Sirens won't save us from litter

Keeping up on the news back in Florida, I read with keen interest about an environmental group that dumped a massive amount of plastic garbage on the front steps of the state capitol building in Tallahassee.  The day before, Tom pointed out this poster to me on the Avenue Emile Zola:

"The Sirens don't exist.  The trash cans, yes."  

"Marine litter has most often been thrown on the ground."

"Litter is for the garbage can."

The sources of that disgusting (and deadly, for sea life) plastic garbage floating out at sea are litterbugs all over the world.

This cleverly created poster is part of a campaign by Clean Gestures, a project of a French nonprofit organization called Progress and Environment, founded in 1971.  I found this interesting tidbit on the Clean Gestures web site:  "Clean Gestures estimates about 520,000 tonnes of litter was discarded in 2018 in France, the equivalent of 52 Eiffel Towers."

Passing by the St. Louis church at Les Invalides
on the way to dinner.

Inexplicably, the Florida legislature has blocked attempts to ban or control single-use plastics.  The legislators initially left a loophole in their preemptive law, leaving plastic straws free to be banned.  And so a few cities in the state did ban plastic straws.  This year, the legislature attempted to put a moratorium on the enforcement of these local plastic straw bans, but the governor vetoed that attempt.  This battle will rage on.

In the European Union, officials are banning some single-use plastics, including disposable cutlery, plates and straws, in an effort to reduce the rate of marine pollution.  In 2016, France became the first country in the world to ban disposable plastic cutlery and dishes.

Still, that leaves all the pollution that is already afloat out there, causing problems for marine life.  A group of 18 nations (France and the U.S. included) has come together in the Marine Litter Solutions project to work on this global catastrophe.  If humans don't fix this problem, there will soon be more plastic than fish in the ocean.

When you dine out in Paris, you do not see plastic straws.  We almost never have seen them used in restaurants or cafés in the 22 summers we've been here.  Plastic straws truly are unnecessary, except for people with some disability that affects their ability to drink from cups or glasses.  For them, there are re-usable straws.

Sitting in the indoor/outdoor area at Restaurant Felix.

For people who insist on using disposable straws, a Vietnamese company is now making them out of grass.  Reportedly, the grass straws do not get as soggy as paper straws do.

We did not see any straws last night, of course, when we dined at Restaurant Felix on the Avenue de Ségur.  We always order a big bottle of sparkling water to share at dinner.  The water is cold when it is brought to the table.  Glasses are provided, of course, but generally we are not given any ice unless we ask for it.  Straws?  No.  I wonder if straws are even available at most restaurants in Paris.

We shared a refreshing and flavorful beet salad as a starter course.  Then Tom had a bass filet again, with spinach and finely chopped veggies and tabbouleh.  I ordered the skate, with capers in a lemon-butter sauce, served with a big pile of spinach.  I always wonder why skate isn't served more often in Florida restaurants.  It is so fine!

Sea bass (above) and skate (below) make a fine seafood and veggies dinner
at Restaurant Felix.

We shared a café gourmand and pain perdu for dessert.  I hope yesterday's four miles of walking burned some of those calories.

When we left the restaurant at 9PM, we were surprised to see that we were the only diners there for the evening.  Perhaps somebody walked through the door after 9, but by 10PM, the dinner hour is coming to an end in France.  Not so in Italy and Spain, but definitely in France.

Days are shorter now.  We sat on the apartment's balcony for a half hour, watching the dying light and enjoying the cool breeze.  Let August begin.

Scenes below from the garden at UNESCO.