<story><title>Germany to meet EU guidelines to ban single-use plastics by 2021</title><url>https://mymodernmet.com/germany-single-use-plastic-ban/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>air7</author><text>From my reading of the data, I feel that banning plastic bags (for example) would do more harm than good (in 1st world countries). 
The alternatives require more reuse than actually occurs in order to be environmentally viable [0], waste management makes sure that no garbage gets into the ocean and is either kept in a landfill or incinerated responsibility.
And &amp;quot;dumping plastic overseas&amp;quot; is a non issue: Its at most 10% of the exporting country&amp;#x27;s plastic waste.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not that plastic doesn&amp;#x27;t cause expenditure of resources but rather that life requiees that anyway and in most use cases plastic may be the most enviormently friendly way to answer a need such as a carrying vessel for forgetful people (again, in 1st world countries with excellent waste management)&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www2.mst.dk&amp;#x2F;udgiv&amp;#x2F;publications&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;978-87-93614-73-4.pdf&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www2.mst.dk&amp;#x2F;udgiv&amp;#x2F;publications&amp;#x2F;2018&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;978-87-93614-...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Germany to meet EU guidelines to ban single-use plastics by 2021</title><url>https://mymodernmet.com/germany-single-use-plastic-ban/</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>teach</author><text>I hope this doesn&amp;#x27;t turn out like the ban on single-use plastic shopping bags in Austin.&lt;p&gt;Many grocery stores &amp;quot;complied&amp;quot; by replacing the single-use bags with much thicker &amp;quot;reusable&amp;quot; plastic bags. So now customers still don&amp;#x27;t bring their own bags into the store, the new bags still aren&amp;#x27;t easily recyclable and I suspect most are thrown away just as before.&lt;p&gt;Edit: on the other hand, the city of Austin&amp;#x27;s waste management is very supportive of recycling and hopefully they&amp;#x27;ll support plastic film in the single-stream collection and make it much easier for the average person to do the right thing.</text></comment>