"With plastics accounting for around 80 percent of marine litter"

Government:

"the EU rushed through deliberations on the planned restrictions in less than a year."

Solution:

"Ban the plastic that doesn't end up in the ocean".

Good job.

Maybe someone should have told them the plastic in the ocean comes from countries without trash service, and from fishing, maybe they could have funded some charity work or NGO's or something.

This ban isn't going to help a thing.

So if I'm hosting a birthday celebration for 50 people, I'm supposed to what? Ask guests to BYOC (bring your own cutlery)? Waxed paper plates and cups work OK (although not for hot drinks), but bamboo cutlery gives me a nails-on-chalkboard feeling.

You sum up a fundamental problem of the world so well - you don't know, but you damn well wont let that stop you from formulating a strong opinion about it!

The stuff you tend to find washed up on beaches contains a large proportion of land-originated bits and bobs such as lighters, toothbrushes, and beach sandals, but also a large fraction of already-partly-decomposed plastic fragments, impossible to ascribe to any particular source [2].

Personally I'm not in favour of an outright ban (give me back my 100 W lightbulbs and 2000 W vacuum cleaners!) but EU-wide taxation could surely disincentivize plastic cutlery with respect to bamboo or other decomposable.

[1] https://ocean.si.edu/conservation/pollution/marine-plastics [2] "Composition and potential origin of marine debris stranded in the Western Indian Ocean on remote Alphonse Island, Seychelles" Duhec et al. Marine Pollution Bulletin 96 (2015) 76–86

Sorry, I couldn't see your healthy skepticism as it was blocked from view by your statement of fact.

In the scenario you describe, you would probably get help planning the celebration and pool items from that group. Shops would likely begin to rent out utensils and such for these sort of situations if there was a need. It's not so hard to imagine alternatives.

  2010 total plastic marine debris[0]: 4,800k - 12,700k metric tons
  2010 EU plastic marine debris[0]: 50k-120k metric tons (Higher than the US by ~1k)
  2010 EU plastic marine debris percentage[0]: 1%
  2016 EU export of nontoxic garbage to a country in top 10 plastic marine waste[2]: 269,000 tonnes (a lot missing statistics so wide error bars here)
  2015 percent of nontoxic garbage export that is plastic/mixed[1]: ~9%
  Hours wasted digging through overly verbose pdfs and mislabled charts: Too many

  Probable amount of EU plastic that gets exported to top 10 country: 26.9k - 53.8k tonnes
  Crude adjusted EU ranking if 100% of the doubled amount makes it into the ocean: ~10th 
  Incredibly crude adjusted EU plastic marine debris percentage: 2%

[0]: https://www.iswa.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Calendar_2011_03_... (the footnote of table 1 specifically)

[1]: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

[2]: http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do (You'll have to screw with the customizations to get useful statistics)

[3]: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/waste/transboundary-waste-...

In the UK I've started to notice the emergence of plastic alternatives, e.g. M&S have wooden cutlery for take away food now instead of plastic. It's good to see.

If only we could make some progress on disposable coffee cups...

I understand there is a problem, I just don’t think we’re nowhere near good solutions.

Government launches plan to ban plastic straws, cotton-buds, and stirrers

Published 22 October 2018

It suggests to me that the intervention is prompting businesses to consider their all round plastic use (i.e. they're making proactive change expecting upcoming legislation) or they're responding to consumer opinion.

Either way, this is a really positive step. Also, more importantly, the public seem supportive. I think the success of the 5p plastic bag charge has made people rethink their opposition to green schemes.