New plant-based bottles will degrade in a year.

Oh no! We'll need to find a new global pollutant!

The Guardian: The end of plastic? New plant-based bottles will degrade in a year.

Beer and soft drinks could soon be sipped from “all-plant” bottles under new plans to turn sustainably grown crops into plastic in partnership with major beverage makers.

[Avantium] biochemicals company in the Netherlands hopes to kickstart investment in a pioneering project that hopes to make plastics from plant sugars rather than fossil fuels.
[.]
“This plastic has very attractive sustainability credentials because it uses no fossil fuels, and can be recycled – but would also degrade in nature much faster than normal plastics do,” says [Avantium’s chief executive, Tom van Aken].

Avantium’s plant plastic is designed to be resilient enough to contain carbonate drinks. Trials have shown that the plant plastic would decompose in one year using a composter, and a few years longer if left in normal outdoor conditions. But ideally, it should be recycled, said Van Aken.

From "kickstart 'hopes to'" to "finished, completed successful product" is a long, long road.

If the new degradable bottles are successful, will that mean an end to all the ugly park benches made from recycled plastic? Awwwww, that's a shame.

Berkeley misses electricity. Life without fossil fuels.

Berkeleyside: Berkeley Hills goes dark.

Power went out starting at 11 p.m. Wednesday[.]

Power started to go out around Berkeley around 11 p.m. PG&E’s outage map shows about 3,500 homes and businesses without power, which means many thousand more than that don’t have working electricity.
[.]
[A] resourceful Berkeley resident, Patrick Buechner, couldn’t live without his morning coffee so he set up his camping stove to boil water.

Everyone is, of course, blaming PG&E.

Cali Gov DEM Gavin Newsom is mostly concerned with the wineries. The Sacramento Bee - Newsom ‘outraged’ by PG&E blackouts, but says they’re needed:

Most of the outages are in the hills ringing the Sacramento Valley and the state’s wine country where Newsom, who made his fortune in the wine business, noted that his wineries are in the midst of grape crushing season and desperate for power.

“I’d rather criticize Donald Trump than act like him, talking about my businesses in Northern California, but we’re in the middle of wine crush and folks are running around trying to get generators right now,” he said. “It’s very consequential.”

Desperate for power? What about relying on the wonderful, clean, green solar and wind turbine energy?

Criticizing is easy. Finding solutions to problems? Not as easy.

Californians may find themselves without electricity for extended periods of time, but they can rest well knowing they've solved the problems of plastic straws and little shampoo bottles from hotels. Maybe the rolling power outages are The Revenge of The Plastic Straws and Monster Shampoo Bottles.

Electricity...is soooooo 1980's...
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Berkeleyside Archived
Sacramento Bee Archived

California considers ban on complimentary hotel shampoo.

...And then, only outlaws will have small bottles of shampoo.

Daily Mail: California plan to ban free hotel shampoo.

A bill passed in California on Monday could ban hotels in the state from supplying guests with small complimentary bottles of shampoo, conditioner, lotion and other care products.

The move comes as part of an effort to stem plastic consumption and also limit plastic waste thrown out by guests and hotel operators.
[.]
If the bill becomes a law, lodging establishments would be inspected regularly and any owners or operators found to in breach of the statute would face hefty fines.

Maybe this bill simply seeks a method to prevent Joe Biden from inhaling their hair.

Next up, hotel guests will be required to bring their own TP.