Let’s all
welcome the European Union (EU) to the anti-plastic pollution movement. On
Wednesday, EU lawmakers voted 571 to 53 in favor of a complete ban on 10
single-use plastics including straws, cutlery, and coffee stirrers. This adds
the EU to the growing list of governments committed to helping the world
address its plastic waste problem.
“Europe has to
come to terms with the fact that we cannot just put it on someone else’s
shoulders,” EU Commission First Vice President Frans Timmermans told Reuters.
“If we don’t move now, if we don’t move swiftly…you will have more plastic in
the oceans than fish.”
Plastic
World
This isn’t
the final stop on the road to a plastics ban in Europe. The member states of
the EU still need to approve it, and according to Reuters, some have already
voiced concerns that a ban on single-use plastics will be too difficult to implement.
Difficult,
maybe. But not impossible.
Banned List
The goal is
to have the ban go into effect in 2021, so the nations have time to plan out a
transition. Plus, each of the items on the proposed banned list already has a
readily available alternative. It’s not like the EU is asking people to do
without — it’s just asking them to make the transition to the version of each
item that doesn’t kill wildlife, destroy our environment, and pollute our
bodies.
And is that
really too much to ask?
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