The European Union made history today by voting to ban certain disposable plastics by 2021. The vote, which passed 571-53, will ban the sale of plastic plates, cutlery, straws, balloon sticks, cotton buds, and expanded polystyrene food containers. It lays out a plan for other disposable items, as well.

Items "for which no alternative exists" must be reduced by at least 25 percent by 2025. These include single-use boxes for burgers and sandwiches, and containers for fruit, vegetables, desserts and ice creams. The recycling rate for plastic beverage bottles is supposed to reach 90 percent by 2025 -- a very ambitious increase, considering that the overall recycling rate for plastics in the U.S. is a paltry 9.4 percent (just for comparison's sake).
Perhaps most importantly, the EU parliament has said that manufacturers of cigarettes and fishing gear need to take greater responsibility for the full life cycle of their products. Cigarette butts are a major source of pollution, the second most littered item on European land. A single cigarette butt can pollute up to 1,000 litres of water and takes twelve years to disintegrate. Manufacturers will be held responsible to "cover the costs of waste collection for those products, including transport, treatment and litter collection."

This includes single-use burger boxes, sandwich boxes or food containers for fruits, vegetables, desserts or ice creams.

TrueTexan wrote: Fri Oct 26, 2018 8:35 pm I remeber when you bought a hamburger it was wrapped in paper. The drink was in a paper cup or glass bottle with a paper straw. When we had a picnic, we had plastic plates but they weren’t disposable plates they were plates that had been replaced from the dining table. Same with glasses.

We need to look at what we did in years past before everything was disposable.

Eris wrote: Fri Oct 26, 2018 9:00 pm

TrueTexan wrote: Fri Oct 26, 2018 8:35 pm I remeber when you bought a hamburger it was wrapped in paper. The drink was in a paper cup or glass bottle with a paper straw. When we had a picnic, we had plastic plates but they weren’t disposable plates they were plates that had been replaced from the dining table. Same with glasses.

We need to look at what we did in years past before everything was disposable.

Absolutely. "Sustainability" is just a fancy word for "the way we did things when I was growing up".

Mason wrote: Sat Oct 27, 2018 9:38 am So glad to hear this. I am in a prolonged battle with our yacht club to stop using plastic crap.