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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