Should we be more worried about plastic than global warming?

[Slasher]

IA reduction of plastic packaging, plastic bags and disposable cups and cutlery Worldwide would be a step in the right direction in my opinion.

TS you know I luvs ya, but can I just ask why you're on the anti-plastic bandwagon? Too many shopping bags floatin' around the lagoon?

Just askin dear.

[Bob]

Ah, yes, the US is the culprit. That's the Guardian's story and they're sticking to it.

https://www.fastcompany.com/3051847/mos ... -countries

http://bigthink.com/robby-berman/where- ... m-try-asia

Aaah the eternal smugness .....

"before casting a stink-eye at China too quickly, it's worth recognizing just who it is that finances their plastic production. Who buys all the plastic products the country manufactures?That would be us.!

[Mrs Ex-Ascot]

IA reduction of plastic packaging, plastic bags and disposable cups and cutlery Worldwide would be a step in the right direction in my opinion.

TS you know I luvs ya, but can I just ask why you're on the anti-plastic bandwagon? Too many shopping bags floatin' around the lagoon?

Just askin dear.

Fair question Slasher; luckily we don't have plastic bags bobbing in the ogin here, but we do have a fair number of plastic bottles and wrappers washing up on a regular basis. Then we have the problem of inadequate rubbish collection and disposal in this area. And no matter how hard everyone tries to be ecologically minded it isn't helped by the supermarket companies packaging everything in

plastic. And health laws making everything having to be healthily packaged in plastic!

So, yes I am anti-plastic when it comes to throw away trash.

Edited to add that a few companies here have started recycling programmes here as well as ecological packaging too!

[Slasher]

I understand now. Thanks dear.

[Alisoncc]

Interesting news clip this evening. Showed chap collecting plastic waste washed up on the ice in the Arctic. There was masses of it. Showed seals, sea birds and even a polar bear entangled in dumped plastic fishing nets and rope. I think it's blue whales that swim along with their cavernous mouths open collecting krill. Wonder how many of them are dying due to ingestion of plastic.

http://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/must_see/42990391/plastic-pollution-reaching-record-levels-in-once-pristine-arctic

I suspect the days when consumption of fish was considered to be a healthy option are rapidly passing. Used to worry about mercury content. When should we start worrying about plastic embedded in our fish and chips. !!

Alison

[Mrs Ex-Ascot]

This is very bad.

https://news.sky.com/story/south-africa ... l-11264554

Nurdles spilled into the sea are far worse than an oil spill, and yet I haven't seen anything about this until today.

[ExSp33db1rd]

Our local NZ Supermarkets recently had a big campaign about ending the use of plastic bags to pack ones' goods in, but appear to be having second thoughts, and no firm date set yet. But ... they still continue to pack bakery products, a dozen biscuits, cakes etc. in hard shell plastic cases that only a child can open. Where's the sense in that ?

What happened to my being given a list, a pound note, a canvas bag and being sent off to the Grocers by my Mum, where a man in a white coat ran around like a one-armed-paper-hanger selecting all the goods from my list, throwing them in my bag, then giving me 2 Bob change ? Progress, that's what it is. Now I have to be super-intelligent to understand the Supermarket overhead signs categorising all the products, why can't toilet rolls, kitchen paper, bathroom tissues etc, all be under "Paper Goods", why do I have to think about Kitchen, Bathroom, Toiletry items, all many aisles away from each other involving much walking around and head scratching ? Then I have to remember to swipe my Loyalty card, select the account from my Credit Card, and finally .... remember my PiN number, all the while being nagged by some Digital Doris about taking my receipt and collecting my goods, and more usually - unexpected item in the bagging area, as I have doubtless screwed something up in the process.

Bah ! Humbug ! All too much.

Yours, Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells.

P.s. I can still get as many plastic bags as I need for various rubbish collecting jobs, from the rolls of free ones provided in the vegetable section, to take loose vegetables to the check out. Makes a mockery of the lip service to "no more plastic bags"

We gave up paper bags to save the forests, what will we do when we have given up plastic ? Oh Yes, the current trend to "re-usable" bags of some sort, which of course get left in the car. Straw baskets ? Or are they anti-social too ?

[Alisoncc]

When can we expect to start hearing warnings about fish consumption being detrimental to health? What washes up on the beaches is a small proportion of what was spilt. Quite partial to South African smoked cod fillets, no more.

A large proportion of chicken pellets is ground up fish meal. So soon even a roast chicken dinner is going to be contaminated with plastic. It has entered our food chain and there is no stopping it.

Imagine blue whales swimming along with their mouths spread wide to catch krill, and getting a belly full of plastic. Or the filter-feeders - all the molluscs, being contaminated by sucking up micro-fibres of plastic. What a mess we are making of our planet.

Anyone fancy a plate of plastic oysters, or a bouillabaisse with plastic mussels?

[Sisemen]

This is a beach in Bali which gets its rubbish from Indonesia and where they are doing sweet FA about the plastic

11.jpg (124.45 KiB) Viewed 389 times

This is a beach in Western Australia where we pretty much know not to chuck rubbish away willy-nilly

esperance beach.jpg (5.39 KiB) Viewed 389 times

Have a crack at the bloody illiterates of this world before you start heaping guilt on me! It’s largely NOT a problem that the west is creating.

[Magnus]

I laughed at the Telegraph cartoon that (think Trump) fish should be given guns to defend themselves against plastic.

[Boac]

With acknowledgements to the DT and Mr Matt

Fish.jpg (112.07 KiB) Viewed 383 times

[Magnus]

Ta, Boac, that's the one I was thinking about.

[Alisoncc]

Have a crack at the bloody illiterates of this world before you start heaping guilt on me! It’s largely NOT a problem that the west is creating.

So that makes it alright does it? How much plastic is manufactured in Indonesian fishing villages for instance? Sweet FA I suspect. It's the West that is pumping the crap into the third world.

Plastic resin pellets are classified as primary source microplastics, meaning that they were intentionally produced at the size ranging from 1-5 mm in diameter. Approximately 60 billion pounds (27 million tonnes) of nurdles are manufactured annually in the United States. One pound of pelletized HDPE contains approximately 25,000 nurdles (approximately 20 mg per nurdle). They are typically under 5 mm (0.20 in) in diameter.

Nurdles are shipped around the world in shipping containers, which regularly get lost overboard, releasing their cargo into the oceans. Spillage of nurdles is more common than anyone is aware of:

Hundreds of thousands of tiny microplastics have inundated the south-west Victorian coastline, turning Warrnambool's pristine beaches into something more evocative of a landfill.
The spill has been traced to a nearby sewage treatment facility owned and operated by Wannon Water.
It says the nurdles, commonly used for plastic manufacturing, were illegally dumped in its system, and the state's environment watchdog is now investigating.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-30/t ... ol/9207200

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Bottled water.
Found between child abuse and suicide bombings in my Book of Sins.

[Capetonian]

Bottled water in plastic bottles is a disgrace. I believe some local authorities have banned them.

In Europe supermarket floors are piled high with cases of the bloody stuff.

[John Hill]

Trump has cancelled Global Warming maybe he can put a stop to the Plastic Apocalypse too.

[Mrs Ex-Ascot]

I hate plastic water/soft drinks bottles with a passion and try to recycle as much as possible. This should go onto the Rant of the Day thread; many safari camps in the Delta purify their own drimking water using reverse osmosis and put it into glass bottles for the water cooler and provide clients with glass drinking bottles. So what do the tourists want? yes, you've guessed it: water in a sealed plastic bottle........which is produced in Maun using reverse osmosis. At least all the bottles do get sent back for recycling.

Another example of innovation in Third World Countries is to put them and other nasty materials to a cheap and practical use; the Ecobrick.

https://greenhome.co.za/building-homes-from-rubbish/

[John Hill]

All that plastic crap on the beach could be bulldozed up, steam heated and pressed into bricks. There will be enough similar plastics in the mix to make the bricks bind without the need to sort out the other crud before pressing the bricks.

HDPE is a very easy plastic to recycle and I do a batch every few weeks, it is just a matter of heating to about 180c (I use an old oven) and pressing into whatever shape takes your fancy. HDPE is number 2 recycle symbol and chances are the majority of plastic containers in your home and garage are HDPE.

A lot of packaging is "2" base with "5" lid. "5" is polypropylene which I do not mix with "2" (which is high density polyethylene).

Plastic bags are mostly HDPE or LDPE and you can put a lot of plastic bags in the mix!

If you are cursed with expanded polystyrene rubbish to dispose of I imagine throwing a gallon or two of gasoline in a barrel would dissolve a lot of that white foam and you could repeat the procedure for years eventually to have a barrel filled with solid styrene (or you could just burn it if you are that sort of person).

[BenThere]

John Hill, it's not often I have the opportunity to pay you a compliment, and when I have, you've rejected it, but I've seen the good stuff you've done with the recycling of plastic, making good things from the detritus.

While Alison seems to be alarmed to the point of eschewing seafood, I think the problem, which is real, is capable of being contained with responsible stewardship and the application of technology to remove the contaminants, recycling them into useful materials, and building a sustainable, environmentally responsible handling of plastic waste.

First, the Pacific Ocean is huge, which all of us who have flown over its length and breadth can attest. The pools of plastic waste that have accumulated are small swirls of blemish that have a long way to go before they affect the pristine nature of the Pacific to a significant degree. I agree that it's important to mitigate man-made pollution. I don't agree that the US or the Western World in general is the culprit. After all, we invented environmentalism and have spearheaded the implementation of policies to preserve and protect our planet, thanks largely to our capitalist economies that gave us the means to do so.

[Alisoncc]

You must have missed this new item Ben. Or have I made it all up just to upset you?

The global plastic binge which is already causing widespread damage to oceans, habitats and food chains, is set to increase dramatically over the next 10 years after multibillion dollar investments in a new generation of plastics plants in the US.

Fossil fuel companies are among those who have ploughed more than $180bn since 2010 into new “cracking” facilities that will produce the raw material for everyday plastics from packaging to bottles, trays and cartons.

The new facilities – being built by corporations like Exxon Mobile Chemical and Shell Chemical – will help fuel a 40% rise in plastic production in the next decade, according to experts, exacerbating the plastic pollution crisis that scientist warn already risks “near permanent pollution of the earth.”

Plastic waste is building up in the supposedly pristine wilderness of the Norwegian Arctic, scientists say.
Researchers are particularly concerned about huge concentrations of microplastic fragments in sea ice.
They say they've found plastic litter almost everywhere in the Arctic they have looked.
Norwegian fishermen are worried that their fish stocks may lose their reputation for being untouched by pollution.

Alison