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| Air travelers to and from the City by the Bay will now experience water in new ways. Starting Tuesday, those wishing to hydrate at San Francisco International Airport will have to drink from a water fountain, bring their own reusable bottle or prepare to buy an airport-approved glass or aluminum water bottle. The airport is adding plastic water bottles to its list of restricted food service items as part of an effort to become the world's first zero-waste airport by 2021. According to the nonprofit Zero Waste Alliance, that means diverting at least 90% of waste from landfills and incinerators by recycling and composting. What the ban includes Purified water, carbonated or sparkling water, mineral water and electrolyte-enhanced water are all officially banned. This means airport vendors, including vending machines, can no longer sell or provide free bottled water in a plastic bottle, a sealed box, can or other container intended primarily for single-service use and having a capacity of 1 liter or less. Vendors will be able to sell or provide reusable recyclable aluminum, glass and certified compostable water products, according to the airport. Travelers also have the option of bringing empty disposable plastic water bottles to fill up at any of the airport's approximately 100 free water fountains and hydration stations. |
no, we can't just instantly become environmentally sound and fix all the problems we've created in the past 100 years with one new policy. This is akin to "we can't solve everything so why try anything..."
It has to begin somewhere, and people need to make positive steps. Bottled water is one of the most atrocious violators in the climate crisis...it's an incredibly stupid and wasteful use of resources and causes immense environmental damage. It should be our first target.
Thank God someone is doing something positive.
60 minutes, L0L ...did mike Wallace’s ghost chase down a water bottle drinker? Did they get the viewpoint of a enviro-woke junkie street-crapper? Lol. Im sure they exposed the unregulated/untreated waste that flows out of Chinese and Indian waterways...No? Lol
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They talked about the plastic epidemic. Seems like every body of water is contaminated with plastic and it's having an adverse effect on the wildlife. It's really sad to see.
Yes, I watched it and every time they want to pull at people's heart strings they just need to show a sea turtle stuck in a 6-pack ring or with a straw stuck in it's shell.
but these measures are more knee jerk than substantive usually.
Here is a blurb from the World Resources Institute:
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....Where Plastic Bans Fall Short
It’s encouraging that local governments are focusing on passing laws to fight plastic litter. Unfortunately, while these laws may reduce the most visible form of plastic pollution, it could be at the expense of other environmental impacts. That’s because, somewhat ironically, disposable plastic bags require fewer resources (land, water, CO2 emissions, etc.) to produce than paper, cotton or reusable plastic bags—by a wide margin.
For example, Denmark’s Ministry of Environment and Food found that you would need to reuse a paper bag at least 43 times for its per-use environmental impacts to be equal to or less than that of a typical disposable plastic bag used one time. An organic cotton bag must be reused 20,000 times to produce less of an environmental impact than a single-use plastic bag. That would be like using a cotton bag every day for nearly 55 years. (Note that these figures aggregate the bags’ impact on water use, CO2 emissions, land use and more, but they do not include their impact on plastic pollution.)
Banning plastic straws is also increasingly popular. Starbucks recently announced that it would phase out use of plastic straws by the year 2020. Straws don’t provide as much utility as bags, so for many this is an easy adjustment.
But these bans leave the impression that they solve the plastics pollution problem without much discussion of systematic solutions. As a society, we should think holistically about the products we use and their impacts. We can’t just ban bad products—we must invest in alternatives....
Doesn't forcing a ban increase investment to find an alternate solution? I'm sure there are people who will now invest in finding a more ecological solution to this because now there is more demand..
Why don't they do this for all beverages? Simple - it's logistically easier. They can provide you all the free water you want. They can't do the same for soft drinks.
They're solving a small part of a much larger problem. Single use plastics are a huge problem. It's not a PC issue, it's not an 'agenda' where people weaponize cute animals to fool you. In this past year alone, Asia (for the most part, China) has stopped taking plastics for recycling (mainly because they were just burning or burying them) and now they're starting to pile up. There's a fucking continent of plastic floating around the Pacific. This is global warming all over again - how obvious does a problem have to get before people can look at it and say 'hey, maybe we should try to do something about this before it's too late?'
Why don't they do this for all beverages? Simple - it's logistically easier. They can provide you all the free water you want. They can't do the same for soft drinks.
They're solving a small part of a much larger problem. Single use plastics are a huge problem. It's not a PC issue, it's not an 'agenda' where people weaponize cute animals to fool you. In this past year alone, Asia (for the most part, China) has stopped taking plastics for recycling (mainly because they were just burning or burying them) and now they're starting to pile up. There's a fucking continent of plastic floating around the Pacific. This is global warming all over again - how obvious does a problem have to get before people can look at it and say 'hey, maybe we should try to do something about this before it's too late?'
Aside from that if the snowflakes here want to make a symbolic gesture to save the whales or whatever, why not ban plastic bottles in the City of San Francisco rather than the airport ? That would be a lot more practical. In the City people could carry their own containers. Thats not a realistic option at the airport. The TSA and passengers have enough to worry about without bringing an extra container just to be PC.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/03/13/702501726/where-will-your-plastic-trash-go-now-that-china-doesnt-want-it - ( New Window )
Why don't they do this for all beverages? Simple - it's logistically easier. They can provide you all the free water you want. They can't do the same for soft drinks.
They're solving a small part of a much larger problem. Single use plastics are a huge problem. It's not a PC issue, it's not an 'agenda' where people weaponize cute animals to fool you. In this past year alone, Asia (for the most part, China) has stopped taking plastics for recycling (mainly because they were just burning or burying them) and now they're starting to pile up. There's a fucking continent of plastic floating around the Pacific. This is global warming all over again - how obvious does a problem have to get before people can look at it and say 'hey, maybe we should try to do something about this before it's too late?'
this is not addressing the root cause, it's addressing a symptom.
like you say China stopped taking our plastic waste in January, and because they had been taking our plastic waste it allowed technology and corporate America to ignore plastic waste. it was someone else's problem.
now corporate America and technology will figure this out.
almost all the plastic water bottles consumers can access are recyclable. the problem is the infrastructure is not prevalent and it's more costly than alternatives (like shipping the waste to China).
I agree we should do something, there are many obvious changes that can be done that you don't even need to rely on politics to believe in, but half-assed measures designed to meet a "pat yourself on the back" standard (first zero waste airport) are in a lot of ways potentially more detrimental than good.
Isn’t it much better for concerned citizens to decide to stop purchasing single use plastics, out of concern for the environment? It’s also fine for any private business to decide not to offer single use plastics. Starbucks phasing out plastic straws for example, replacing with wooden stirrers is perfect.
Why should NYC tell me how much salt or sugar I can eat? That’s up to me to decide.
...because cutting down trees is better
...because cutting down trees is better
Yes that’s right. With careful forestry management, making use of a renewable resource like wood is far better ecologically than producing new plastics.
Isn’t it much better for concerned citizens to decide to stop purchasing single use plastics, out of concern for the environment? It’s also fine for any private business to decide not to offer single use plastics. Starbucks phasing out plastic straws for example, replacing with wooden stirrers is perfect.
Why should NYC tell me how much salt or sugar I can eat? That’s up to me to decide.
Plastic is a health menace. Efforts to limit plastic waste by moral suasion have failed. I'm ok with taking it to level of legal restrictions and bans. So far that doesn't threaten my way of life, or anyone's way of life as far as I can tell, in any important way. If it does, maybe I'll reconsider.
Might I have to use wax paper instead of Saran Wrap? Ok. Glass leftover containers with silicone lids instead of Ziploc bags? Ok. I like Saran Wrap and Ziploc bags, and I'll miss them, but that's not important. I am fine with paper straws. I grew up with them, and Coke tasted just as good before my first plastic straw. I just got a metal straw as swag; even better.
And the energy and resources to make things supposedly safer for the usually don’t. I’d the waste and cost
Of long lasting blight bulbs
And lastly how many people use cloth diapers?
San Franbis the epitome of stupid useless gestures. But they feel good about themselves by passing stupid laws that make them feel good. The residents deserve to get shit on. They vote in these
Guys
And this whole bottled water thing is absurd and needs to end anyway. Most of these brands are nothing but purified tap water and stupidly expensive. Yeah, you can get 40 half liter bottles for $4.50 or $225 per 1000 liters (1 ton). In United Arab Emirates I would buy 1000 liters(1 ton) of water(bulk) for $2.50 - yes about 1% of what people are paying for bottled water. That water was all desalinated - made from seawater and purified. Saudi Arabia was $16 per ton, Oman was $4.50 per ton. Again 1 ton equals 1000 liters or 2000 bottles.(Examples just to show the absurdity of what bottled water costs).
Next thing you know they are going to ban incandescent bulbs! Un-AMERICAN -
We should be able to consume whatever, whenever we want!
No lifestyle changes, period. Write a letter of apology to your grand kids - to be opened in 25 years. We were too fat and happy to make changes.
Next thing you know they are going to ban incandescent bulbs! Un-AMERICAN -
We should be able to consume whatever, whenever we want!
No lifestyle changes, period. Write a letter of apology to your grand kids - to be opened in 25 years. We were too fat and happy to make changes. [/quote]
Tired of that talking point, in reality. Technology changes so fast that what you see today will have changed 3 times in 25 years. Again, until the Asian continent changes itself nothing will get better - even if I do believe plastic throw away bottles are frivolous and any reduction is helpful.
We are destroying the planet. People do not live in harmony with nature, they destroy nature to live apart from it and in comfort. Nature WILL cause a correction if people do not do it first. The only question is how many species will be extinct; what will be left when that correction happens.
My thinking is that food supply/famine will be the impetus, and people and MAYBE governments will cause violence to get it. But the government will always ensure they are well-fed before anyone else.
I imagine we have 50-80 years of fooling ourselves we can continue down this path whistlin' dixie.
People are so worried about climate change, and while that may be a concern, the real concern, IMV, is too many people increasingly competing for dwindling resources (and wildlife left out of the equation altogether). We are digging our own graves.
FWIW, goes back to my point on Asia needing to clean up its' mess. About half of the world population are in 2 countries that just happen to be some of the most polluted without any sign of controlling their population growth(or pollution) - China did for a couple decades anyway.
I'm all for ending pollution, but until the two biggest polluters start to help, what we do is a drop in the bucket.
Basically people throw anything into the recycle bins and it becomes a fairly high burden for the recycling companies to separate out the good from the bad and complete the recycling process.
The company that offers recycling in our neighborhood discontinued it last month, so the burden is now on people to recycle on their own by taking things to the dump.
I would think that this change, even in a town of 30,000 people would have as much of an effect as eliminating water bottles in the SFO airport.
I still think a lot of measures are taken more to say people are thinking "green" rather than having specific goals or outcomes or compliance in mind.
This guy is terrible for the environment!!
Case closed.
FWIW, goes back to my point on Asia needing to clean up its' mess. About half of the world population are in 2 countries that just happen to be some of the most polluted without any sign of controlling their population growth(or pollution) - China did for a couple decades anyway.
I'm all for ending pollution, but until the two biggest polluters start to help, what we do is a drop in the bucket.
I don't know the answers to your question. I do know that the WWF estimates 70% of the world's fauna has become extinct since the 1970's. Maybe they are wrong on their numbers, but the situation is grim no matter how you look at it. And the reason why is because too many damn people. We are on an unsustainable trajectory. It's not a fun topic, there is no moral solution except wait until we have a natural correction brought on by the immense destruction we have caused/will cause to the planet. You can disagree, and that's fine, but the facts are disturbing. And I'm not some green environmentalist vegan hippie...and I'm not trying to interject politics here, but I'm a libertarian-leaning conservative politically and I'm saying this.
Agree with the poster saying that Asia is the biggest problem/offender.
FWIW, goes back to my point on Asia needing to clean up its' mess. About half of the world population are in 2 countries that just happen to be some of the most polluted without any sign of controlling their population growth(or pollution) - China did for a couple decades anyway.
I'm all for ending pollution, but until the two biggest polluters start to help, what we do is a drop in the bucket.
Surely someone / some people have to start first.
And China has started down this road. They're not doing nearly enough, and neither are we, but they are jumping on this. They see $$ signs. And so do I for that matter.
I have two takes:
1. I care much less about personal recycling and crap than I do about large corporations and all of their waste. They are the largest polluters by far. Shipping seems to be the worst.
2. Incremental progress is necessary and proper, and expecting anything else is unreasonable. It's easy to be a cynic.
Case closed.
Right. I can't wait until my city has sidewalks filled with human poop and a typhus epidemic.
Basically people throw anything into the recycle bins and it becomes a fairly high burden for the recycling companies to separate out the good from the bad and complete the recycling process.
The company that offers recycling in our neighborhood discontinued it last month, so the burden is now on people to recycle on their own by taking things to the dump.
I would think that this change, even in a town of 30,000 people would have as much of an effect as eliminating water bottles in the SFO airport.
I still think a lot of measures are taken more to say people are thinking "green" rather than having specific goals or outcomes or compliance in mind.
Then we have the organic recycling now. Again, is it so hard to read or comprehend that you can't can't put plastic bags in there? Or non-organic materials? And the Sanitation workers also screw up. They don't collect from us if even a biodegradable bag is in there. So, then we have an entire week's worth of organics festering and needing to be dumped.
I'ma plant a red fern for ya, Irv
Case closed.
This is the dumbest thing I have read this week.
and for $18.00 - you to can have an airport approved water bottled (water or batteries not included).
pfffttt ...
And this whole bottled water thing is absurd and needs to end anyway. Most of these brands are nothing but purified tap water and stupidly expensive. Yeah, you can get 40 half liter bottles for $4.50 or $225 per 1000 liters (1 ton). In United Arab Emirates I would buy 1000 liters(1 ton) of water(bulk) for $2.50 - yes about 1% of what people are paying for bottled water. That water was all desalinated - made from seawater and purified. Saudi Arabia was $16 per ton, Oman was $4.50 per ton. Again 1 ton equals 1000 liters or 2000 bottles.(Examples just to show the absurdity of what bottled water costs).
Ridiculous annoying gesture by SF. How about preserving trees in Brazil so we can continue to breathe? Then make China and India behave. (See that the G-7 was able to come up with a measly $22 million for this -- that's it?) You know -- absolutely know -- only huge internal citizen mobs have any chance of getting either one to change its polluting ways. India will run out of water first anway, but I won't last long enough to see that and what it leads to. But my grandchildren might.
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to obey environmental laws, gross plastic pollution, air pollution and hence climate change will continue. Period. No matter how much we clean up and conserve, unless those two behemoths change, nothing will improve. China has no excuse - they just do not give a crap about any law and India is stuck in an awful place between abject poverty and a population that is uncontrolled.
And this whole bottled water thing is absurd and needs to end anyway. Most of these brands are nothing but purified tap water and stupidly expensive. Yeah, you can get 40 half liter bottles for $4.50 or $225 per 1000 liters (1 ton). In United Arab Emirates I would buy 1000 liters(1 ton) of water(bulk) for $2.50 - yes about 1% of what people are paying for bottled water. That water was all desalinated - made from seawater and purified. Saudi Arabia was $16 per ton, Oman was $4.50 per ton. Again 1 ton equals 1000 liters or 2000 bottles.(Examples just to show the absurdity of what bottled water costs).
Ridiculous annoying gesture by SF. How about preserving trees in Brazil so we can continue to breathe? Then make China and India behave. (See that the G-7 was able to come up with a measly $22 million for this -- that's it?) You know -- absolutely know -- only huge internal citizen mobs have any chance of getting either one to change its polluting ways. India will run out of water first anway, but I won't last long enough to see that and what it leads to. But my grandchildren might.
FWIW, phytoplankton (small sea plants that whales feed on) do far more to regenerate oxygen and shore plants.
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The nation follows.
Case closed.
This is the dumbest thing I have read this week.
It's only Tuesday; Stan has plenty of opportunity to top himself...
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to obey environmental laws, gross plastic pollution, air pollution and hence climate change will continue. Period. No matter how much we clean up and conserve, unless those two behemoths change, nothing will improve. China has no excuse - they just do not give a crap about any law and India is stuck in an awful place between abject poverty and a population that is uncontrolled.
And this whole bottled water thing is absurd and needs to end anyway. Most of these brands are nothing but purified tap water and stupidly expensive. Yeah, you can get 40 half liter bottles for $4.50 or $225 per 1000 liters (1 ton). In United Arab Emirates I would buy 1000 liters(1 ton) of water(bulk) for $2.50 - yes about 1% of what people are paying for bottled water. That water was all desalinated - made from seawater and purified. Saudi Arabia was $16 per ton, Oman was $4.50 per ton. Again 1 ton equals 1000 liters or 2000 bottles.(Examples just to show the absurdity of what bottled water costs).
Ridiculous annoying gesture by SF. How about preserving trees in Brazil so we can continue to breathe? Then make China and India behave. (See that the G-7 was able to come up with a measly $22 million for this -- that's it?) You know -- absolutely know -- only huge internal citizen mobs have any chance of getting either one to change its polluting ways. India will run out of water first anway, but I won't last long enough to see that and what it leads to. But my grandchildren might.
NASA has reported that the rate of fires in the Amazon basin is below average compared with the past 15 years.
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telling it’s subjects how to live. California is becoming a socialist, nanny state.
Isn’t it much better for concerned citizens to decide to stop purchasing single use plastics, out of concern for the environment? It’s also fine for any private business to decide not to offer single use plastics. Starbucks phasing out plastic straws for example, replacing with wooden stirrers is perfect.
Why should NYC tell me how much salt or sugar I can eat? That’s up to me to decide.
You can't dump your sewage in the gutter. It would be ideal if concerned citizens chose to install sewer lines, but some public health and sanitation decisions are made by law and enforced with state power. Lead paint and leaded gasoline are banned. (There is some evidence that the nationwide drop in crime rates is tied to the decline in lead exposure since leaded gas was phased out.) I guess it would be better if concerned citizens bought unleaded, but nobody is complaining that it was a big infringement of rights.
Plastic is a health menace. Efforts to limit plastic waste by moral suasion have failed. I'm ok with taking it to level of legal restrictions and bans. So far that doesn't threaten my way of life, or anyone's way of life as far as I can tell, in any important way. If it does, maybe I'll reconsider.
Might I have to use wax paper instead of Saran Wrap? Ok. Glass leftover containers with silicone lids instead of Ziploc bags? Ok. I like Saran Wrap and Ziploc bags, and I'll miss them, but that's not important. I am fine with paper straws. I grew up with them, and Coke tasted just as good before my first plastic straw. I just got a metal straw as swag; even better.
You can't dump raw sewage in the gutters, huh? Have you *seen* what's going on there? They are allowed to shit on the sidewalk. Do you live or visit NYC? It smells like an open sewer everywhere. But plastics are a health issue? Ok then...
they are.
you'd have to be a psychopath not to admit they are.
but the issue is with the efficacy of arbitrary and I'd even say knee jerk "green" measures.
As posted earlier the alternatives to the plastic bag ban have proven to be multiple times worse for the environment than single use plastic bags.
The main issue I see with single use water bottles is today it's cheaper for manufacturers to manufacture a brand new water bottle than it is to use a recycled one.
where is the incentive?
technology needs to be pushed to create a better infrastructure that encourages alternate production mechanisms. If this ban helps push that then great.
But realistically it won't accomplish much more than a pat on the back for SFO becoming the first zero waste airport (or whatever they said) and possibly growing their carbon footprint.