EU needs to do more than ban plastic forks

Demanding more from producers should go hand in hand with export and land-filling restrictions on plastic waste

The European Union is close to outlawing some single-use plastic products, such as cutlery, straws, coffee stirrers and cotton swab sticks — but the measures are too narrow and too lenient toward producers to have a meaningful benefit for the environment. The EU, as one of the biggest producers and the biggest exporter of plastic waste, should do better than this.

On Wednesday, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to approve the new rules on plastics. Member states must agree to the measure, but that’s all but guaranteed since the final proposal was coordinated with them. The idea was to cut down