Is It Possible To Go 'Plastic Free'? A Town Is Showing Us How.

[OfTheBottom99Percent]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/plastic-free-town-penzance-waste_n_5e57e0cec5b60102210d4534

IMHO HuffPo is pretty much a dumpster-dive now, I usually grab the headline, quickly scan and 99% of the time find nothing and bolt. But THIS: yay! Personally I've been trying to go plastic free and while at home I'm down to about one bio-degradable (NOT just degradable) garbage bag per month- it's the traveling that blows it out

Is It Really Possible To Go ‘Plastic Free’? This Town Is Showing The World How.
Penzance, a coastal town in England, achieved “plastic free” accreditation in 2017, since then more than 100 other communities have done the same.

"By taking a stand, people are bound together by this common identity, and they’ll fight for that no matter where they live."

The closing of this lengthy article:

Lonely Whale, an ocean advocacy foundation, has implemented similar programs. Its month-long Strawless In Seattle campaign in September 2017 converted more than 100 high-profile institutions, from the airport to the aquarium and baseball stadium, to switch from plastic to paper straws, removing 2.3 million plastic straws from the city. Shortly after, in 2018, Seattle became the first U.S. city to implement a city-wide ban on plastic straws and plastic utensils in bars and restaurants.

“It’s one thing to personally decide against using straws — it’s another thing altogether for a whole business or city to decide to go plastic-straw free,” said Dune Ives, executive director of Lonely Whale.

“We understand the importance of letting policymakers know that their constituency is already in favor of policy change,” continued Ives, “so we focus on cheerleading and engaging people in a fun, non-shaming way so they’re open to conversations about other single-use plastic items.”

[Ron Green]

1. What good news! And what an important OP.

Would that this thread get the kind of buzz that the whining-about-candidates ones do.

[abqtommy]

2. A more important question for me is: Is it possible to do 100% plastic/paper/other recycling in

connection with landfills around the world? Sure, it's possible.

[maxsolomon]

3. Here in the Soviet of Seattle, we've banned

Plastic Bags at the Grocery Store
Styrofoam to-go containers/cups
Plastic Straws

So far, everyone's precious Liberty is still alive.

A lot of restaurants are still using up their plastic straw inventory, unfortunately. So you have to think ahead and say "no straw" if you order a soda.

[womanofthehills]

7. Same stuff banned in Albuquerque

[malaise]

10. Same in Jamaica

The plastics bags were banned January 2019 with warnings that styrofoam container/cups and plastic straws would be phased out and banned Jan 2020
I am very impressed with the plastic bags success. Many places started doing away with the styrpfoam containers since last year but there are still a few persons breaking the law. We recently went to a restaurant for take out and when they brought the food in styrofoam containers we told them to return our money. They told us they had already served it and we told them we'd report them. They returned our money.

[former9thward]

4. What is the definition of "plastic free"?

No plastic? You have to get rid of computers and phones. They are almost all plastic. You have to rid of cars and every form of mass transportation. They are filled with plastic. It seems people are using the term "plastic free" in ways it does not cause them any personal inconvenience.

[OfTheBottom99Percent]

5. It's fundamental and simple

The definition of plastic free is regards ones daily kitchen, bathroom and gardening consumables and is the least we can do for the luv of gawd-

[former9thward]

6. So nothing that would inconvenience you.

Ok, got it...

[OfTheBottom99Percent]

8. Incredibile!

Ciao,
Gawd forbid we should be inconvenienced. Wow. I'm certain that an attorney would have a reasonable degree of education so you must be trying to bait me for some weird reason because otherwise how could a human on this planet in the state that it's in be so, um, pericoloso? Either you don't get out enough, i.e. to witness the 1.6 million square kilometer Pacific Plastic Island (kinda an inconvenience to ocean life), entire communities living- well camping or- I got it: subsisiting on garbage heaps, and the micro-bead plastic-stew we're all drenched in (and no doubt sloshing inside most of your vital organs) or you're wilfully ignorant; but so long as you can buy (rather than maybe grow) say, basil leaves, on a styrofoam tray wrapped in a 2 foot length of plastic. We wouldn't want the out-of-control dominant species on the only Earth we know to be inconvenienced.
You just have to be joking and creepily at that...quindi abbastanza!
I mean really; basta, ciao.

[marble falls]

9. Welcome back!