France bids adieu to plastic cups (!)

If you've ever visited France, you've probably seen tourists drinking wine outside. In little plastic cups.

Well, a new law might change that.

The law bans plastic cups, plates and cutlery. Over the next four years, they'll be replaced by ones you can compost.

The idea is to cut down on the amount of garbage that stays in the ground, like the 5 billion plastic cups the French trash each year.

We asked author and Paris resident Anne Penketh what she thought about all that waste.

"Frankly," she says, "I was baffled."

Anne's surprise comes from the fact that France has a culture where you eat food at a table, not on the go.

I totally experienced this a few years back. I was at a restaurant in Paris. After finishing most of my meal, I asked the waiter to wrap up the rest.

He was also baffled, and seemed to go on a long scavenger hunt to find a container.

That surprised me.
 
It doesn't surprise Anne Penketh, though. Doggie bags just are not a thing in Paris.

"I think it's a crime against food, really," she says.

But that's not the point of the new law, which will replace plastic plates and forks with green ones.

Some French people say that's just going to encourage others to generate more trash. You know, because it something is compostable, it encourages guilt-free consumption.

But Penketh thinks the switch should be good for the environment.

"That is really the point of course. The French obviously want to be seen as exemplary, leading the way on the environment because they did host if you recall, last December, the big international conference on curbing global warming," she says.

So if you're en route to France, plan ahead. For sipping wine, bring glasses. And if you don't, consider drinking from the bottle.