I think a lot of people outside Europe will see this as overreach by the state, but given waste cleanup is paid for by the tax payer and is an ever increasing cost/problem, banning products needlessly adding to rubbish when inexpensive reusable alternatives makes sense.
I think you mean "a lot of people in the USA" :) In most of the other parts of the world, people would either see the wisdom of this approach because they understand good government, or not bat an eyelid because they're used to bad government (and consequently overreach).
Yeah in the Netherlands most young people don't smoke anymore. In Spain a lot of them do and people even smoke in clubs etc while this is banned EU wide.
Far more serious is that these disposable vapes are easily accessible to kids as young as 12. Literally one third of the kids in my child's secondary school are vaping in the toilets between classes. It would be much harder to do this if they had to pay for and use a large permanent vape . It's an epidemic and that is not hyperbole. The environmental gains of this ban are just icing on the cake.
I am one of these people that think its overreach.
People find some value in this product. Enough so they're buying it even though its expensive and potentially hazardous to their health. All the problems associated with that problem should be managed. We should have technology to manage the waste. It's an engineering problem and I'd much rather prefer that we engineer technology to serve what people want than try to engineer humans to adapt to limitations of our technology.
The most absurd manifestation of this attitude is an image heating people vs heating spaces and tries to unironically argue that people should prefer to live in cold spaces and just adapt with things like cozy furniture, warm clothes, hot drinks and local heating. Real dystopian stuff to anyone who has lived like this.
Nowhere does that post or the image argue that people should prefer one over the other. Wearing warmer clothes instead of turning up the heater isn't a bad thing either, so I don't understand your hostility towards the idea?
Well, on the other hand, we as a society should be able to decide if we want to allow some people to make $billions selling purely addictive substances to other people in our society. And whether they get to mass produce a bunch of e-waste in their pursuit of those $billions that the rest of society has to deal with.
The personal choice aspect is actually the lesser consideration.
>but given waste cleanup is paid for by the tax payer and is an ever increasing cost/problem, banning products needlessly adding to rubbish when inexpensive reusable alternatives makes sense.
