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this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2025
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Just FYI:
https://commission.europa.eu/news/less-plastic-waste-means-cleaner-beaches-2024-08-14_en
So yeah, nets are bad, but straws, plastic bags, cigarettes and packages are also a problem.
This is a list of end-consumer items put together by a government body beholden to fishing and other industries. And it’s not even about pollution levels, it’s specifically about beach pollution. Plastic lids on cartons of heavy cream are “also a problem” if we focus only on reducing plastic waste in the kitchen, but implying it’s even relevant compared to industrial plastic waste is disingenuous
Why shouldn't it be relevant? The waste is out there, is being found on our beaches and the industrial plastic waste is not swept up as often? So why would a regulation to prevent the most common plastic-items on our beaches from being there be bad?
Diatribe alert. If you just wanna know, here: 75% to 86% of plastic waste in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch came from fishing industry, article, study.
It’s not bad, and I didn’t claim it to be bad. It’s not relevant in the same way Dr Thunder and Pibb Xtra aren’t leading to a soft drink crisis in the USA—they’re a small part of a much bigger problem.
To carry on with this dumbass analogy, it would be misleading to argue for a ban on off-brand sodas while continuing to mass produce Sprite, Pepsi, and Diet Coke, and it lets big businesses off the hook for their destruction. Same with letting industries shovel untold plastic waste into the oceans behind our backs while making more visible efforts to ban much smaller amounts back on land.
Also, we’re not just worried about plastic because it ends up on beaches. That is, again, missing the bigger picture. It’s also missing why those items in particular end up on beaches, which is because of local littering. A cup on a beach is actually great for the environment compared to a piece of nylon disintegrating in the ocean. It just looks ugly. Our primary focus can’t be on ugly right now.
If you ban plastic straws from European beaches and say job well done, the planet will never notice. We need to start with the big issues, we don’t have time to pat them on the back and keep subsidizing the destruction of our planet. Agricultural fertilizer is next followed by plastic bags, iirc, or maybe bottles.
Yeah, but it's a quick win. Ban some single-use plastics and prevent it from getting into the oceans because it doesn't exist. Yeah, you have to do something about the fishing nets, but there is no reason to not take those quick-wins
People want to pretend just the things that are convenient to them are an issue. They say government and companies need to take action, then complain about actions taken. It's really wild to see.
Not throwing my garbage in the wild makes me have no idea how often straws end up in the ocean, so it seemed like a wild thing to go after.
Any idea if it's people dumping all this stuff in the wild or if it's because we throw it out in our bins that it somehow gets to the ocean?
It's called environmental dumping. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_dumping
First world countries ship waste to third world countries where dumping is not illegal (or at least not enforced).
You get stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVnMBGXVVUI
Stuff falls out of garbage trucks, trash cans get tipped over, stuff gets blown out of the bed of a dumptruck at the landfill, landfills erode and take trash with them. Trashcans aren't just magic portals that take trash into the nightosphere
a lot of single-use items come from fast food places, which people will eat in their cars and then just throw out the window as they drive along.
it's a fucking sad practice but it's really hard to get people to stop doing it, so the next best option is just to make sure as much as possible of the things you get from fast food joints will dissolve in a rain shower.
Single use plastic items laying on the beach is what bothers people the most, but this doesn't mean it is the biggest problems. There is much more plastic in the oceans that we do not see.
Not saying they are not but from what you posted it could still be 99.9% nets, what is in the article is just a list of the most common found items in beaches.
Hmm. Perhaps the beaches shouldn't be the prioritized focus for developing alternatives to plastic.
If it's on the beach, it can be picked up. Today, tomorrow or eventually.
I think the plastic that can't be as easily be collected ought to be replaced by alternatives first.
If it's on the beach it's been washed up there. The stuff that's washing up can be collected, sure, but that represents a small percentage of the overall amount that there is.
Excellent point.
If it gets swept up on the shore, it's in the ocean. So it totally makes sense to prevent it from being there.
Cotton bud stick???
It's kind of crazy - those plastic Q-tips are only better if you want to totally wreck your ears and every doctor is warning against that. For every legitimate use, those paper variants work perfectly well
how can a paper a tip grease a bearing?
Why would you grease a bearing with a q-tip? Use a proper tool for that!
name a cheaper tool?
The correct tools are those small plastic containers or a cheap grease gun. You can get the grease better into the bearing with them and don't have the risk of smearing cotton fiber in there. They are of course more expensive than a q-tip, but you can get one for unter 5€. Seriously, if you do this even a couple times a year, buy one.
(This is also a great example why environmental regulation is so tricky: It totally makes sense to prevent one of the worst polluting product to be phased out or replaced with a better solution. But then there are edge cases (how many people have even greased a bearing in their life?) where the new product might be worse, but that still is not an argument for mass pollution on our beaches or against that regulation)
I think Americans call the q tips
Yeah but a q-tips here are paper / cotton
Over here cotton buds used to usually have plastic sticks. They've all changed to paper because of this EU thing though.
Not anymore, they switched to plastic.
I just bought some today at Costco and they’re def paper still.
When did they switch?
I can find both paper stick and plastic stick next to each other on the shelf at my local grocery.
It must be the off brands then. I dunno, I don’t buy that junk but I have noticed it in other people’s bathrooms.
Unbranded Q-Tip