How exactly (and if) do plastic straws from the EU end up in the Pacific Ocean, though? Maybe they could have started with that

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ndsipa_pomu 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

You might as well ask how microplastics get into fresh snow in Antarctica - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-61739159

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arp242 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Because people litter them and it ends up in the ocean? And it is based on research, as I quoted in my previous post.

My entire point it's not just about plastic straws. I don't know why you need to reduce this to just plastic straws.

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wqaatwt 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Obviously I implicitly meant all single use plastics. But random people littering is not even remotely the main source.

Poor and unregulated waste management is. Of course the fact that a lot of western countries were and still are exporting their plastic waste to poorer countries where they somehow end up in rivers and oceans.

However there is no inherent reason why plastic straws or anything else inherently have to be dumped into oceans.

Of course silly token measures are much easier than actually regulating the global fishing industry..

	▲	arp242 a day ago \| parent [-]
		> Obviously I implicitly meant all single use plastics. On a thread that is about someone misrepresenting a single-use plastic ban as a "plastic straw ban", this is very much not obvious at all. As for the rest: if there is no plastic, then there is nothing to "waste manage". Or at least less, and mismanaged waste actually breaks down in a reasonable timeframe. It's been an issue for decades. Everyone knows about it. Nothing really changed.

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qcnguy 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You missed his point. People have measured this. Basically all plastic waste in the oceans come from Asia. This was true before these EU regulations and is also true of America where such bans don't exist.

It's a good example of why EU regulation sucks. It sounds like it solves a problem until you learn anything about the problem. Then it becomes clear it's all cost and no benefit.

The reason the EU passes all these rules is nothing to do with the actual problems themselves. It's because they think that by doing this they can forge a pan-European equivalent of the USA that reduces the existing nations to mere historical geographic regions. It seems to be some kind of simplistic idea that if most laws are written by the EU, and it has a flag, then it is a nation that can rival the US. If you believe that then to make it happen you have to pass a lot of laws.