It’d be a good time to relearn how to do the dishes because France just became the first country in the world to ban all plastic plates, cups, and silverware. Passed in August, the bill won’t officially take effect until 2020, the Associated Press reports, giving business owners plenty of time to adapt their methods.
Switching from disposable plastic cutlery to reusable or biodegradable options will have a tremendously positive impact on the environment. As many know by now, plastic products that end up in landfills can take anywhere from a few decades to 1,000 years to fully decompose. While France was a little late to the game banning plastic bags (a measure that went into effect this past July), it’s the first country to extend the reach of these bans in an effort to reduce plastic consumption nationwide.
This decision comes in the wake of the Paris Climate Agreement, which took place in December of 2015 and resulted in 195 countries adopting a global action plan to fight global warming. While opponents may argue that banning plastic utensils hurts consumers, measures like these are crucial to instigating quantifiable change. With France currently leading the way in terms of ecologically progressive legislation, hopefully other countries (like the United States, for instance) will take notice and do the same.