EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021

Re:EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021 by Mirioron on Thursday March 28, 2019 @05:43PM (#19516940)

>The EU's research on the topic says about 150,000 tonnes of plastic are tossed into European waters every year.

>That is only a small contributor to the global problem, with an estimated eight million tonnes of plastic entering the world's oceans annually. And once there, plastic can travel great distances on ocean currents.

That's 1.875%. Furthermore, single use plastics make up slightly less than half of that amount.

How meaningful is this again?

Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45965605

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Re:EU to ban plastic plates, cups, and cutlery by 2021 by throwaway5752 on Thursday March 28, 2019 @06:55PM (#19517478)

I'm going to assume good faith and spell this out plainly:

1. People in the US, Europe, Australia, et al. "recycle" plastic.

2. The recycling companies in these regions export commingled and low quality plastics to reprocessors in China

3. The commingled low quality recycled plastic can't be reprocessed economically, and ends up in a river.

At any rate, the EU number you cited as well as NA numbers are about to rise, because China cut the world off from dumping it's garbage there: https://e360.yale.edu/features/piling-up-how-chinas-ban-on-i...

That is probably the reason for this plastic disposables ban, and more that are to come.

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