Taxes and Bans Likely for Single Use Plastics in the Future

For years, there has been an ongoing battle to try and bring an end to the use of single-use plastic items. The environmental damage and the carbon footprint they deliver is no longer arguable. For the convenience they provide, single-use plastics have become a scourge on our ecology and our environment. Manufacturers, providers of services, hospitality firms, fast food outlets, and anyone who is involved in the use of single-use plastics are being asked to make the concessions needed to make change possible. Sadly, though, uptake is not as high as many would have liked.

This has led to various discussions across the globe regarding the introduction of taxes, tariffs, and even outright bans on the use of single-use plastics. Indeed, it was recently reported that the European Union will back a ban on the use of single-use plastic items. This would pave the way for disposable dishes, biodegradable utensils, and eco friendly disposable items to become the de facto starting place. The discussions will take a long time to fall into line, but it is expected that many parts of the developed world will soon follow suit.

The results are there for everyone to see; single-use plastics are a damaging, impactful problem that we need to wean ourselves away from. And while alternatives were once thin on the ground, that is no longer the case at all. Today, we know for a fact that biodegradable, ethical products made from everything from corn starch to sugarcane to molded pulp can easily be an ethical alternatives.

From compostable coffee cups and biodegradable coffee cup lids to foam takeaway food tubs, many industries need to commit to an outright end of the use of these single-use plastic products on a regular basis.

Why do we need to bring an end to single-use plastics?

When a single-use plastic item is disposed of, it will lie in a skip, a bin, or a refuse site. It will then be taken to landfill. Typically, these products take years to break down into a useful products for the environment. And given the rapid nature of the development of single-use plastics, many use toxic ingredients that could actually harm the environment once they break down, eroding the soil and harming natural potential.

On top of that, we use single-use plastics en masse; billions of pieces of plastic are discarded every single year. This leads to serious problems regarding the landfill sites around the world being loaded up with single-use plastic items that will stubbornly break down over generations, poisoning the environment as they go.

By contrast, the use of biodegradable utensils and the like can play a major role in the role of reducing this environmental issue. Instead, these break down in days, and are made from ethical materials that are natural in their creation. Therefore, the end result is they break down, they return to the environment, and/or they can be re-used in the creation of more products.

Instead of creating an unsurmountable problem that could ruin future generations, changing to ethical, biodegradable solutions could avoid a natural disaster. Taxes, or bans, then, are likely to come into force as the 2020s rage on – why not get your business ahead of the curve?