• kae
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    1 year ago

    Starting in December, single-use items such as plastic shopping bags, disposable food service accessories, oxo-degradable plastics and food service packaging made of polystyrene foam, PVC, PVDC, compostable or biodegradable plastics will no longer be allowed to be sold in B.C.

    This is needed both in the short and long term. I’ll be curious to see what solutions pop up to replace what we’ve become used to.

    • nathris
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      1 year ago

      I’ll be curious to see what solutions pop up to replace what we’ve become used to.

      Non-recyclable paper products that are still actually lined with plastic.

      Meanwhile the vast majority of items on grocery shelves still come in plastic packaging.

    • grteOP
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      1 year ago

      The hospital I work at has already adopted wooden cutlery. The fork and spoon are fine, but the knife is absolutely terrible. I hope we can figure something better out for that one.

        • grteOP
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          1 year ago

          There are metal utensils in the building. The wooden ones are in these premade to go meal boxes that are used evening/overnight when the kitchen is closed.

            • delial@lemmy.sdf.org
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              1 year ago

              Using metal utensils isn’t a terrible idea. A lot of hospitals used to have tons of metal medical equipment that they would autoclave on-site. Much of that got replaced with “discard-able” plastic equivalents, because it was cheaper and easier. Now, some hospitals don’t even have autoclaves; they use a third-party service for the stuff that still needs it.

              And there’s nothing stopping them from putting metal utensils in the boxes and leaving some bins of dirty utensils for the morning staff.

    • corsicanguppy
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      1 year ago

      compostable or biodegradable plastics will no longer be allowed to be sold

      This is needed both in the short and long term

      If you hate biodegradable and compostable things, you’re the baddie. The math seems solid.

      • giantshortfacedbear
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        1 year ago

        I’m mean, they are better than the non-degradable plastics, but it’s not like they breakdown remotely fast. Those products are more greenwash, [airquotes] biodegradable

        • corsicanguppy
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          1 year ago

          it’s not like they [break down] remotely fast

          Okay, I’m hitting the (qualified) opinion pieces and I’m seeing the issues like the microplastic intermediate stage and the low ‘success’ rate of plastic breaking down after a 6 month period (which I’m assuming isn’t arbitrary).

          You’ve forced me to learn, dammit. Thanks (Thanks; I hate it?)

        • heyheyitsbrent
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          1 year ago

          I often re-use the biodegradable bags for garbage, and half the time they’re disintegrating before the bag’s even full.

      • CanadianCorhen
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        1 year ago

        A lot of biodegradable plastics are only biodegradable in industrial composting facilities, so while better than non-biodegradable plastic, it’s not a good solution.

          • CanadianCorhen
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            1 year ago

            Yea, but I think compostable plastic is closer to damaging than helpful, since it’s so hard to actually compost very little.of it will ever be.

            • corsicanguppy
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              1 year ago

              it’s so hard to actually compost [and] very little[ ]of it will ever be.

              I’m not seeing the difficulty angle on the composting, but I’m learning the labeling on them is both confusing and not-really-regulated (that I’ve yet seen); and not really validated either way, it seems. Bloody big tip-off that it’s shite greenwashing. Argh.

              If 90% of the carbon in the test materials had disappeared within six months it was considered compostable.

              The results showed there was no specification that was reliably home compostable

              bah. Zero fun.

              So to make terms like ‘biodegradable’ or ‘compostable’ even remotely valuable as terms for packaging, we need inspectors and testers confirming them. Having gone through a series of halfwit governments run by ‘small government’ platforms (the ‘small’ is when they shed oversight and safety inspectors, naturally, so their lobbyists can further victimize people for profit), I think we’re a long way off.

              I’m learning, and I’m correcting my opinions as we go. Thanks for catalyzing that.