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At most festivals in Switzerland, you have a single kind of reusable plastic cup, for which you pay a deposit of a few Euro. You can then hand it back at any venue part of the festival and get the deposit back. Of course it requires some dishwashing facilities, but it seems to work very well, everyone is used to it, and it avoids massive heaps of garbage.

We have these in Amsterdam too. I'll buy a beer with one of these, then by the time I'm ready to leave the lines are so long that I think "fuck it" and throw it in my bike saddlebag thinking I'll bring it back next year. It's not worth it to stand 15 minutes in a line to get 2 EUR back.

But of course I forget about it and just buy a new one at the same festival next year, and each festival will only accept their own branded cups.

So now I have a pile of these things sitting in my shed, there really needs to be some ISO standard for these plastic pints and it be made illegal to not accept ones from other festivals. I now have like 20 EUR worth of otherwise worthless plastic crap I can't exchange or sell except once a year at specific locations.

They're not branded with custom design for the event? Seems like something you could easily sell if it were. Either way, I like your idea about a standard, similar to TSA Approved beverage containers.

The Rail Ale festival in Wales [1] uses branded half-pints as entry tickets. The festival is spread out (the 'rail' part) over several locations, entry to which is granted on display of that year's half-pint glass. Once finished said half-pint ends up in the cupboard, to be pulled out when sharing a beer with friends. An avid visitor might end up with quite a few of them, true, but theses glasses being both useful as well as decorative this is not much of a problem.

[1] http://rail-ale.com/

>I wouldn't mind such a system where you e.g. get 1 EUR back for each bottle, but it's going to have to be something like that. The current deposit fees on plastic bottles are too low, once you're earning enough money it doesn't make any financial sense to return them.

I think in some countries if you don't want to get your money back you leave the bottles and cans near the garbage bin or other places and a kid or a poor person will return it and make some money.

In Lituania after we implemented deposit system for cans, there was 97% return ratio in 2017. This was so unexpected that agency responsible for managing deposit system had to updated agreements with beverage producers because of this.

> I think in some countries if you don't want to get your money back you leave the bottles and cans near the garbage bin or other places and a kid or a poor person will return it and make some money.

Indeed. Personally I do this because it's not worth it for me to recycle it on my own, but I still care about the environment and my fellow man.

But what I'm pointing out is that it's an economically irrational decision on my part, and if someone doesn't give a shit about the environment to the point of not bothering with recycling unless it's costing them money not to do it, they probably don't care that much about their fellow man either.

So in some sense it's a regressive tax (although short term), but I'd be for a policy where drinks cost a bit more to make it economically worthwhile for more people who aren't going to do it because they're nice, but for profit.

> Personally I do this because it's not worth it for me to recycle it on my own, but I still care about the environment and my fellow man.

> But what I'm pointing out is that it's an economically irrational decision on my part,

It's not economically irrational; as obviously the condition of “the environment and your fellow man” play into your personal utility function.

By this strange definition my desire to live as a beggar in Thailand for 10 years to meditate find my inner self even though I might hypothetically make $1M/yr now working in an office iseconomically rational.

When people (including myself) say that something is economically rational it's commonly understood to mean that any given person wouldn't make the same choice if given the choice, not that you can't find an example of someone who'll do otherwise.

In other words talking about something being "economically rational" is the other side of there being an "economic incentive".

In this case the economic incentives of not just throwing away plastics aren't aligned with the desired effect. This is a classic example of an externality coupled with the tragedy of the commons.

> By this strange definition

It's the standard definition underlying rational actor theory, and exactly what rationality means in economics.

I consider myself to be an environmentalist and normally wouldn't think twice about taxing producers of plastic for its cleanup, but this doesn't get to the real issue. Most oceanic plastic comes from only a handful of sources: a few rivers in Asia. The plastic cups at a London Starbucks aren't killing sea turtles.

What we need is a cultural change in places like china. They need to stop dumping plastic waste into rivers and instead put it in landfills. Landfills are evil, but not nearly as evil as what is happening to our rivers and oceans. So rather than spend our money/energy on reducing plastic use in Europe we should address our attentions to the much larger issue in Asia. The good news is that we already know how to solve the problem, it doesn't cost that much, nor does it require radical changes to behavior. We just need to convince a handful of countries to do what a great many have already been doing for decades: landfill the plastic.

You're conflating two unrelated issues. The visible plastic garbage scattered around European streets, parks and beaches isn't coming from rivers in Asia, it's garbage that's locally thrown away.

Reducing the total amount of plastics disposed into the oceans is a worthy but orthogonal goal, by the time it makes it to European shores it's mostly pulverized by ocean activity.

The EU also stands to impact world production by its choices. A factory in Asia that's making plastic cups now for the domestic market and for exports might switch entirely to making paper cups if the EU only buys paper cups.

> I'm open to this, it sucks to have to throw so much crap away after ordering take-away, but I haven't seen a container yet that would be suitable for e.g. 80 degree centigrade soups, stews etc. What are the alternatives that are cheap enough for disposable take-away use?

Maybe a deposit system? The fancy milk I like to buy comes in glass bottles with a $2 deposit. That's enough that I hold on to them and take them back to the grocery store. A similar practice could be used for take-out/delivery restaurants.

> ...must issue plastic cups to curb broken class everywhere. Will we have to go back to glass...

I'd say multiple-use polycarbonate is a better substitute. It has the rigidity of glass without the brittleness. What it lacks is hardness (it scratches rather easily) so these containers probably won't last as long as glass ones before they need to be replaced.

> ...The current deposit fees on plastic bottles are too low, once you're earning enough money it doesn't make any financial sense to return them.

Then thrash them, fine. As long as you don't toss 'm out of your window but put them in the bin when done with them they should end up in some recycling process, paid for by the deposit fee you waived. This does imply that the deposit fee balance should go to these purposes instead of ending up as a profit statement somewhere.

There are compostable plastic cups made of PLA, such as https://greenpaperproducts.com/biodegradable-cold-cups.aspx. They work fine so long as you're not holding anything hot in them (I've seen them melt when someone tried to serve tea in one).

> Amsterdam has made it a policy that big events (including normal bars when the event is going on) must issue plastic cups to curb broken class everywhere. Will we have to go back to glass, or drink our beer out of paper cups?

A quick search for recyclable cups and plates returned plenty of results. And are paper cups bad for beer?

I suppose if I wanted to try my luck at getting spat on I could offer a French person some red wine in a brown paper coffee cup.

More seriously there needs to be some compromise between the ecological impact of the container and undoing some of the cultural value associated with it, in this case a red wine glass or a beer glass.

With a plastic beer or wine glass you can at least propose some sort of toast and hear some sort of "clink" when you bring the glasses together, the same's not true of paper. People are going to resent the EU if bureaucrats are seen to take away the simple pleasures of life.

> What are the alternatives that are cheap enough for disposable take-away use?

Reusable containers that come with a refundable deposit? Ie. when the guy delivers your soup, he takes back the container from the last time around? Just an idea.

>Will we have to go back to glass, or drink our beer out of paper cups?

They're called cans and they're highly recyclable.