News Brief & Commentary by Kip Hansen — 21 January 2022
This coming October, the UK intends to “ban several single-use plastic items, including cutlery and plates”.
“The European Union approved a ban on single-use plastic items in 2018, which went into effect three years later.[2021] England’s neighbors, Scotland and Wales, each banned a similar list of items last year.”
“Rebecca Pow, an environment minister, said in a statement, “Plastic is a scourge which blights our streets and beautiful countryside, and I am determined that we shift away from a single-use culture.””
“Steve Hynd, policy manager at City to Sea, an environmental organization based in Bristol, said the ban was welcomed but “these are very much minimum agreed standards.”
“The ban will help England catch up with other countries that already implemented similar bans years ago,” he said. “But for England to be true ‘global leaders’ in tackling plastic pollution like this government claims to be, we need them to go much further.””
I am a curious person (yes, both meanings). When a Brit orders a take-out curry which she intends to eat on a park bench or sitting on a wall overlooking the pebble beach, what is she going to use to eat her curry when the shop no longer gives her a nice plastic spoon or fork?
Since the E.U. has had a similar ban for more than a year, I queried a European colleague and asked the same question. Being the same sort of person as I, he didn’t know. But he has a daughter and he called her for the real scoop on the streets of Europe, who reports: “They use paper (for the fries), cardboard (for serving a burger), wooden spoons, forks, knives for eating a salad.” I can assume that they use the same wooden cutlery for our take-out curry.
Taken in historical context, Europeans (and other humans) have had spoons carved out of wood, ivory, flint, bone and horn. Later spoons were cast in pewter and other softer metals. But all of those (except the wood—even peasants could have a wooden spoon) were quite valuable and in various time periods, represented wealth and social position. Today, most household spoons are stainless steel. But these are not cheap enough to be given away.
New York’s famous food service automat, Horn and Hardart, offered customers metal cutlery which was meant to be returned at the end of the meal. My wife has one of those spoons, nicked by her mother sometime in the mists of history.
When I was child, the Ice Cream Man gave us simple wooden paddles as spoons for eating our little cups of ice cream. Enter the plastic spoon (and fork, and knife), costing less-than pennies apiece and readily given away with take-out food.
The problem appears to be that many of these cheap now-plastic items end up in the environment – not because they are plastic, but because people are not careful with their trash. The fact that they are plastic just means they will breakdown more slowly in the wild.
The declaration that “…plastic is a scourge” is nothing but an activist meme – something said to get positive attention but is not actually true. It is not “plastic” that is the problem – it is trash and litter, some of which is plastic, purposefully thrown into the environment or carelessly allowed to escape – such as blowing out of the back of a pick-up truck (very common in the United States) or off the back of garbage trucks.
Finally, to my point, which is a question (or an impromptu survey, maybe):
To our readers in the UK and Europe:
How’s that plastic cutlery ban working out for you?
What does the curry-take-out (insert your country’s most common take-out food) give you with which to eat your curry?
What kind of container does the curry come in?
What about the salad – container and cutlery?
And your McDs burger – wrapper and container?
And of course,
What’s your opinion about all this?
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Author’s Comment:
I have written about plastic pollution many times. I have viewed hundreds of photos of “beach trash” and collected and surveyed beach trash myself (in Florida, USA). I have reviewed images and reports of “pelagic trash” (trash found floating in oceans). I have not once in any of those photos or reports (or in personal experience) found plastic spoons. (I once found a single plastic knife left by a sunbather on Cape Canaveral Beach.)
Plastic cutlery is not a scourge – anywhere – as far as I can find…certainly not in the advanced nations of Europe and the UK. Nor is it in the United States.
The anti-plastic advocacy is really a sub-set of the anti-fossil fuels and anti-petroleum movement, which at its heart, it anti-human and anti-civilization.
Now we find that the “greens” have moved us into the past once again—back to wooden spoons — or sporks, if you prefer.
Thanks for reading.
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Salute!
We Yanks are also now moving away from the “single use” heinous plastic things. Grocery bags, utensils, straws, etc. Wait until the hospitals start seeing an increase in food poisoning. Meanwhile, you can get a small diameter plumbing tube that are made of various metal alloys and use the thing for your slurpie or blended fruit drink in the morning.
But puzzle me this! I bought the damned plastic things that came with the groceries and fast food. I re-use almost everything, even the hated plastic spoons . keep one or two in my truck and always take’em on fishing trips versus an expensive stainless thing. I use same one over and over and do not throw it in the lake or stream after the vienna sausage or sardine snack. The bottom line is I bought the things and who is it that tells me I can only use them once? Seriously, I could put a note on the menu that the utensils in the bag are the 1 cent charge on the bill. Can I then include the plastic utensils?
Sheesh Louise!
Gums sends….
The plastic scare is slowly ramping up, from microplastics in things like cosmetics, to plastic straws, to things like plastic utensils. I am waiting for the activists to make the final leap to the rubber-tired wheel, which wears out by grinding down the surface into tiny particles that are dispersed everywhere. This could only lead to a ban on rubber tires and wheels, which would effectively ban autos, trucks, everything that runs on rubber-tired wheels.
The ultimate progressive scare.
rxc ==> ah yes — rubber tire PM 2.5. A very large percentage of PM 2.5 in our sir is rubber tire dust.
I have never in my life directly discarded a plastic supermarket grocery bag. They are far too useful. Bin liners as others have mentioned is just one use. I like to carry one or two in my pocket when walking to pick up trash as I go. I find very little.
Of course, they eventually go to the landfill full of sloppy disgusting stuff but never do they end up in the environment outside of landfills.
They have handles for ease of carrying and don’t leak sloppy gunk. I use them to carry the days harvest from my garden after which they get shaken out for the next use. There is no logical replacement for them.
I do hate plastic cutlery and use them only out of desperation. I have swallowed far too many plastic fork teeth and broken several knives over a single steak. Spoons are less annoying but they are not often needed.
On the other hand I rarely see any carelessly discarded. Ample trash receptacles are usually provided near where people eat and most are diligent to use them or others will just clean up behind them.
I have to walk back my comments a bit. I have seen large amounts of discarded trash at sites where outdoor performances are held that attract large numbers of young people. The producers of these shows usually do a very good job of cleanup when the show is over. Even if it is disgusting it is not really a problem.
Getting back to bags, are not these bans just substituting one type of trash for another. Paper bags are generally not suitable for more than one use as even the slightest liquid will make them fail. Cloth bags require washing and are much bulkier when they are inevitably discarded.
Most bans seem to simply make life more difficult while really not solving anything.
Finally, plastic breaks down much faster than many think and any that don’t are highly inert materials not much different than a rock or sand.Most will just get ground down to micro size and become incorporated as part of the soil.
Surely there are better solutions than just banning anything that offends a few radicals.
rckkrgrd ==> For a moment, I thougth I was reading something I wrote myself…..so very close to my own understanding.
Well done.
I despise sporks.
Fork tines too short to be more than barely functional.
A spork’s spoon messily leaks soup, sort of works on rice.
Chopsticks work far better holding or picking up solid foods.
Drinking the broth is simple and satisfying.
As the British Earl of Sandwich proved, using bread makes eating most portable foods, convenient, clean, easy and tasty.
What are known as “Hobo” knife sets are available. Case makes new ones every once in a while, while other brands fill the need.
ATheoK ==> Yes, I keep such an item in my run kit.
Yes, indeed, but just try to take one on an airplane…..
As an army cadet we were issued with an aluminium canteen or mess tin witha fold out handle, to be used for heating food or water over a camp fire, and a KFS set which had a hinged retaining clip that provided some spring loading to keep the items together in the kit bag.
I suggest all such be made of Gallium. Well, at least for cold things!
See: The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean
John ==> While intended for Young Adults, Kean’s “The Disappearing Spoon” is well worth reading.
Here in LA the #1 plastic on our beaches are plastic water bottle tops…SoCal Sand Dollars.
Wharf ==> The bottles quickly degrade and fall apart, the cap do not. Do you still find poptop rings?
If they absolutely MUST take a stand against plastic and ban stuff, how about that heavy clamshell packaging that requires power tools to open and has crazy sharp edges once it’s cut?
At least that would be doing something positive. But I guess that’s not their goal.
In California, we are going to ban syringes as those are now the most common form of plastic waste found on beaches and parks.
While they’re at it, they can ban pharmaceutical products, which are mostly petroleum based.
Then we won’t be forced to watch umpteen stupid drug commercials informing me that the side effects are worse than what the drug is supposed to “treat.”
Perchance the correct solution is to control litter, not plastic? But then the lefties would be offended. Ever see the state of the area after a lefty rally or protest?
slowroll ==> We need Lady Bird Johnson back to run the anti-litter campaign.
Perchance the correct solution is to control litter, not plastic?
Which means making people responsible. Leftist philosophy is to make the THING responsible, not the people. (unless you disagree, then you’re bad)
Sustainability means not impacting future generations with what we do today. That is why we have codes and standards. Waste water treatment takes out particulate but not the chemicals consumed or produced. How do you like your crack pee, fentanyl and the toxic load associated? What is going on isn’t legally definable as sustainable.
The Environmental Working Group published Body Burden, Pollution in Newborns in 2005
The chemical load and 100s of toxins before their first breath is a death sentence from conception. EVERY industry across the board need to remove these poisons at water treatment before the poisons go downstream. They end up in the oceans and affecting the entire planet with all on it.
I lead our team and inspected our waste water treatment plant. Waste water treatment does not test or eliminate the chemicals or byproducts. Add to that our hospital and medical facilities. What are they cleaning and flushing down the drain? Disease, infections, prescriptions, virus, etc. Medical waste is processed and should be.
Our medical lead is a detox professional and rightfully angry that this was allowed to happen.
It is disgraceful to see what corporate greed has done and stupidity has allowed. Policy is based on science and science needs to lead.
The Brits like others have encapsulated themselves in microwave radiation for ease of communication when the science for safety is a plastic head with liquid(heating only)
Body Burden: The Pollution in Newborns | Environmental Working Group (ewg.org)
“The anti-plastic advocacy is really a sub-set of the anti-fossil fuels and anti-petroleum movement, which at its heart, it anti-human and anti-civilization.”
I wholeheartedly agree with both parts of this statement. The funny part about it is the “anti-petroleum” aspect. The most widely produced plastic on Earth is polyethylene, which isn’t made from petroleum. It’s made from ethylene, a waste product in natural gas that would otherwise largely be flared off. Not making it into plastic would add more CO2 to the atmosphere immediately.
Salute!
Oh? Uh oh. Petroleum uses? Canceling permits and pipelines won’t have any effect, will it?
Lottsa things come from the fossil fuels that we never burn directly for heat or transportation, but the “save the planet” folks do not understand that.
I sure hope they can make a fire to cook or heat when the electricity goes out, but that will be a problem on the 33rd floor of the Manhattan apartment building, won’t it?
Gums ponders…
The environmental meaningless stupidity and incompetence on full display.
Does this ban include those biodegradable sporks that were in use in the US Capitol a decade ago ?
Down under that have banned single use plastics, straws, spoons, shopping bags, and more bans to come, takeaway food containers to start with.
For takeaway that used to supply plastic spoons you now get the bamboo ones. They are horrible and their mouthfeel when putting them in your mouth is disgusting. How much CO2 is generated making bamboo utensils, surely plastic one are cheaper to make and are actually better for the environment?
Plastic straws now made from paper. Use one for a drink and they are lucky to last for half the drink. Get one with a frozen coke, and in reality don’t even bother, they collapse after a few slips.
Plastic shopping bags, the heavy duty ones that cost 15 cents and are reusuable. On rubbish collection day, on my morning bike ride, I see bins full of these reusable bags, no one reuses them, not for groceries at lease, reused yes, but as rubbish bags, I don’t think that was their intention.
I agree aorund the issue with rubbish, if the user was more considerate and put thier rubbih in the bin or not throw it out of the winder of their car and took it home we’d have less of an issue of litter!. But it just seems too hard and some (most?) people are just bloody lazy and drop their litter anywhere they like. Then the complain about how much litter is about the place.
I’ve now resorted to carring in my car a set of cultery and a silicon and metal straw, I just can’t stand the timber (bamboo) ones that have replaced the single use plastics.
The hard plastic bottles that supplements and medicines are packaged in must number in the millions. There must be a better material or package.
Here is a question: When you empty a pill bottle, do you toss it in the trash with the lid on or off?
I only have take-away curries if (1) I’m travelling by car, where I already have plastic spoons in the car ready to use, and re-use, and (2) at home, where we use real plates and real cutlery. We even re-use the clear PLASTIC containers to place left-over food portions in the fridge. The article is right, the problem is not single-use plastic, and I venture, not always the availabilities of (not full) dustbins, but the sheer laziness of people to actually use a bin or take their rubbish with them. My parents and Scouts drummed correct rubbish disposal into me, for which I am grateful.
As for paper/cardboard straws, give me a break! Has anyone ever been able to finish a drink using one – before it’s gone so soggy that it just collapses on itself? Better to just have a ‘coffee cup’ style hole in the lid.
I went to a music festival in Telluride Colorado a number of years ago. We bought some food from one of the vendors at the festival. I went to dispose of the the waste, and there was an attendant to make sure you put things in the correct bins. They had bins for cans, for compost, and for trash. The attendant (not sure if that was a paid position or a volunteer) said to me that everything I had was compost. The plastic spoons too? Yep. Compostable plastic spoons. They make compostable plastic cups and plates too.
When I travel I take a folding fork/spoon thing. It’s a fork and a spoon that hinge at the center.