The EU approved a ban on single-use plastics

Plastic straws, plastic cotton buds, plastic stirrers... These single-use plastic items will be banned in the European Union by 2021.

Transcript

00:00If we don't change our ways now, we will choke our oceans with plastic.

00:30It was urgent to act, to start with single-use plastics, 10 of them, and with fishing gear,

00:45this represents 70% of all marine waste.

01:00We have obtained that tobacco manufacturers, to name a few, are obliged to fund the collection,

01:25pollution control and recycling of waste.

01:28One single cigarette thrown into the ocean pollutes between 500 and 1,000 litres of water.

01:43We have a long, long way to go until we actually have a circular economy.

01:48And this is an important step.

01:50Asian countries are very much interested in what we're doing.

01:53Latin American countries as well.

01:55So even though our share of the pollution is relatively limited,

02:00our change of the economic model has a global impact,

02:05and it will also change economic models elsewhere.