Taiwan To Ban Plastic Straws, Cups and Shopping Bags By 2030 (channelnewsasia.com) 128
An anonymous reader shares a report: Taiwan is planning a blanket ban on single-use plastic items including straws, cups and shopping bags by 2030, officials said Thursday, with restaurants facing new restrictions from next year. It is the latest push by Taiwan to cut waste and pollution after introducing a recycling programme and charges for plastic bags. The island's eco-drive has also extended to limiting the use of incense at temples and festivals to protect public health. Its new plan will force major chain restaurants to stop providing plastic straws for in-store use from 2019, a requirement that will expand to all dining outlets in 2020. Consumers will have to pay extra for all straws, plastic shopping bags, disposable utensils and beverage cups from 2025, ahead of a full ban on the single-use items five years later, according to the road map from the government's Environmental Protection Administration (EPA).
Multi-use straws? (Score:1)
Straws are not exactly washable on the inside.
What's next - multi-use TP ?
Re:Multi-use straws? (Score:5, Interesting)
I really don't like them and they feel weird on your lips, but they work.
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I think you're grasping at straws here.
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Sounds like you got the short straw.
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Would you say it was the straw that broke the camels back?
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I like strawberries.
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Now we've really gone far afield.
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What the hay. A good time to bale out, I think.
EU: Speaking of replacement material (Score:2)
EU (including other European countries like CH) have also banned those plastic bags.
Most shops have switched to :
- giving out bags made of *compostable bio-platics* (so you can use them to discard your usual compostable kitchen waste).
- selling (recycled) paper bags
- selling higher quality multi-use reusable bags (either fabric or recycled PET plastic).
Though not an actual ban yet, some places have switched away from plastic cups, etc. :
- some outdoor festival have switched t
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just stick'em in the dishwasher.
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Not seeing it. Straws are not exactly washable on the inside. What's next - multi-use TP ?
You can buy reusable hard plastic straws - we have some. We just soak em in hot soapy water, then rinse. Not sure what procedures or machines you'd need for commercial application.
Re:Multi-use straws? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a slightly different culture there. It's not that there are multi-use versions of straws, but that they give them out for everything. If you go to a 7-11 and get a 20oz bottle of coke, they give you a straw. Buy two of them, they give you two straws. It's essentially unheard of in a restaurant to have a drink without a straw also given to you even though the reusable cups can be drank from without a straw.
I'm not certain how fast food places will change for this, as their lids make it impossible to drink without a straw, and the cups are flimsy without lids.
One thing I can state, the shopping bags that they charge for there are of a much higher quality than the ones you get in the states. This may be that they start making higher quality cups that don't bend as easily for in restaurant use, or even start having reusable cups in McDonald's.
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Those are generally disposable plastic lids.
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There are paper straws, which are biodegradable and recyclable. They typically do survive a drink with a meal, unless you're the sort of person to keep a cup around for a few hours.
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Not seeing it.
Nah, they will go with environment friendly single-use straws . . . made of what, you ask . . . ?
Bonsai Bamboo!
. . . and the bamboo will sequester CO2 and stop global warming.
What's next - multi-use TP ?
Who needs TP . . . ? A good Japanese toilet will wash your hairy ass clean, and then blow dry it.
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Who needs TP . . . ? A good Japanese toilet will wash your hairy ass clean, and then blow dry it.
Just don't hit the "remove tampon" button by mistake.
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Why use straws at all? I learned to drink from the glass without sucking on a straw.
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For people with motion disorders, such as Parkinson's Disease or Essential Tremors, straws make the difference between being able to drink and being unable to do so. Banning all straws would be a VERY BAD thing, and if anyone tries it in the U.S., I guarantee there will be an ADA suit overturning the law within the first week.
Of course, a ban on non-compostable plastic straws would be fine. There are plenty of more environmentally friendly alternatives that work just as well. But a ban on all plastic str
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And for sweet drinks, a straw causes less of it to get on your teeth, contributing to deterioration of the choppers if you don't brush soon after.
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I don't know how you drink. When I drink from a glass, the fluid hardly touches the lips (which vover the choppers, and then the tongue. I don't expose the choppers - and even when, it's only for a second. My teeth are in best health. That's a non-issue and a bad reason to pollute our world with plastic-trash.
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cover, not vover - that was a typo - sorry!!!
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Which percentage of the population has Parkinson's Desease or any of the other problems you mention?!? Those should ask for the straws and get them for free. But for 99% of the users it's only unnecessary trash which gets added to a simple meal or drink. Stupid idea.
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No, a partial ban on drinking straws that allows restaurants to provide them for the handicapped is simply not a viable approach. A partial ban would make this reasonable accommodation increasingly hard to provide, and thus will make it more and more rare. The problem is, if you ban them for the rest of the population, then restaurants won't have any straws to provide, so the people who need them won't be able to get them even if they ask. It would take a *lot* of ADA lawsuits against individual busines
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Do you also drink wine, beer and an espresso with a straw?!? :-(
Using a straw should be the exception, not normality.... but in the USA people start lawsuits for every fart.
Get a tiny bottle brush and a reusable straw (Score:1)
Just pick up your damn litter, for a start. Keep it in your pocket. Carry it to the trash can.
Secondly, don't take all of the disposable crap a store gives you! Take your own cup, your own cutlery. There are tiny ones that fit in your pocket or a bag.
Third, if you see a mess, make it your problem if reasonable. You can wash your hands afterward. North Americans seem to have a problem picking stuff up or holding o
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But I'll still keep being that asshole who calls people out on their shit. Throw your trash on the ground where I can see it, yeah, I'll say, "Pick up your trash asshole."
Just want to make it that tiny bit less comfortable for some douchebag to shit up my city. It's OUR city. Not your messy dorm r
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false. TP has a use. A shitty one, but it's still a use.
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Because it's not as harsh on you hemorrhoids.
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Replying for no other reason than to say, yes we need a -1 pedantic mod option. Good call dude!
Good idea (Score:3)
Taiwan about to pass us up in the US for common sense stuff. Really, I always wonder at the crazy waste of 10 napkins for one burger and junk like that... who needs it?
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Well, a good burger, likely should be greasy enough that you need about 10 napkins (I'm not talking fast food burgers).
But the thing that bothers me, if they do away with plastic "to-go" cups, how will you leave the bar with your to-go drink, without a to-go cup?
Or...is that just mostly a New Orleans problem?
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With a paper/carton cup. Like the rest of the world!
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Unlike the rest of the world, in the US, our drinks are large and loaded full of ice....a flimsy paper cup won't last long.
I mean, if I order a double long island tea when I'm leaving the bar....it will take me a bit to drink it and I need a cup that will last long enough for that, with a lid and straw please.
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Visit a McDonalds in Europe and your assumptions will be corrected.
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Really, I always wonder at the crazy waste of 10 napkins for one burger and junk like that... who needs it?
Indeed, especially, since they already require me to wear a shirt!
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Taiwan about to pass us up in the US for common sense stuff.
Many US cities have banned single-use plastic grocery bags, including my city, San Jose, California. You quickly get used to taking reusable bags or boxes with you when you shop.
Single-use plastic bags are also banned in the entire state of Hawaii, since they are a hazard to sea turtles.
China banned free single-use plastic grocery bags 10 years ago. You either pay for them when you checkout, or bring your own. Plastic bag use has dropped 70%.
India has banned single-use plastic grocery bags in some cities
Re:Good idea (Score:5, Interesting)
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In Taiwan even the McDonald's has separated trash bins. Generally recyclable, trash, and a place to dump your drinks and stack the cups. It's really not hard to separate the items before discarding them.
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Heh! You hear about people asking "Paper or plastic?". Well, at my grocery store, they don't ask. Unless you quickly yell "Paper, damnit!", they'll start putting your crap in 15 tiny plastic bags. Much as I dislike bans, in the case of plastic bags, maybe the liberals have a point.
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Some observations I made while living in Taiwan and plastic bag use.
1. The plastic bag you pay about $0.03-$0.15USD for is much thicker and durable.
2. You don't double or triple bag
3. You fill the bag to the brim
4. You think twice about whether or not you need a bag
Many times I just carried my one or two items out of the store. If I had more people with me, then we carried more items.
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Sad, but necessary (Score:5, Insightful)
On the flip side, I loved the street vendors that served drinks. They would make your drink, pour it into a 700cc plastic cup, then use a head press to melt a thin plastic lid to it (think slightly thicker Saran Wrap). You could throw 5 or 6 of them in a plastic bag and not worry about them spilling. When you are ready to drink it, jab the disposable plastic straw through the lid and drink up. It was a genius system, and I will miss it dearly. I don't know what will become of those drink stands (seriously one every other corner throughout every city I lived in).
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They use that in America to sell bubble tea. They shrink wrap the top of the cup.
You can make the seal from vegetable fiber/oil too, using local seaweed or local blue green algae, or even wood biproducts. Works fine. You just need to scale it up.
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You just need to scale it up.
This is the problem. Like I said, they are everywhere. And they aren't, for the most part, chain stores that can do this as a concerted effort. It's little independently owned shops. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's also not something that is going to be as trivial of a task as the original comment seemed to imply.
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But if they are phasing them out over twelve years, they have time to do that. First, they replace them in governments supply contracts, police, etc. Then they only allow imported non-plastic straws, to encourage local industry to provide them, but help them wean off.
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Bubble Tea started in Taiwan, then made its way over to the States more recently. Having been traveling back and forth between both places I'm not exactly sure on the timeline of when Bubble Tea made it to the states, but it seems to be within the last 2-5 years, but I had it all the time 12 years ago in Taiwan at every single drink stand which are literally at least one, if not two or three, per block.
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Bubble Tea started in Taiwan, then made its way over to the States more recently. Having been traveling back and forth between both places I'm not exactly sure on the timeline of when Bubble Tea made it to the states, but it seems to be within the last 2-5 years, but I had it all the time 12 years ago in Taiwan at every single drink stand which are literally at least one, if not two or three, per block.
Try many decades. You need to get out more, grandpa.
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As you may be aware, especially if you read scientific journals, we can literally grow organs on biomaterial lattices that absorb into the organs. We can also 3D print biomaterials, including ones that compost organically, from vegetable materials.
Even styrofoam itself is replaced. Try looking inside those packages from Amazon and Microsoft sometimes. Those peanuts have changed.
The future is now. Stop thinking "plastics". That was 1950s. This is 2020s tech, and it's ramping up to massive production levels,
Straws... (Score:2)
Straws have two use cases:
(1) If you're walking or driving and holding a drink
(2) If you're disabled.
I never understood why US restaurants gave straws with glasses or cups. If it's not clean enough to drink from, you shouldn't be drinking from it. If it's clean, you don't need a straw.
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Straws have two use cases: (1) If you're walking or driving and holding a drink (2) If you're disabled.
I never understood why US restaurants gave straws with glasses or cups. If it's not clean enough to drink from, you shouldn't be drinking from it. If it's clean, you don't need a straw.
(3) You have teeth that are very sensitive to cold. Some of us experience real pain when ice or cold liquids come in contact with our incisors. When I encounter somewhere that does not offer straws (like the zoo) I have to order drinks sans ice.
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Most drinks are refrigerated anyway -- putting ice in them is wasteful anyway and dilutes the taste.
Waste is when you do something with your property that you don't like - not when somebody else does something with their property that you don't like.
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Maybe you should stop pretending people want to share their environment with you.
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you're drinking soda, and care about your tooth enamel.
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you must be a lot of fun at parties.
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What does diet soda do to tooth enamel?
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I never understood why US restaurants gave straws with glasses or cups. If it's not clean enough to drink from, you shouldn't be drinking from it. If it's clean, you don't need a straw.
Basically you're just a meddling judgmental busybody.
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It doesn't if proper techniques are employed,
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Not that hard to convert (Score:2)
They have had tech to make full vegetable fiber straws for at least a decade now, and all of the EU is converting to bio-plastics, so it's not difficult.
As you scale up production, the prices drop. If you remove the artificial subsides for plastic disposal of non-recyclable materials, you can easily switch, using this thing we like to call "capitalist markets".
What to do with disposable plastic straws? (Score:2)
Burn them in an incineration. They are an excellent fuel source. And with a properly designed high-temperature incinerator the pollution is very low. (versus throwing plastic in a camp fire, where the fumes can be quite toxic)
Waste to energy and recycling can coexist and be beneficial. Some things are practical to recycle. Other things take too much effort to collect and clean. And other things take too much energy to recycle and should be reused as many times as possible (ex: glass, steel).
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A better idea is switch to vegetable fiber or algae/seaweed based fiber straws, which also can be incinerated. Since both sources are carbon sinks, this reduces greenhouse gasses, as opposed to already stored oil used for plastic straws, and the organic based straws are net neutral GHG, and also burn more cleanly.
Science.
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Agreed that fiber based products are often preferable. With old fashion paper drinking straws being an obvious choice.
One issue I take with bioplastics is they often use food crops to make non-food items (PLA in the US is primarily made from corn starch). That is we could feed hungry people with corn flour, but instead we make biodegradable restaurant containers with it.
But the whole bioplastic industry is a scam trying to solve a non-problem of carbon-neutral plastics. Petroleum-based plastics are approxim
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Corn is always sub-optimal, due to fertilizers and water required for it.
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They grow hundreds of acres of corn across the road from where I live. No water other than rain is used.
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Yeah, but that's ludicrously expensive compared to making bioplastics in the first place.
I'm not convinced of that. Maybe little solar powered robots. We don't have to have it done fast either. If it takes a century for robots to clean it up, that would be reasonable. As long as removal of trash is faster than adding of trash. (that last part is the hard part, I think)
Why make more work cleaning up a problem at the end when you can spend that money preventing the problem occurring?
Problem is already here. Even if we stopped making it worse today, the problem would still be with us and likely wouldn't go away on its own.
Ocean scrubbing with robots as the "solution" is a lame and incredibly expensive idea that involves non-existent fantasy tech.
Harsh. Have you never watched a pool robot? It's not an idea based on a fantasy, it's not
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Sure. but you're still going to bring a mop and bucket. You aren't going to turn off the tap and think that the work is half done. You've only done the easy part.
Banning straws probably a good idea (Score:2)
I hate to admit it, but something I saw on Facebook actually changed my opinion on something.
In particular it was an image of an animal that had died because it tried to eat a straw, which got stuck in its throat. Seemed like a nasty way to go.
Combining that and the very slight convenience a straw offers over just drinking from a cup, and I'm in favor of saying most places should not have disposable straws, or at the very least just have straws on request for those that truly need them.
In the meantime I do
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I hate to admit it, but something I saw on Facebook actually changed my opinion on something.
In particular it was an image of an animal that had died because it tried to eat a straw, which got stuck in its throat.
Can we fight all the Russian hackers and fake news by giving straws to all Facebook users . . . ?
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I was just thinking about the structural integrity while reading your comment. There would probably be quite a few spills that happen with cups without lids. But then I started thinking about the coffee cups with the lids that are perforated in a triangular shape. That might be something for the interim. Being able to get rid of the plastic lids would also reduce the plastic used, but once people are trained to drink things without straws then it shouldn't be too hard to get people to not spill drinks witho
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How about "bring your own drinking container and ustensils"?
It seemed weird to bring my own grocery bags when we started doing it, but now it's part of the daily life.
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No need to actually lift a cup, just lean over and sip... super lazy.
It does have more value in a car, where an open cup can spill liquid if you go over bumps. But then as someone else pointed out, you can just use the coffee cup style lids in place of straws.
Why 2030 and not now? (Score:2)
Why wait till 2030? We should avoid trash now, immediately. There's no valid reason to postpone a sane decision.
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2030 does seems quite far ahead for something like this. Two years should be more than enough for everyone to adjust, they should have said 2020.
Ah re-usable filth (Score:2)
Way to solve a problem by destroying the age-old solution to a long-past problem. The circle of forgetfulness.
Show of hands: who remembers why we have disposable plastic products in the first place? Anyone? Anyone from Taiwan?
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How about everyone carries their own damn stuff instead?
Dog poop? (Score:2)
What the hell are you supposed to pick up dog poop with? (not the straw)
Why wait? (Score:1)
Plastic does damage... (Score:1)
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Can't win on environmental policy. If you do it quickly you are trying to destroy the economy, turn it into a third world stone age country. If you do it slowly you aren't serious and know you will be long gone before having to deliver.
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They have big, expensive heat presses that seal a lid on top of it so you can carry it in a plastic bag and later puncture that lid with the included plastic straw. This move completely destroys their business model, and they have invested heavily in the equipment.
It doesn't have to destroy it. With a slight cultural shift, people will get into the habit of carrying their own re-usable straws with the necessary profile on the piercing end to puncture the lid. And the drink stands will sell the straws, at a price high enough to strongly encourage re-use.
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Doh! I totally missed the 'disposable cup' part of the equation. Please excuse my Homer moment - it's been a long day...
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This is where it becomes interesting to do an analysis of the plastic in the environment. Does the distribution and composition of plastic in the sea support the banning of plastic straws, is that just symbolic to build up the right mindset, or is this just the visual experience on streets with a lot of straws but with little impact outside of cities?