On our oceans, up to 140 million tons of plastic waste are floating. In order to eliminate the consequences, according to the European Commission, by 2030, around 22 billion euros are necessary. Now Brussels is finally active, and initiates the parting of disposable plastic products. We provide you with the important information.
What products are banned?
The EU has it apart especially on single-use plastic, i.e., products that usually be used only once, and after a short time thrown away. Among the products banned
- Straws plastic
- Plastic tableware
- Plastic Cutlery
- Cotton swabs with plastic share
- Balloon holder is made of plastic
- small plastic packaging
- Disposable cups and lids made of plastic
The environment Committee in the EU Parliament want to in addition use lightweight plastic bags and certain foamed plastics on the ban list, as it is known, for example, of the white boxes for Take-away food.
What can I use instead?
Be banished, only items for which there is from the point of view of the EU Commission’s Alternative. As a replacement for plastic drinking straws from paper or reusable made of a harder plastic, for example, come in question. Also, cotton swabs are already in a plastic-free version made from bamboo and cotton.
Our editor lived for a month without plastic. Here are your plastic free-diary
When will the ban take effect?
The European Parliament has decided the plastic-ban on Wednesday. Submitted to the draft in may 2018. He was part of the end of 2017 published EU-plastic strategy. Now, it must be wrestled with the EU member States to reach a compromise. Whether the new plastic rules before the European elections in may 2019 to come into force, is questionable.
What is the penalty for violation?
The implementation of the ban will still take some months. Therefore, at the current time it is still unclear how strictly the EU will deal with the single-use plastic ban, i.e. whether the violations be subject to fines.
The ban really does something?
Disposable tableware and To-Go packaging have caused in Germany last year, almost 350,000 tonnes of waste. According to the EU Commission, Europe will be collected only about a third of the total plastic waste and recycled. Much of the rest ends up in rubbish dumps or in the environment.
Plastic decomposes very slowly and accumulates particularly in the sea and on beaches. Up to 85 percent of all in the EU, the washed-up waste are made of plastic – it is in about half of cases weggeschmissene disposable products. The ban is intended to reduce this amount drastically.