In a move that goes beyond eliminating plastic grocery bags and styrofoam cups, Spain’s vacation-popular Balearic Islands are planning to ban all disposable plastics by 2020, including plastic cups, straws, coffee-machine capsules and disposable lighters, and presumably much of the wrapping they come in.
The legislation would cover Majorca, Ibiza and Menorca where, according to the region’s environmental chief, Sebastia Sanso, “Our territory is limited and environmentally sensitive, while an economy mainly based on tourism sends the use of such items spiralling.”
The move comes as Europe has set an official target of recycling 65% of all urban waste by 2035, and after a report found that nearly 1500 metric tons of plastic had been cleared off Spain’s Mediterranean beaches.
Other throwaway products are also being targeted; authorities say many of them are not labeled properly, such as baby-wipes that are often flushed away when they are not biodegradable; last year on Ibiza a sewage system ruptured and the break was blamed on an accumulation of such materials.
Photo: Valdehi Shah/Wikimedia
