous to ecosystems.
    Finally, still things are ridiculously packed in plastic. In local supermarket I have seen radish packed piece by piece in separate stretch-type plastic. This will not stop even if they start to pack rice this way.
    The problem can be solved by careful packaging standardization, but if someone proposes it all these companies start to screech that it's a comeback to centrally-governed market. Maybe because they would not be able to sell air in boxes?