Plastic bags are being expelled from the eu
Plastic bags are being expelled from the eu
Not long ago, the European parliament approved a new bill to signal that the plastic limit "mandatory", hope the member states in the next five years to take steps to sharply cut use of plastic bags, by 2017 the proportion of the use of disposable plastic bags in 2010 based on the use of reduced by 50%, to 2019 by 80%, requires each member solution is a tax on plastic bags or disable directly.
A thin plastic bag, it seems, is causing great distress to human society. European Union statistics, every year, the European Union within the scope of use of plastic bags to 100 billion, 8 billion of which was thrown into the sea, the big plastic bags floating in the sea, killing millions of sea creatures every year, 94% of dead birds found in the stomach with plastic products. Plastic bags clog the estuaries and riverbeds of many rivers, leaving wildlife vulnerable, which has become one of the most serious environmental problems in Europe. The remaining plastic bags are not recovered in time, but are incinerated or buried, causing secondary environmental pollution.
According to statistics, the average European USES 198 plastic bags a year, weighing in at 3.4m tonnes and over 2m cars, 90% of which are disposable. The average life span of each plastic bag is 25 minutes, then it becomes a member of the garbage, and only 9 percent are recycled. Another fatal problem for plastic bags is that they take hundreds of years to actually degrade, and a paper bag can only be degraded in a matter of weeks. The European commission, environmental protection committee "Nick thought," is that our society rapid discarded plastic bags concept, we use them very briefly, but they are burden to hundreds of years of environment ".
Of the eu's daily waste, 37 per cent are landfill, 25 per cent recycled, 15 per cent fertiliser and 23 per cent burned. Although plastic recycling industry research thinks, recovery of 70% - 70% of the plastic bag is feasible, but in the abandoned plastic bags, in a dispute over whether the focus of the contradiction lies in the plastic bag should reasonably the production and use. The eu believes that waste generation should first be prevented, then recycled, and finally landfill and incineration. Moreover, the eu has planned to basically stop the landfill in 2020, and the maximum possible resource reuse and recycling will be required for reasonable production.
The plastic bags, which are restricted in use, are mainly plastic bags with a thickness of less than 0.05 mm and a plastic bag less than 0.01mm thick. The former is mainly the shopping bags of supermarkets and malls; The latter is mainly used for packaging food. Plastic bags, which can be used many times, are not limited. The bill also calls for member states not to use plastic bags, except for the use of meat, fish or dairy products from 2017, and to ban supermarkets from providing free plastic bags to consumers. From 2019, bags for fruit and vegetables should also be replaced with recyclable or biodegradable paper bags.
How to reduce the use of disposable plastic bags as much as possible and achieve the goal of "plasticising" as soon as possible, the eu member states are considering different methods: such as raising and collecting taxes. Some eu countries have already set out to ban the provision of plastic bags for free, or face fines. The plan will increase the price of disposable plastic shopping bags to 5 pence, and the price of a bottle of mineral water, almost a reduction in the number of use, by means of premium and put the money donated to charity. The Irish government has decided to tax each bag 22 euros and change its citizens' consumption behavior. Taxing plastic bags has also been successful in the Nordic countries. According to the commission, Denmark, which is taxed on plastic bags, is the eu country with the lowest number of plastic bags, using only four disposable plastic bags per person per year. In contrast, the use of plastic bags in Portugal, Poland and Slovenia is 466 per person per year, as plastic bags are produced in Asia and are cheap.
As "circular economy" of the leading countries France has announced that since 2016 the comprehensive use of disposable plastic products of serious environmental pollution, the schedule is far earlier than the deadline set by the European Union. In addition, disposable plastic bags will be replaced by biodegradable bags and compost bags. French environment minister segolene royal, I think it is an important measure environmental groups long-awaited, development to the degradation of plastic bags, implementation severely, is a direction of petroleum and chemical industrial upgrading. The policy also promotes the development of green industries such as biodegradable packaging materials, creating more jobs for France.