Demonstrating the eco-fanaticism that caused Santa Barbara to prohibit dining establishment to offer plastic drinking straws is not limited to the Fools’ Golden State, the U.K. is going further and outright banning them, with exceptions only for “medical reasons” starting in April of 2020. The ban also applies to drink stirrers and cotton buds.

While this seems like just one more excess from a country that is trying to outlaw pointy objects—and it is—this action is actually far less sweeping than the European Union with a ban on selected single-use products including:

“[C]otton bud sticks, cutlery, plates, straws, stirrers, sticks for balloons, as well as cups, food and beverage containers made of expanded polystyrene and on all products made of oxo-degradable plastic.”

Allegedly, “alternatives” exist to all of these, though clearly they don’t have to be good or even adequate alternatives; after all, what is the alternative to plastic forks and knives given out by fast food restaurants for to-go orders?

The Eurocrats don’t care. Those are problems for the little people (who will be replaced soon enough anyway.

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