How much difference will it make?

Turtles should be grateful

environmentalprogress.org/plastics

About 0.03% if banned worldwide ,not sure how much if a couple of rich countries do it.

I remember reading an article in an engineering journal showing how much more water, energy and oil it takes to produce a paper cup compared to a plastic one, and that's before you add in the trees needed to make the paper. If both are disposed of correctly, the plastic cup was clearly the environmental winner. The reason for the surprising result was that the paper cup still needed to be made waterproof with petroleum based material and paper making uses massive amounts of water and plenty of energy. I guess it might be similar with plastic straws vs paper. If you then wash and reuse plastic straws, which you can't do with the paper ones, plastic would be miles in front.

I don't think that's the case any more- most disposable cups are a plant-based plastic polymer and don't utilise any hydrocarbons to make the liner.
as you say, the plastic itself is not the problem, more that it is inherently designed to be one-use, and in that context the energy use for production and the environmental impact of disposal is pretty horrific. Straws seem a pretty easy win and like plastic bags a small change in behaviour is a step towards others.

They only tend to ban things that are able to be banned. Look at Britain. Banning the sale of ICE cars from 2030. You'd think the logic was to improve the air quality for the folks living in the highly trafficked country, the lifecycle benefit of evs to the planet as whole still being debated.
Particulate matter is listed no.1 in the WHO list of harmful pollutants. Ahead of NOx, VOCs..... Tail pipe emissions are easy to regulate you can catch them in the pipe. Euro 6 limits diesel particulate emissions to 4.5 mg per km. DPFs work very well. In dirty parts of town the air coming out the back is apparently cleaner than what goes in! The amount of airborn particles coming off tyres however, is hard to regulate. Not much can be done.

You can get a rough idea of the extent of the problem by calculating the weight of the 5mm strip of tread that wears off your tyres in 30,000km. About 2 kg each tyre. that's 8 kg altogether. Divide thru by 30,000 . I get 250mg per kilometer. If airborne particles are bad for health the 4.5 mg coming out of a DPF is nothing to worry about? With all the heavier evs on the road tyre particles will be up 25%. Saving 4.5 mg/km by banning ICEs but getting an extra 60 mg/km from the weightier evs replacing them!

Now we just need a ban on single use kitchen appliances. My parents still use the blender that they bought 40 years ago, whereas I've lost count how many I've had to replace. The cheap plastic shaft seal housings always end up breaking and you have to replace the entire thing. Same thing can be said for just about anything you buy.

Despite all the bans we are still drowning in plastic.

How long till whipper snippers get outlawed?

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Mr Milk said..
How long till whipper snippers get outlawed?

Bailing wire is a good substitute