European parliament approves sweeping ban on single-use plastics(theguardian.com)
theguardian.com
European parliament approves sweeping ban on single-use plastics
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/24/european-parliament-approves-ban-on-single-use-plastics-uk-eu-brexit
4 comments
Looking at it, I wonder how medical waste is handled. Single use plastics are pretty common there, and they're considered bio-hazardous waste after. I'd call plastic tubing and bags to be single-use plastic. There's no apparently exception for them in my brief reading of the directive.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/2018... says:
”A total ban is proposed for single-use plastic items for which alternatives in other materials are already readily available: cotton buds, cutlery, plates, straws, drink stirrers and balloon sticks. MEPs also added oxo-degradable plastic products and fast food containers made out of polystyrene to the list.
For the rest, a range of other measures is proposed:
- Consumption reduction targets of 25% by 2025 for food containers and 50% by 2025 for cigarette filters containing plastic
- Obligations for producers of items such as wrappers, cigarette filters, wet wipes etcetera to cover the costs of waste-management and clean-up (so called extended producer responsibility)
- Collection target of 90% by 2025 for drink bottles (for example through deposit refund systems)
- Labelling requirements for sanitary towels, wet wipes and balloons to alert users to their correct disposal
- Awareness-raising
For fishing gear, which accounts for 27% of sea litter, producers would need to cover the costs of waste management from port reception facilities. EU countries should also collect at least 50% of lost fishing gear per year and recycle 15% of it by 2025.”
⇒ I don’t think medical waste falls under this change.
”A total ban is proposed for single-use plastic items for which alternatives in other materials are already readily available: cotton buds, cutlery, plates, straws, drink stirrers and balloon sticks. MEPs also added oxo-degradable plastic products and fast food containers made out of polystyrene to the list.
For the rest, a range of other measures is proposed:
- Consumption reduction targets of 25% by 2025 for food containers and 50% by 2025 for cigarette filters containing plastic
- Obligations for producers of items such as wrappers, cigarette filters, wet wipes etcetera to cover the costs of waste-management and clean-up (so called extended producer responsibility)
- Collection target of 90% by 2025 for drink bottles (for example through deposit refund systems)
- Labelling requirements for sanitary towels, wet wipes and balloons to alert users to their correct disposal
- Awareness-raising
For fishing gear, which accounts for 27% of sea litter, producers would need to cover the costs of waste management from port reception facilities. EU countries should also collect at least 50% of lost fishing gear per year and recycle 15% of it by 2025.”
⇒ I don’t think medical waste falls under this change.
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Other stupid things learned: Netherlands imports hilarious amounts of garbage [3]
[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-...