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.
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
> 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.
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.
"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 ...
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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).
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.
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."
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'...
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.
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?
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.
> 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.
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?
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.
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...
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
"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.""
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.
[+] [-] ridicter|6 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] O_H_E|6 years ago|reply
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
Related comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20157820)
[+] [-] nostromo|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] TheSpiceIsLife|6 years ago|reply
This is an outdated term that no longer represents the political and economic reality of the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World
[+] [-] pkaye|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] maxxxxx|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sonnyblarney|6 years ago|reply
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 ...
[+] [-] p1necone|6 years ago|reply
That logic is bullshit and lazy, and we should call people out when we see it.
[+] [-] sampo|6 years ago|reply
Not anymore, pretty much all Asian countries have stopped accepting plastic trash.
[+] [-] mantap|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] monk_e_boy|6 years ago|reply
I like that we are doing something about plastic polution - yay! But I fear over fishing is actually more of a problem.
[+] [-] thatoneuser|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nitwit005|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] gnicholas|6 years ago|reply
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|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xsmasher|6 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] Amygaz|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nostromo|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] radcon|6 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] Tiktaalik|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Kluny|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] skosch|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joemaller1|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] DINKDINK|6 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] lozenge|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Meai|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] no1youknowz|6 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] barking|6 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] Tiktaalik|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SquareWheel|6 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] nickserv|6 years ago|reply
Not being snarky, just curious.
[+] [-] jimcsharp|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benj111|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 8bitsrule|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] kilo_bravo_3|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brailsafe|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonhansel|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidy123|6 years ago|reply
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|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mabbo|6 years ago|reply
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|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] sunkenvicar|6 years ago|reply
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|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mmartinson|6 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] rocky1138|6 years ago|reply
https://www.narcity.com/news/environment-officials-reveal-th...
[+] [-] deathanatos|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blobbers|6 years ago|reply
Hoping society can start correcting it.
[+] [-] 3xblah|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zenbit_UX|6 years ago|reply