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Comment by hartator | Hacker News Reader

It’s worth noting that I’ve seen poor families in France reusing plastic forks and knives. Like always, this kind of policy hurts the poor a lot more.

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The ban is on "single use plastic items" - it's hard to argue with it - it just makes sense. Poor families you've seen will be able to re-use plastic forks and knives as long as they are meant to be durable, not one time use items; and they'll last for them longer, so better for them, no?

What’s wrong with reusing current ones? It’s not because it’s meant to be used once, that you can’t use them for months.

The current ones are too cheap, people will throw them away because washing is too hard.

Poverty reduction programs, not trashing the planet, is the correct response to that

That can work to a point, but if environmental policies permanently increase the cost of things like energy then poverty reduction programs must pay that cost. That in turn inflates the cost of poverty reduction programs, making them require increased taxation. This in turn drags down the economy, creating more poverty.

Is not cheaper to help only the poor then have the plastic,energy etc cheap for everyone? Seems like the ones that consume and pollute the most will have the most too lose.

The poor and especially the middle class account for the vast majority of consumption and pollution in aggregate.

Per capita the rich consume more, but not as much more as you might think. The typical multi-millionaire or even billionaire does not personally consume 1000X or 1000000X more than your typical member of the middle class. Maybe 10X more at most. Beyond a certain point this is "paper wealth." Diminishing marginal utility of goods and services kicks in pretty hard once you reach the upper middle class to "lower rich" brackets. You just don't get much more value from consuming more because you've hit the value limits of technology and/or human subjective perception.

The rich also derive their wealth largely through poor and middle class consumption. They either run industries directly, invest in them, or profit off rents that could not be paid without other industrial activity to subsidize them.

The point was about the poor, middle class should be able to afford the recycling costs.

From all the products that were listed the only ones I think could affect poor people would be the car tires, if the prices for this tires would increase, but plastic straws or sticks for baloons costing more won't affect the poor that much.

They have already started to look for alternatives to plastic and rubber in car tires. http://www.continentaltire.com/news/continental-constructing...

Cool, I hope we will have good ,safe and cheap tires. If the law does not put a bit of pressure we never get this new technology.

I was also thinking that it would be good if we got brakes like the racing cars have, those strong breaks could save some lives, I know there is a log of G force but it would be better then an almost instant stop in a wall.

> That in turn inflates the cost of poverty reduction programs, making them require increased taxation.

That, or reducing spending, or increasing taxation income through other investments.

If the economy is being boosted by the cost to the environment being ignored, that just means the world is taking on a type of debt.

Being able to buy products that are most cost effective is the only real way we’ve found to be able to reduce poverty.

If we factor the recycling costs in this products and implement that recycling then all is fine, the products have the correct price and the recycling also takes place.

The problem is when the environmental costs are not included and it must be paid by the next generation.

About energy some countries have special prices for the first X KW of energy used for poor families, so it is possible to have the energy prices increased so people would try turning off things they don't need.

I wonder about your intentions.

Stainless steel cutlery for a family costs about 30 euros. This is nothing compared to the cost of living in France.

After 1 - 2 years, it is also cheaper than plastic forks and knives.

I can't see this killing off disposable cutlery completely, there are too many businesses that rely on it. Disposable cutlery can be made from wood for example (and often is, e.g. chopsticks).

That said, is it really an issue? A complete set of cutlery for a family of 3 would cost less than 10USD, delivered (based on a quick eBay search). No doubt plastic "non-disposable" cutlery is or would be cheaply available locally.

Disposable cutlery does not need to disappear, we need to have them properly recycled. You could pay an extra 1Euro at a fast food, and get it back when you return the plastic like with beer bottles.

Or as you suggest use wood or paper based ones.

Yes, but when you are limited in your transportation, and can’t buy online, and that’s the case for some poor families, the local supermarket and their plastic cutleries is a solution that just works.

And what's wrong with disposable cutlery made out of wood, that could also be reused? It's already used, manufacturing costs are likely similar...

In the UK, metal cutlery is available in supermarkets for less than 1USD per utensil. Are you suggesting this is too much?

What do you mean? They are so poor they can't afford metal or wood tools?

We need to consider the real costs of this products, to include the price we need to pay to recycle them.

Yes, it’s what I meant.

Plastic culterly can be found in your local supermarket for very cheap, and when you don’t have a car, and can’t received packages from Amazon, it can be truly your unique solution.

But is not everyone you are thinking of have already metal tools? you use those for life. I see plastic things used for fast foods or maybe you have some cheap gathering and don't want to use your good tools so they are not lost.

Of course metal and wood tools are usually of a better quality, and they are nicer. I would avoid plastic until I can’t financially. However, the rationale of poor families buy plastic ustensils does make sense. You can buy a lot more for 2 or 3 euros, can reuse it, and it’s more easily obtainable.

For somebody from Holland it's hard to understand how any family being that poor in a country like France with all it's socialism and union rights can be a thing.

We count as quite capitalistic compared to France but just for having children alone you get a compensation that already puts you out of that territory. (Of course we don't take this compensation away for working parents -- everybody always gets its. And from the age of 16 it's actually deposited in the account of the child itself)

And that's not even our (dressed down) welfare system: this is just making sure kids in school grow up in a somewhat egalitarian way.

This has to be an exaggeration. Nobody is that poor in France, right?

Environmental policy is probably the main factor that has driven a wedge between progressives/liberals and the working class. Nearly all environmental regulations are regressive when considered as taxes. The rich can afford to pay more for cleaner energy, durable goods, recycling, and so on. The poor cannot.

I am not saying that either concern is invalid. Environmental concerns are real. I am simply pointing out a political problem that needs to be solved.

Environmental collapse also disproportionately hurts the poor. When a drought strikes, they’re the first to starve. At least the pain inflicted by regulations can be mitigated, while collapse leads to something like Libya.

I was not arguing otherwise. Whenever I bring up issues like this I get a lot of "shoot the messenger."

My point was not that environmental concerns are wrong but that they do tend to decrease the economic well being of poor and middle class people more right now vs. the status quo. That in turn tends to anger these classes of people right now, causing them to vote for people like Donald Trump. Trump, a super-hard-right Republican, won largely because of working class traditionally progressive economic concerns.

The poor also cannot afford the luxury of thinking about the future. When you are poor your primary concern is getting out of poverty right f'ing now. Screw the future. The rich on the other hand can sacrifice for the future because they have abundance.

Try some grinding poverty and come back and tell me how much you care about what happens in 100 years. Now try some grinding poverty with children. Tell me how much you care about the great Pacific garbage patch after you watch your kids suffer a bit.

This is why I think what I call "abstinence based" environmental policies are doomed. I draw a deliberate analogy with right-wing abstinence-based sex-ed, which also fails pretty reliably. Abstinence based environmental policy is any attempt to solve environmental problems by preaching and shaming the poor and middle class into reducing consumption for the sake of some future ideal that might as well be heaven-and-hell as far as they are concerned here and now.

The only way we will create a world where we care about the future is to elevate as many people as possible out of poverty. This means we must build systems that create abundance now and try to figure out how to do so as sustainably as possible. If people can't afford the luxury of caring about the future, nothing serious will ever be done about massive problems like climate change.

That’s a strong argument for ignoring the desperately poor where long term survival is concerned, is that really the argument you meant to make?

This article and law proposal was not about energy, it is all about cheap plastic, fishing equipment and tires, though I did not understand if they plan to do anything about the car tires.

You can have good environmental laws and have the person that pollutes pay and encourage recycling. I am not from US but I don't think the elections were influenced by environmental politics

Environmental and economic concerns are never at odds with each other. - It can only look like they are when you do the numbers of economy wrong.

You can avoid having poor people pay more by creating recycle points, you pay more on a soda can or bottle but you get the extra money back when you return the empty can/bottle. (I know some will say is not comfortable to do this so we need more education to have people understand why this is important)

In fact in Norway, bottle returns are accepted in pretty much every store or gas station (pretty much anywhere that sells bottled drinks), and have been an income source for kids or poor people for decades. It's contributed to a collection rate in the 95%+ range, so it doesn't just mitigate the increased costs, it provides income.

Exactly, so who would not like this? Someone that uses a lot and can't be bother to bring the bottles back but he would like the money returned.

I know that someone could invent now some extremely rare scenario but I am talking about a big majority.

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