A Ban On Single-Use Plastics Was Just Approved By The EU

On March 27, the European Parliament approved the plans to minimize the use of single-use products that are made of plastics. These kinds of products may include straws, plastic plates, cutlery, and coffee stirrers, and many other products.

This move is hoped to pave the ways for all of the governments from the whole world to agree with the reduction of the use of plastics in their nations, especially in waterways, oceans, and landfills. However, it will take us a long time to see the positive results as we are expecting.

In October last year, the proposal was voted by the EU under the absolute support from the European Parliament. As the vote conducted in some recent days, it also gains a few of certain successes: as a piece of evidence, states as members of the EU have decided to apply a ban until the end of 2021.

In addition to the plans mentioned above, the meeting of this time also suggested plans on how to enhance the tap water’s quality, as well as how to limit the number of plastic bottles we are using each day. According to the newly-approved plans, by 2025, plastic bottles will be only used with recycled material that occupies 25% of the total ingredients of the bottles.

The previous reports showed that straws that are made of single-use plastics are banned in large cities of the world when they realize the daily products have caused serious impacts on marine life. In the United States, Seattle was the first city to put a ban on this kind of straws in July 2018 as a solution to reduce the amount of plastic to the oceans on Earth.

However, the most notable thing in the vote of this time is a ban gained support from the whole EU. This is supposed to expand to other global areas to apply the ban in the near future.