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At the end of 2025, significant news regarding the achievement of “green” objectives came from France. It concerns the four-year prorogation of the nationwide ban on the use of the famous single-use plastic cups, a ban that should have been enforced from the first day of 2026.
Just two days before this measure was due to come into force, the French government published a decree announcing a new deadline of 1st January 2030, four years later than previously agreed. The reason for this delay, according to an official statement from the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Ministry of Economy and Finance, was that a recent analysis showed that decision-makers were a bit worried about the “technical feasibility” of actually phasing out plastic cups.
Although this not-so-short extension has been granted, the French authorities have announced a new reassessment in 2028 to determine whether and to what extent progress has been made in reducing the quantity of plastic cups on the French market.
Perhaps to keep the hopes of radical environmentalists alive, the French government has announced that, depending on the 2028 results, the deadline for the ban to come into force could be changed, with cups containing “only traces of plastic” at most being accepted after 2030 (who and how will measure these “traces” to be determined).
From 2024 onwards, according to French regulations, the maximum plastic content allowed in these products is 8%, almost half of the maximum plastic content regulated until then.
The government’s explanation regarding “technical feasibility” does not seem to have satisfied environmental activists, a “fragile” argument, according to the spokesperson for an organization called Zero Waste France, which sees this postponement as “yet another step backwards in the fight against pollution, under pressure from lobbies.”
Green radicals whining are a clear sign of their growing dissatisfaction with the delay in implementing certain measures that have, in fact, ignored or even denied economic and social realities.
When we discuss the Green Deal and mandatory policies to “save” the environment, we are actually talking about deeply ideological unilateral overregulation, the real benefits of which are questionable at best. Not only do these policies fail to offer a clear and effective solution, and fail to propose a pragmatic and truly responsible approach to a very serious problem, one that objectively includes all parties involved, but they also generate extremely high costs that are unsustainable in the long term, harming both companies and domestic consumers. What real alternative does the elimination of cups made partly from plastic entail? Cups made from a supposedly biodegradable material, the cost of which is almost prohibitive for ordinary people? A question to which we already know the answer.
Environmental fanatics blame the failure to meet deadlines, insufficient regulations or slow enforcement, even disregard for legal consequences. In fact, regulations are excessive, sanctions are disproportionate, and deadlines are not met because the authors of these “stringent” policies do not seem to take into account what is happening in real life. It is no wonder that the growing opinion is that this Green Deal is nothing more than a utopia, a destructive one.
The decision to postpone the ban on plastic cups is more relevant than it may seem. This is yet another example—which is becoming classic—of irrational regulation that ignores the economic or social impact and the interests of society and communities. When a government such as France’s acknowledges the practical impossibility of implementing such a measure, it shows how fantasy-driven the instruments of the “fight” against pollution are. No deal or vision that does not offer true pragmatic alternatives, however “green” or noble it may seem, can replace responsible and realistic policies.