Canada Plans to Ban Single-Use Plastics, Joining Growing Global Movement

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/10/world/canada/single-use-plastic-ban.html

by nbrempel • 7 years ago

255 194 7 years ago

This can only be a good thing.

There are now alternatives to plastic from biodegradable materials such as lobster shells and cactus juice. I'm sure with more research and better methods, mother nature can offer more materials to use for consumption tools.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBSzxQLQSpI

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/stories-48497933/how-to-make-b...

gdcohen• 7 years ago

And this: https://nextshark.com/banana-leaves-asia-plastic-packaging/

NeedMoreTea• 7 years ago

Not really a recent development though. In the late seventies, or early eighties there were already biodegradable and compostable plastics.

One UK supermarket used one of them for trays and bags around the same time, and printed the fact on every one. I forget whether they were compostable or just biodegradable. Yet eventually that chain switched back to oil derived plastic like everyone else.

Presumably price won.

Here's one from fermented sugars that ICI came up with in the early 80s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyhydroxyalkanoates

the_pwner224• 7 years ago

PLA plastic is made from just organic materials. It degrades into lactic acid, and is safely used for medical implants. It doesn't degrade naturally at normal temperatures, but can be effectively recycled, composted, or incinerated.

Right now it mostly gets thrown away into the environment like most trash, but is a sustainable plastic if handled properly.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polylactic_acid

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioplastic

mabbo• 7 years ago

It's an election year. Trudeau wants a second term. But he's turned off much of his traditional centrist base (corruption allegations, many of us realizing he's actually not very smart, etc). He's got new leaders on both the Conservative party (the right) and the NDP (the left) who are trying to squeeze the votes out of middle.

He knows he's got little chance of winning back anyone right of center- the Conservatives will take those votes most likely- so he's going after the votes on the left.

The plastic ban and the finally reopened marine mammal captivity bans are both moves to appeal to the environmentalist left. He'll probably also try to win over unions as much as he can. He wants to eat the NDP votes and hope it's enough to make up his loss on the right.

And I'll still probably vote for him again because the alternatives are somehow worse.

ghettoCoder• 7 years ago

How are they worse? If he's stuck in a cycle of corruption allegations, appearing unintelligent or poorly prepared like you claim, and is openly and blatantly buying votes I can only imagine the alternatives must be incredibly poor for you to consider voting for him again. Somehow I doubt the alternatives that bad or even that different from. It's like religion, the more two religions are the same the more they hate the other.

Or have you bought into the negativity that every party sows against their opponents in the hopes of securing peoples votes against their better judgement.

Tiktaalik3• 7 years ago

This sort of policy is somewhat of a distraction from the wildly more important goal of reducing CO2 emissions.

A single use plastics ban is fine if it is a minor part of a more comprehensive policy that is focused on CO2 emissions, but by itself, eh, this is not really our most pressing issue in the near term is it? (of course we should reduce single use plastics eventually)

This government has been very uneven on climate issues so I'm not expecting them to announce a ban on CO2 emitting power generation tomorrow or anything. My concern is that announcing this policy so soon after the NDP announced the same thing in their rather bold environmental package is merely part of an attempt to boost their environmentalist cred and blunt the impact of rival environmentalist parties while changing the channel away from their weaker CO2 reduction efforts.

Kluny5• 7 years ago

merely part of an attempt to boost their environmentalist cred and blunt the impact rival environmentalist parties while in actuality doing the absolute minimum

Yeah, it fully is. The major parties in Canada are slowly, and much too late, getting the message that the environment is the biggest election issue this year. They haven't been taking it seriously at all til now, hence this kind of bandwagon jumping. We're still going to hold them to the promise though.

nickelcitymario• 7 years ago

the environment is the biggest election issue this year

Is it? It should be, but I'm pretty sure the biggest election issue is always going to be the economy.

That being said, maybe the advantage is that the environment is becoming less of a partisan issue. Anecdotally, my left- and right-wing friends and family seem to be coming closer to a consensus that we need to act.

Still, it's easy to say "we need to fix the environment". My own city council voted unanimously on a resolution to slash our city's greenhouse gas production. But then when it comes to specific proposals on what that would look like, such as saying "no" to building a new convention centre or new highways, suddenly there's no political will. "Something should absolutely be done... as long as it doesn't cost us anything."

So we'll ban single use plastics (barely effective, but very popular), but we won't cut back on exploiting the Alberta oil sands, or on deforestation for that matter (both of which would have a tremendous impact, but at great economic and political cost).

joemaller1• 7 years ago

We're going to suffocate under a blanket of plastic long before the effects of CO2 kills us. Single-use plastics are essentially a slow-motion, global oil spill.

The goal of these bans is to force use of better materials. The huge majority of plastic pollution comes from the economic fringes in Asia, but demanding goods come in better packaging to be sold in large western markets will hopefully tip the financial scales enough to force manufacturers' hands resulting in less plastic waste globally. I can get behind that.

skosch• 7 years ago

I'm more curious about the Conservatives' response to this, actually, as talking about waste has been one of their favourite diversion tactics whenever the environment (read: climate change) comes up. Will they vote for this?

Tiktaalik3• 7 years ago

Not mentioned in this article but worth noting that the City of Vancouver was interested in pursuing a single use plastics ban taking effect this summer in 2019, but backed away when disability rights activists protested that plastic straws are very important for people with mobility challenges, and they considered the non-plastic alternative straws available to be poor and not viable options.

nickserv3• 7 years ago

What's wrong with carrying your own stainless steel straw? I mean if you know you need one it makes sense to me to have your own.

Not being snarky, just curious.

ahjushi• 7 years ago

It's tough because sometimes these things can feel like a "tax", i.e. the general public does not need this item so they don't purchase it, but I now have to since there are no longer any alternatives. Seems like perhaps an inconsequential amount for a straw, but it's just another cost most people don't need to consider and shoulder (mobility tools like wheelchairs, maybe specific medicines, etc.). It all adds up.

Tiktaalik3• 7 years ago

I don't know, but I know from articles in the local paper that the existing alternatives weren't considered ideal.

I'd venture that if your dexterity is poor enough that you require a straw to drink instead of being able to drink strawless, a lot of the other tasks associated with carrying around one's own metal straw (ie. taking it out of a bag, putting it in a drink, washing it after) may also be overly challenging.

amyjess4• 7 years ago

* Many disabled people cannot wash their own straws, due to both cognitive load and lack of manual dexterity.

* Stainless steel causes sensory issues for autistic people and can destroy your teeth if you accidentally bite into one. (edit: and lets also add that they conduct heat, so putting a metal straw in hot coffee and drinking out of it could seriously burn your lips)

Robotbeat4• 7 years ago

It'll stab you in the throat.

A real concern for children, and undoubtedly also for some disabled folk: https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2016/starbucks-to-recall-stainl...

Just use biodegradable plastic straws.

SquareWheel• 7 years ago

I don't know if this is insensitive of me to ask, but why don't they bring their own straws? I'm sure they would be happier with a premium reusable straw than a cheap single-use one anyway. A good straw could be reusable, sturdy, and even telescopic.

Is there difficulties involved in bringing along accessibility tools like straws that I'm missing? Or is this just a case of the nirvana fallacy?

SolaceQuantum• 7 years ago

A few immediate logistical difficulties, from an able-bodied person:

1) If you have a cognitive disability, remembering to bring a straw may be difficult.

2) If you have a mobility disability, you may struggle to wash the straw in a suitably disinfected manner after use.

3) How do you reuse the straw on the go?

4) This(bringing your own straw) is another cost added onto an already economically overburdened populace.

jimcsharp• 7 years ago

I think making some waste opt-in would go a long way. Some stingy restaurant owners are doing that any way.

benj1112• 7 years ago

The UK is planning to ban plastic straws except those sold through pharmacies. That seems like the right balance, they're available to those that need them, but denormalises them for standard usage, and incentivises retailers to stock alternatives.

kilo_bravo_32• 7 years ago

Hopefully mankind's addiction to single-use plastics and the negligent disposal of all plastics can be stopped before exposure to, inhalation of, and ingestion of large quantities of microscopic shards of poly-whatever start shredding and poisoning our bodies from the inside.

benj1112• 7 years ago

"microscopic shards of poly-whatever start shredding and poisoning our bodies from the inside"

Is there any evidence that this could happen? It's the first I've heard of it.

kilo_bravo_32• 7 years ago

The effect has only been seen in aquatic animals so far, but they are exposed to much more microplastics than humans are.

But microplastics don't (on a human timescale) go away.

They just continue to accumulate as plastic items degrade in UV light and water, breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces.

Microplastics have been detected in the feces of humans: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/10/22/659568662/mi...

And the bottom of the Marianas trench: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/12/micro...

And they're harmful to sea life: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/from-fish-to-huma...

And smaller microplastic particles, which all larger particles eventually become, can float through the air.

It is not unreasonable to assume that the problem is going to keep getting worse and worse as time goes on until it gets to a point where every breath we take is contaminated shards of plastics: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Photographs-of-microplas...

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/04/micro...

I'm not a doctor, or a plasticsologist, or a breathing-things-in-ologist, but breathing in large quantities of plastic shards seems less healthy than not doing so and just from a layman's perspective it seems that exposure to microplastics in the air and water should be minimized to the greatest extent possible.

davidy1233• 7 years ago

While I fully support this ban, even if it's not that much more than a gesture in the larger issue of carbon and the environment, I think it's largely related to the very public and embarrassing row over badly sorted garbage sent to the Philippines. https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/canadian-garbage-from-phi...

That incident is however an indication of how difficult it is to properly dispose of single-use plastics, and this will help solve that problem.

pesfandiar• 7 years ago

There's a federal election in Canada in October, and based on polls, the governing party is losing some votes to the Green Party. This could be more directly explained by that, but I agree that it's certainly a positive side effect regardless.

fooblitzky4• 7 years ago

Don't forget it's the same government investing billions of dollars in petrochemical plants[1] to manufacture.... more plastic.

[1] https://globalnews.ca/news/4857778/canadian-petrochemical-gr...

gnicholas2• 7 years ago

The World Economic Forum estimates that 90 percent of the plastic ending up in the oceans comes from 10 major rivers, and that currently there are 50 million tons of plastic in the world’s oceans."

from the WEF: researchers were able to estimate that just 10 river systems carry 90% of the plastic that ends up in the ocean. Eight of them are in Asia: the Yangtze; Indus; Yellow; Hai He; Ganges; Pearl; Amur; Mekong; and two in Africa – the Nile and the Niger. [1]

It seems odd to mention that nearly all of the plastic waste comes from 10 major rivers and then not to name them (or mention that all of them are a world away from Canada).

1: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plastic-polluti...

petschge• 7 years ago

It's not quite that simple to absolve Canada (and Europe and the US) from their responsibility for this problem. Quite a bit of the plastic that ends up in those rivers far away was exported "for recycling" to the countries where it gets miss-handled and ends up in the landscape.

gnicholas2• 7 years ago

Sure, everyone needs to do their part. But people hear about the pacific garbage patch, and they might think that laws like this will materially affect phenomena like this. But it's possible (I'm not an expert) that a law like this would have very little impact because the vast majority of the trash comes from different regions.

baron816• 7 years ago

My theory (no evidence) is that the whole recycling movement has been completely counter productive since most of that material has been shipping abroad to countries that are poorly regulated. Had we just stuffed it into landfill (we have no shortage of space to take care of it, despite what the media says), we would be fine.

jlawson3• 7 years ago

People keep saying this, but is there any evidence for it? I'm curious where this comes from.

At first estimate we could just Google images of polluted rivers in Asia and Africa and look at the logos on the garbage.

From my priors, I'd estimate that the plastics would almost all be from locally-consumed products, simply thrown into the river as is common and accepted in such places.

My sense is that a lot of educated, wealthy Westerners don't realize:

1. How many people are in Asia and Africa.

2. How little effort they put into keeping their local environment clean. People just don't get how callous same cultures are about the environment; it cannot be believed until it's been experienced since it's so far outside of the wealthy Westerner's experience. (Plus, to believe such would also create cognitive dissonance with social justice creeds which are victim classes as inherently morally pure.)

ZeroGravitas5• 7 years ago

I'd prefer to hear about things on a per capita level. What other stats do we hear about per river?

toomuchtodo3• 7 years ago

You either are or aren't dumping waste into moving bodies of water. Whether you're efficient about it ("per capita") is of little concern.

Use economic incentives to penalize countries that allow dumping into their rivers. The first world is no longer able to export their "recyclables" to Asia, and as such, are landfilling/incinerating it. It's time for Asia to clean up its act (regardless of how poor of a country you are).

Amygaz2• 7 years ago

Maybe we could have a country-specific tag on plastic, like doping the plastic of the 10 largest countries per GDP. We would find out within a year where things are going and from whom. Not that it really matters in the end, but politicians and blame games going hand in hand, that be 'entertaining'...

xsmasher• 7 years ago

Aside: as far as I can tell, the factoid as usually stated is not true. It should be "90% of Ocean plastic that comes from rivers comes from just 10 rivers" and not "90% of all ocean plastic comes from rivers."

There's a graph from the paper (and the name of the paper) here that shows how much ocean plastic is from rivers; it's a lot but not 90% https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stemming-the-plas...

barking• 7 years ago

Canada is not where the problem is at, so to speak

By analyzing the waste found in the rivers and surrounding landscape, researchers were able to estimate that just 10 river systems carry 90% of the plastic that ends up in the ocean.

Eight of them are in Asia: the Yangtze; Indus; Yellow; Hai He; Ganges; Pearl; Amur; Mekong; and two in Africa – the Nile and the Niger.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plastic-polluti...

manishsharan• 7 years ago

Third world countries follow First world countries. In India, not too long ago, cheap roadside restaurants(dhabas) used plates made out of leaves and served tea in cups made out of clay. Now that is considered a sign of primitiveness and poverty. If first world nations change their attitude towards plastics, the third world nations will follow suit eventually.

seltzered_• 7 years ago

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/co... covers this topic well.

"I was surprised to learn that the average Bangalorean throws out very little trash: about a pound of garbage per day, or the weight of a grapefruit. The average American generates more than four times that amount, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or more than seven times that amount, according to a more rigorous methodology developed by Columbia University and the BioCycle trade journal. We’ve nearly doubled our per capita output of garbage since 1960, to the point where we now generate 50 percent more trash than Western Europeans and two to three times more than the Japanese."

"As I wound my way through Bangalore’s streets in the Daily Dump van, I spotted numerous American brands out the window: Nike, Tommy Hilfiger, Levi’s, McDonald’s, Pizza Hut. But the United States doesn’t just export products to India—it exports a culture of consumption, backed by billions in advertising dollars."

einr• 7 years ago

If first world nations change their attitude towards plastics, the third world nations will follow suit eventually.

Eventually?

Several Indian states have already banned single use plastic bottles and polystyrene food packaging, etc. The Indian government has also already banned lightweight plastic bags nationwide.

So has Tanzania, Eritrea, Djibouti, Gabon, Gambia, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Malawi, Namibia, Kenya, Rwanda, Mali, Morocco and many other "third world nations". In fact, if you look at the list and map¤, it's saturated with bans in "third world nations" while most rich countries are dragging their feet or ignoring the problem. After all, we can just export our garbage to Africa, right?

¤ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_lightweight_plast...

mmartinson2• 7 years ago

> For years the country (China) had imported millions of tons of recyclable waste from overseas, but a growing recycling burden at home prompted the government to shift its policy.

Until recently, Canada, like the US, shipped most of its plastic to China. Does making it a different country's problem absolve responsibility?

I found this quite eye opening. https://www.plasticchina.org/

LinuxBender• 7 years ago

Does this mean people will have to refill their prescription medications into the same bottle?

stronglikedan2• 7 years ago

Probably wouldn't work, since a lot of people get refills before they run out. Maybe glass bottles, or bottles made of paper like those insufferable paper straws?

makerofspoons• 7 years ago

Why can't prescriptions come in recyclable paper boxes, or glass bottles for liquids?

OrgNet• 7 years ago

Can you make an air-tight recyclable paper box? So that humidity/etc doesn't get in the pills

rocky11382• 7 years ago

This is a great idea and follows many of the behaviours found around the world for refilling existing containers rather than starting anew each time.

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/waitrose-plastic-pa...

ridicter• 7 years ago

I see comments pointing out that the majority of plastic pollution in oceans come from Asia/Africa. This is true, but there are two points worth considering:

1) Whenever you pay cheaply for anything made in any third world country, you're externalizing the societal cost of pollution to that country (and if it gets into the oceans, to everyone). In other words, you're not paying the true cost of that item--economically and to society and the environment.

2) As linked elsewhere: first world nations often export their trash to third world nations, masquerading as recycled materials - see spat with Philippines - https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/canadian-garbage-from-phi...

sampo3• 7 years ago

first world nations often export their trash to third world nations

Not anymore, pretty much all Asian countries have stopped accepting plastic trash.

uhhhhhhh4• 7 years ago

They still have tons of it to dispose of, and still have lower regulations/controls on how it gets disposed of.

And now there is a backlog of recycling plastics in north america that is increasingly likely to get thrown in landfills, some of that may make it to waterways.

Amygaz2• 7 years ago

Plastic pollution didn't just happen in the past few months. It's been decades.

devy• 7 years ago

The damages has been done. It could take hundreds of years and an order of magnitude's financial resources to clean it up land and underground water pollutions. But the air/ocean/atmosphere/carbon footprints are shared and affecting globally.

nostromo4• 7 years ago

Whenever you pay cheaply for anything made in any third world country, you're externalizing the societal cost of pollution to that country

That's true maybe when it comes to atmospheric pollution, but not with plastic waste in rivers and the ocean.

The majority of plastic found in rivers and the ocean are not industrial waste but post consumer waste... things like cigarette butts, plastic bags, and food wrappers.

uhhhhhhh4• 7 years ago

That's true maybe when it comes to atmospheric pollution, but not with plastic waste in rivers and the ocean.

A large amount of that is waste exported to those third world countries, especially plastics for recycling.

O_H_E• 7 years ago

I would also like to assert that non-western countries are very influenced by trends in North America and Europe. (Source: I am from such country in Africa, and am living in another in Asia)

Once the west establishes plastics as something for the uneducated and poor -- that they[the west] got away from, people will rush to use their fancy not-so-cheap bags.

Same with fossil fuels, recycling, carbon-related policies, ... etc

* I don't mean "uneducated and poor" literary, but just generally less fortunate people in the no-so-developed world

jopsen2• 7 years ago

Yeah, we shouldn't be quick to underestimate the cultural influence from Hollywood :)

Besides, if they west goes in this direction, economies of scale might simply make single-use-plastic more expensive than the alternatives..

Gibbon1• 7 years ago

Opinion of mine is it takes a while for people to come to a consensus that something is bad and come up with rules to mitigate it.

Three things I think of.

One is a guy talking about visiting really poor part of South American. Used to be 'clean' because people were too desperately poor to throw away anything. And later as they became less poor there was garbage everywhere. And still later and better off, less garbage.

When I was kid in the 1960's in the US there was trash everywhere. People would throw trash out car windows, leave their trash behind at parks. Toss trash in the street and dump refuse in vacant lots. Now that is both illegal and considered boorish.

Another friend mentioned riding the bus in a country in South America. 40 years ago people just tossed trash out the window. 30 years ago they'd wait till the bus was a mile outside of town. 20 years ago the bus had a trash can and people would hold onto trash till the next stop.

I think societies are slow to come to grips with and deal with negative externalities that industrial culture makes possible. The whole thing is a process.

nitwit005• 7 years ago

Whenever you pay cheaply for anything made in any third world country, you're externalizing the societal cost of pollution to that country

Much of the disposable stuff I've seen here in California were made in the US. The Solo cup company, and its parent Dart Container, are both in the US, for example.

thatoneuser2• 7 years ago

I see these two points made often yet I've never seen a comprehensive meta analysis that shows how true any of it is. Yes as you linked ppl will often give an article that supports that these things happen, but relative quantity is important. Otherwise this is just empty rhetoric, and environmentalism doesn't need any more of that.

monk_e_boy• 7 years ago

Also, if we come up with sensible solutions then mass production of whatever packaging we decide on will also happen in Asia/Africa.

I like that we are doing something about plastic polution - yay! But I fear over fishing is actually more of a problem.

pkaye• 7 years ago

1. How do we know if we paid extra it doesn't go into the pocket of a middleman? We may pay $150 for Nike shoes but at the end the person who stitches the shoes might get $0.25. This will only work if there is accountability with consequences along the entire chain.

2. I've certainly disappointed by this one but I put the blame on our city and county politicians who allowed this to happen while charging us extra on the claims that they will be properly recycled.

mantap• 7 years ago

Imagine you live in a place that has no waste collection services. You have the same kind of inorganic waste such as plastic food packaging as people in the US, albeit a bit less.

What are you going to do with your trash? You could burn it, but that would release a lot of noxious fumes and make your neighbors unhappy. So you just throw it in the river, and it floats away, out to sea. Problem "solved".

I don't know what the solution is, but the problem cannot be solved by the west at a distance.

p1necone• 7 years ago

It's the same inane naysaying that pops up on anything about environmental concerns. "Look those other people are bad too, therefore we don't have to improve".

That logic is bullshit and lazy, and we should call people out when we see it.

lopmotr• 7 years ago

Western countries already do so much to protect the environment from plastic that there's not much room to improve. It almost all gets buried in landfills or burnt, not spilt into the ocean. Since we've pretty much solved the problem already, why not invest that money into something we're not doing well, like CO2 emissions? Even if we were to reduce plastic waste in the ocean, perhaps there are less costly ways, like fining people for littering, putting nets on the stormwater drain outfalls, or, shockingly, stop trying to recycle if that's how it's getting into the ocean.

All environmental efforts have a cost and it's a mistake of hyped-up media consumers to assume that the latest popular cause must be fought at any cost. There may be other, more effective, uses of that money on things that aren't in the news right now.

TheSpiceIsLife• 7 years ago

Can we please stop using the term third world when referring to Africa and Asia.

This is an outdated term that no longer represents the political and economic reality of the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World

sonnyblarney2• 7 years ago

"you're externalizing the societal cost of pollution to that country (and if it gets into the oceans, to everyone). In other words, you're not paying the true cost of that item"

It's not the responsibility of buyers a long way down the value chain and 1/2 way across the world to manage the social policies of other nations.

Do you want colonialism? Or not?

The 'pollution' is 100% the fault of the people doing it.

Also, I don't see why the manufacturing/creating process should be necessarily considerably more 'plastic waste intensive' than the end product itself - in fact, this would be economically wasteful and more expensive possibly.

So ... we could start putting big tarriffs on importers with bad environmental practice and human rights laws ...

maxxxxx• 7 years ago

We should just do the right thing no matter what everybody else is doing. That's called leadership.

radcon• 7 years ago

Weren't plastic bags created because they have a significantly smaller environmental impact than paper? You need to re-use a paper bag at least 3 times before it's better than using a plastic bag[1]. And let's face it, no one re-uses those flimsy paper bags from grocery stores, but they're becoming the standard wherever plastic is banned.

Those "environmentally friendly" re-usable grocery bags aren't much better either. Depending on the material, they need to be used anywhere from 30 to 300+ times before they're less harmful than plastic bags[2].

Am I missing something or are regulators overreacting here? Clearly some countries have serious litter issues (sounds like the vast majority comes from Asia and Africa), but does that justify the rest of the world trading one type of pollution for another? Are we even fixing the problem or just making ourselves feel better?

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/life-cycle-assess...

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/09/to-to...

nostromo4• 7 years ago

It really depends on what you're measuring.

Plastic bags are very bad when they end up in rivers or the ocean.

But yes, plastic bags might be better on CO2 depending on where they are made and how they are shipped.

But paper bags can be made carbon neutral, which is fundamentally impossible with plastic bags.

olejorgenb2• 7 years ago

It's possible to make synthetic petroleum products from CO2, water and electricity, so it's not fundamentally impossible.

xfitm3• 7 years ago

I think regulators are overreacting - its a feel good PR move. I require straws and paper straws are total garbage. It's an insult. And no, I am not going to carry a straw in my pocket.

perfunctory2• 7 years ago

I require straws and paper straws are total garbage. It's an insult.

I didn't know the honourable member of the HN community was so sensitive. That they was in any sense a delicate flower. That they was capable of being a quickly and severely injured soul. If that's indeed the case then I am sorry.

nostromo4• 7 years ago

I really wish they would include exceptions for biodegradable plastics -- which are increasingly indistinguishable from polymer plastics.

When you ban "single use" plastics, people often buy "multi-use" plastics -- which are actually worse for the environment if not used many times, and people often only use them once. There are a number of stores around me where they have thick, heavy plastic bags for purchase for 5 cents that I doubt are actually being reused much at all.

Kluny5• 7 years ago

Biodegradable plastics are not more environmentally friendly than normal ones. Here's some more info about that.

https://vancouverisland.surfrider.org/compostable-plastics-1...

nostromo4• 7 years ago

... according to a "a student researcher from UVic who assisted" a surfing advocacy organization and some other randos.

Yes, litter will still be an issue, and no, you shouldn't just throw compostable things on the beach -- but comparing polymers which will float in the ocean for hundreds of years vs some compressed corn starch is no contest.

yardstick3• 7 years ago

Sounds like the price of reusable bags is too low where you are. There needs to be a price floor to discourage single-use. Eg 50 cents minimum per bag?

In the UK we charge 5p for a single use bag, although lots of stores now only sell multi-use bags at 10p or more. I think it’s making a difference, I now actively carry a couple reusable bags around “just in case” I decide to visit a supermarket or spur of the moment shopping. I now hardly ever buy plastic bags (single & multi use), and from what I’ve read, overall the country has seen a massive reduction in plastic bag waste: down from 140/year/person to 25/year/person [1] (this doesn’t track sales of multi-use plastic bags though afaik)

1. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/carrier-bag-charg...

user5994461• 7 years ago

The ban of plastic bag is a joke in the UK. The supermarket gives you the same shitty bag that's tore apart in 3 uses, except it's called reusable and you have to pay for it.

There is only maybe Lidl that has reusable bags, if they still do them, and that's half a pound each.

hedora3• 7 years ago

In countries where they actually banned disposable shopping bags, it was even worse.

People end up buying more trash bags (since they had small trash cans to fit the disposable bags), which are thicker, and something like 10x less efficient in garbage removal per pound of plastic than the banned bags. (I’m guessing your stats don’t count trash bags, unless people in the UK use fewer than one a week).

On its own, that was enough to increase plastic in the waste stream.

If you add in other problems (like buying “reusable” bags, then throwing them out), it gets even worse.

So, you need to ban all plastic bags for these measures to actually help.

Waterluvian3• 7 years ago

Our grocery stores sell disposable plastic bags for 5 cents and reusable fabric bags for a dollar. These fabric bags are so amazing and huge that I bought 15 just to help me move.

The concept of a 5 cent reusable plastic bag is a head scratcher.

RandomInteger42• 7 years ago

Fabric bags are worse for the environment than plastic bags, so they cost more, because of the process to make them.

stronglikedan2• 7 years ago

Perhaps the answer isn't looking towards recyclable, reusable, or biodegradable plastics, but digestible plastics? This is coming from a complete layman on the topic, but something that randomly popped into my head.

sunkenvicar• 7 years ago

For decades I have meticulously washed and sorted my blue bin recyclables. Now they are banning plastics because people on the other side of the world treat their rivers as garbage dumps.

I don’t litter. Don’t punish me.

I see this as a cynical re-election strategy. The election is in four months and the polls are not looking good for Trudeau. Awash in scandal and forseeing a strong Conservative turnout, he’s trying to grab votes from the Greens and NDP.

srj• 7 years ago

Your blue bin recyclables were shipped to Asia and then dumped into a river. There's no economic sense to plastic recycling. The only viable strategies are to standardize on reuse or promote materials that are recyclable (i.e. aluminum).

brandon272• 7 years ago

Not to mention that plenty of people are not "meticulously washing and sorting" their recyclables and the popular method of single stream recycling is producing contaminated recycling streams filled with trash and non-compliant items.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-era-of-easy-recycli...

mmartinson2• 7 years ago

The problem is, it seems like much of the careful recycling didn't really work. It was never a circular system, just one in which a couple extra uses could be rinsed out due to some extra shipping capacity on container ships making it cheap to get it overseas.

How would it be for you if instead of a ban, a heavy disposal fee was added at the time of purchase to fund extensive waste sorting and recycling locally? How much is single use convenience worth to you? $1 per plastic fork?

It may be an awkward vote grab, but it's an glaring problem nonetheless.

kmlx• 7 years ago

"How would it be for you if instead of a ban, a heavy disposal fee was added at the time of purchase to fund extensive waste sorting and recycling locally?"

how about the recycling companies pay us instead? we provide them with the raw materials, they profit. see plastic bottles' recycling all across europe. or the (ancient) glass bottles.

rocky11382• 7 years ago

Our current recycling methods are not working. Less than 11% of plastic in Canada is recycled.

https://www.narcity.com/news/environment-officials-reveal-th...

blobbers• 7 years ago

YES. The minute we accepted garbage as a fact of life, we started down the incorrect path.

Hoping society can start correcting it.

jayess2• 7 years ago

Can anyone answer whether plastic recycling actually happens? I've tried to search around before but can't find much concrete data on how/where plastic can actually be recycled and what it is recycled into.

olejorgenb2• 7 years ago

Plastic bottles are recycled/downcycled when collected properly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PET_bottle_recycling#Global_st...

fooblitzky4• 7 years ago

About 9% is recycled: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/03/06/only-9-o...

Recycled is really a misnomer though, more of a marketing term. Plastic can only be down-cycled. E.g. used food containers can never be recycled into new containers to hold food ever again. Usually after a couple of hops it's roadbase or landfill.

jasonhansel• 7 years ago

I find it amazing that plastic has only been around for less than a century, but has now become so ubiquitous and commonplace that it's a nuisance. Nearly all the other materials we use (wood, metal, etc.) have been around for many many centuries, but don't seem to pose the same inherent risk.

rb808• 7 years ago

I need bags for a bunch of things and now have to buy plastic bags online. I'd like to buy biodegradable ones, does anyone have any recommendations how to check for bags really will degrade?

JBReefer• 7 years ago

Waxed paper bags

fooblitzky4• 7 years ago

You can look for logos showing the product is certified to compost in different environments, e.g.:

BPI: https://bpiworld.org/BPI-Public/Program.html OK Compost: http://www.tuv-at.be/home/

There are others.

Note that for most it still requires industrial composting to really decompose, and a bio-plastic bag in the ocean will be just as bad as a regular one.

bacon_waffle• 7 years ago

a bio-plastic bag in the ocean will be just as bad as a regular one.

Curious if you could provide justification for this; do you mean that an animal could just as easily choke on a bio plastic bag as a petro plastic one?

My non-biologist assumption had been that compostable plastic would just take longer to compost without the heat and high activity in a commercial situation. IOW, I think that we need to assume some fraction of manufactured stuff will always end up in the ocean, so it's better that is made from bio- than petro- materials.

m23khan• 7 years ago

it really does sound great but as a Canadian, this is what I think will happen:

- Retail will jump right away on this bandwagon and spend massive amounts of money advertising how they have done away with single use plastic

- Retail will introduce alternatives and jack up price for pretty much all their products citing cost of new materials

- The plastics industry will complain about their loss in business (despite majority of single use items being imported from China) and hence will jack up prices of all their products

- All manufacturers now using more expensive plastic will raise price of their products

- The poor ol' Canadian will get slapped on their faces by multiple business layers because of this.

- If alternatives are biodegradable, it means likely some food source or wood product will be used hence causing increase to that source which in turn will cause 'shortage' and 'high demand' and cause domino affect.

Sure, great for environment but the economy over here is such that, all businesses and industries are super opportunistic and will not only pass on cost increase to the consumer, but I suspect that they will also use this as excuse to increase their profit margin.

Because of our oh Canada's 'Governmental' concerns, us oh Canadians will probably end up paying 100s of dollars per year out of their own pocket...

steve_adams_86• 7 years ago

For what it's worth, we currently externalize those 100s per year into the commons, which is where this tragedy came from. We need to start paying real prices for living instead of building up a debt of damage to the earth. If that means more subsidies to those in need, great. I'll pay more in taxes _and_ inflated living costs if it means the cost of living is more realistic. I'll gladly forgo so many conveniences in life if it means systemic changes which reduce pressure on the planet.

The reality is that food, energy, and many other natural resources should cost far more than they do. The primary way they've become more affordable is through externalizing costs and it's been a huge mistake.

brailsafe• 7 years ago

I'm pretty okay with this as a Canadian. It's been on my mind quite a bit actually. Much of the visible debris comes from momentary indulgences that are then carelessly discarded. Thats the natural way for many people, not that I agree with it. Rather than try and change their behaviour, it's an interesting thought experiment to think about the effects of not allowing such flagrantly wasteful products to be made in the first place. In Canada, much of the visible debris inland comes from cheap coffee cups and shitty packaging design—if I understand single-use plastics correctly, which I may not. It's pretty gross, and I'd like to see more innovation towards non-detrimental disposable goods. Of course, I'd also like to see a cultural increase in having pride for the cleanliness of urban areas, but that might be a pipe-dream in Western Canada outside BC (I'm from a prairie city)

DINKDINK2• 7 years ago

Will the production of plastic waste reduce when the outlawing of thin plastics is replaced by thicker plastics?

Your politician who benefits from passing feel-good legislation says yes.

Reality might surprise you:

"In particular, my results showed that bag bans caused sales of small (4 gallon), medium (8 gallon) and large (13 gallon) trash bags to increase by 120 percent, 64 percent and 6 percent respectively." https://theconversation.com/plastic-bag-bans-can-backfire-if...

lozenge2• 7 years ago

And the bottom line - "30 percent of the plastic eliminated by the ban was coming back in the form of trash bags". So, the policy was 70 percent successful. Why then all the hand-wringing?

DINKDINK2• 7 years ago

30% by mass not by pollution. The speculative aim of the legislation is to decrease pollution. It's a bit like saying alcohol abuse will go down if we ban alcohol (when the opposite happened, hardcore liquor prevalence and potency increased which increased alcohol abuse).

Coase theorem shows that increasing transaction costs increases externality costs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem

If you ban the giving out of thin-plastic bags because they feel bad, and then the market moves towards giving everyone a thick (more environmentally taxing and ecologically costly) 'reusable' bag, you've made the environment worse not better (despite it feeling better). Case in point: the number of times a bag needs to be reused before it was less ecologically costly far exceeds the life of the bag.

Meai• 7 years ago

I think this really needs to be solved on a human psyche level. Print a QR code on durable plastic/cloth bags that you can buy from stores and then you can check your green score after each visit to the store where you reused your bag. Make bags a fashion statement with customized prints, at that point you can even let people move over their green points to a new bag if they want a new one or it fails on them.

somerandomness• 7 years ago

If 90% come from 10 rivers, shouldn't we focus on monitoring those?

3xblah• 7 years ago

"Shoppers at East West Market in central Vancouver who decide to pay for a plastic bag are given a bag with an embarrassing logo emblazoned on it like "Into the Weird Adult Video Emporium," "Dr. Toews Wart Ointment Wholesale" or "The Colon Care Co-Op.""

core-questions• 7 years ago

I'd pay extra for those

refurb• 7 years ago

I’m assuming this is not ALL single use plastic?

Replacing sterile plastic packages for medical devices (for example) would be incredibly challenging.

jkaplowitz• 7 years ago

No, they're still investigating what the exceptions should be but they are aware that there should be some.

Zenbit_UX• 7 years ago

I find it amazing that in the current political and environmental climate we live in Snapple recently decided to discontinue their infamous glass bottle in favor of a plastic one.

deathanatos• 7 years ago

I feel like "single-use plastics" evokes images of grocery pages, but what about trash bags? How is trash going to be moved with such a ban?

8bitsrule• 7 years ago

Everything we buy and throw-away has an energy cost for manufacturing, transport and disposal. We pay more for the energy and convenience and waste ... and so does the only environment we have to live in.

The acceptance of throwaway has to end. We HAVE to find (or go back to) new routines which minimize those costs. Single-use plastics are a start, but we'll need to thoroughly revise manufacture, consumption and re-use across the board.

Canada Plans to Ban Single-Use Plastics, Joining Growing Global Movement

Related Stories