If you’re harbouring a desire to hop over to Paris and challenge the city’s most pissfit warriors in the princely game of beer pong, your window of opportunity is about to slam shut.
France is set to become the first country in the world to completely outlaw disposable plastic cups and plastic plates in a radical move that the country hopes will place it at the forefront of the global green movement.
The new laws, passed and implemented, will require all single-use cups and plates to be comprised of 50% biologically-sourced and compostable materials by the start of 2020. By 2025, that percentage requirement will jump to 65%.
The new law is an amendment to France’s pre-existing ‘Energy Transition for Green Growth Act‘; a staunch climate change action bill adopted last year in the lead-up to Paris hosting the COP21 Climate Change Conference in December of last year (y’know, that one where Australia dug its heels in and looked made us all look like jagoffs). The French Government hopes the act, combined with continued increased action on climate change, will help them become a global leader in environment and energy solutions.
Currently, 151 single-use cups are thrown away every second in the country, totalling some 4.73billion per year. But of that amount, a mere 1% is properly recycled.
The law is facing opposition from Europe’s leading organisation representing the food packaging industry, which has asked the EU Commission to block the law on the grounds that it violates EU laws on the free movement of goods.
Pack2GoEurope claims that bio-degradable material that also satisfies food hygiene requirements does not exist. There’s also some debate from manufacturers and researchers that the energy required to produce bio-degradable food packaging outweighs current green energy expectations.
France also banned all lightweight plastic bags at supermarkets and retail stores in July, joining a list growing list of countries with similar bans such as South Africa, Bangladesh, China, Rwanda, Kenya, and Mexico, along with select states in the United States.
Source: CNN.
Photo: Mark Kolbe/Getty.
