The government will soon be putting together a commission to investigate forbidding plastic mugs and other single-use plastic food packaging items, Isabella Lövin of the Environment party announced yesterday. This is on top of the 3 kr tax on plastic bags Per Bolund (also Environment party) announced last month and the phasing out of plastic utensils and plates by 2021 required by the EU.
Not everyone is breaking out it adulation. Expressen’s op/ed page (“plastic in, sense out”) argues it’s not about the environment at all, it’s about more money for the government. A ban on fishing nets, on the other hand, (that make up over half the plastic waste in the ocean according to Expressen), would actually do something – but no one is talking about that.