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On Wednesday, the European Parliament voted in support of a proposal that will ban a wide range of single-use plastics throughout the European Union by 2021. The bill was introduced in May by Frédérique Ries, who now says Wednesday’s vote was “a victory for our oceans, for the environment and for future generations.”
The ban covers a range of plastic cutlery and plates, cotton buds, straws, drink-stirrers, and balloon sticks. And it even targets pollution from cigarette filters, requiring manufacturers to reduce their use of plastics in filters by 50 percent by 2025 and 80 percent by 2030. Meanwhile, EU member states will be required to recycle 90 percent of their plastic bottles by 2025. According to the European Parliament’s report, those account for about 20 percent of ocean plastic pollution now.
According to the BBC, the items included in the ban were selected because readily available alternatives exist, like paper straws rather than plastic and cardboard containers rather than plastic containers. “Where no alternative exists,” EU states will be required to reduce their use by 25 percent by 2025.
In 2016, the European Commission reported that just 18 percent of litter on EU beaches wasn’t a plastic of some form and just under half of the total (49 percent) was single-use plastics like the straws and containers found in the new ban. In all, the EU’s research estimates that 150,000 tons of plastic end up in their waters each year, which is really just a blip on the radar of the eight million tons of plastic estimated to enter the oceans across the globe annually.
While Wednesday’s vote is massive news for the EU with a 571-53 vote in favor, there will still be some procedures to clear before the measure is expected to go into effect by 2021. In that time, the UK will also have to incorporate the same laws if the measure is put into place before the end of the Brexit transition period.
