Posted on 10/01/2008 6:46:16 AM PDT by sportsone234
We are facing an ecological disaster of immense proportions. This is a disaster of our own making, one that could have been prevented if not predicted with precision.
Let’s start with just a few facts. Every piece of plastic that has ever been produced and has not been re-cycled (less than 2%) still exists . . . all of it. According to a recent article in Salon, every year Americans throw away some 100 billion plastic bags after they’ve been used to transport a prescription home from the drugstore or a quart of milk from the grocery store. It’s equivalent to dumping nearly 12 million barrels of oil.
(Excerpt) Read more at saynotoplastic.wordpress.com ...
Why? anything made on this earth came from the elements of the earth to begin with. There is nothing “un-natural”.
More BS from an enviro nazi. Nonsense. Plastic being rather soft and malleable will be weathered down by nature. Another idiot who thinks we can change the environment and nature or fight against it.
I agree 110 percent!! We need to give up plastic bags, cars, flush toilets, laundry detergent, fossil fuels and all those things that make life in the US such an ecological nightmare. We all need to live a sustainable third-world existence. A life span of 47 years, spent living next to an open ditch of running sewage, is a small price to pay.
Ever see a church with stained glass windows that's got a barely translucent film or covering on the outside of the building? That's polycarbonate sheet . When it goes up it's clear as glass...the yellowing is caused by UV and it's the visible evidence that the seet is degrading. Leave it up there long enough and it will crumble.
A) If plastic dostn’t biodegrade, then in the future it can be mined in landfills...if it ever turns out to have any value, which I doubt.
B) I don’t litter, and I especially don’t throw plastic into the ocean, so don’t bother trying to guilt me.
C) If people are dumping plastics into the ocean, then punish them—though I suspect (because the article doesn’t mention the source) that our wonderful neighbors to the south are doing it, which means nothing will happen.
You don’t see that kind of thing on VA roads very often. We don’t throw our trash out our car windows.
Oh, please! What’s so tough about not using a plastic bag or throwing it away in a responsible manner? Give me a break.
No one is asking you to do anything except understand the consequences of throwing away an item that you used for a few minutes and will last for thousands of years.
It’s not that tough.
Here's a pretty sad photo from the article. Animals are the primary victims of plastic waste. As the article says, "More than a million seabirds, 100,000 marine mammals, and countless fish die in the North Pacific each year, either from mistakenly eating this junk or from being ensnared in it and drowning."
That's both reprehensible and avoidable.
98% of the plastic from the vinyl car roofs of the 1980's has completely deteriorated.
Our local power company cleanly burns garbage (including plastics) to generate electricity.
Clock king says it best...”Why? anything made on this earth came from the elements of the earth to begin with. There is nothing “un-natural.”
Not to mention the fact that process of thermal depolymerization (TDP), developed by Changing World Technologies, can recover petroleum from ALL waste. Bio-waste, post-consumer, and industrial wastes (non-nuclear) can be converted to differeing percentages of farm diesel, water, and steam (repowering the TDP process).
These folks need to quit whining about land fills and recognize them for what they are, a dent in dependance on foreign petroleum.
Plastic is killing us?
Plastic needs to get in line!
Hey, don’t blame me. I burn my plastic trash.
What I do know for sure is that it makes an ugly statement up against a wire fence for mile upon unending mile.
Let’s start with just a few facts. Every piece of plastic that has ever been produced and has not been re-cycled (less than 2%) still exists . . . all of it.
No it doesn't, just leave something plastic like a milk jug or bag in the sun for 6 months and see for yourself. It photodegrades in UV light. Fungus breaks it down too. It might hang around in a landfill but then again a landfill is going to essentially be a "resource storage site" at some point...
Oh, bullcrap. Liberals are pushing for bans on plastic bags all over the place. They would love to get rid of cars, and some have gone so far as to push for elimination of flush toilets. I think YOU need to re-think who you are associating with.
I reuse my plastic bags as either trash bags in the house or to scoop what the dogs leave. I admit tho, I end up with lots of extras, so I use them as packing material at Christmas (let someone else throw them away!) ;)
susie
Oh goodie. Another CRISIS!! I guess the leftists realize that this week’s Wall Street scare didn’t work they way they thought it would. Now it’s PLASTIC!!!!!!!
The people who toss that stuff out of their car windows are the same ones who leave used baby diapers in Walmart’s parking lot...
susie
I’m not a chemist. What does it degrade into?
susie
Then it's time to take the fences down.
:)
Who wrote that, Rachel Carson?
The people chucking diapers in a walmart lot are named susie? How do you know this?
This all started with fire and the wheel. Get rid of those and everything will return to “normal”.
I don't think it degrades into susie.
Plastic shopping bags are photodegradeable in as little as 3 months. It takes far less resources to make a plastic shopping bag as it does a paper shopping bag.
pointing to a rare exception does not make the rule. The fact is that most of nature absorbs plastic just fine.
We could ban plastics in cars.
Which would cause cars to weigh a lot more and use a lot more gas.
Tradeoffs, folks.
How does my plastic get from the dump to the Pacific Ocean?
Me, too. :)
Back in the early 90s when recycling got big a local professor did a study at the abandoned town dump. He had students dig down into the dump and pull out what they found. They were taking out newspapers and food from the 70s. Landfills are so devoid of air that very little decomposition is going on.
I agree that at some point someone will start building plants using trash in thermal depolymerization or other process.
I gotta make me one of those wasp-waist turtles.
They might be, but none of them are me!
susie
Hmmm I think you have an issue with my name. Is it yours as well?
susie
Are they inert? I’m just curious if they are stable as plastic, or if they eventually break down into their constituent parts. Like I said, chemistry is NOT my strong suit.
susie
I blame this guy.
I am glad you pointed this out. Sadly, where aside from a very few areas, is the technology being implemeted. Outside of Philadelphia and Missiouri...nothing?
There is definitely some truth in this story, don’t be like the libs and blindly reject things off hand.
No, most plastic grocery bags are not degradable. Degradable bags cost more money and most grocery chains will not spend the additional money because they work on such slim margins which BTW, are around 2-3%.
I take my plastic bags to Wal-Mart for recycling. They don’t take all bags—just the grocery store kind.
I don’t like waste. I definitely don’t like the sight of litter. I grew up in the 70’s with the Indian in the canoe crying and Woodsy the Owl—”give a hoot, don’t pollute, never be a dirty bird” so I always try to pick up litter around the neighborhood.
I also don’t like the thought of animals getting hurt and I know that they do from litter on land and in the oceans.
It makes me sick to think about how much stuff just my household throws out. I used to recycle, but I’m not sure if recycling does any good or not. I’ve heard it takes more energy to recycle than it does to create something new. For things like cell phones and computers, I always try to recycle those kind of things.
I watched an interesting show on cable the other day about the ways different people/industries are coming up with new ideas of recycling. I can’t remember all the details on this one deal, but they had something where they blast your garbage back down to its most basic elements. I’m not sure if it was the same plant, but one of them used the energy to run the plant. The show featured all kinds of innovations for recycling—sewage, computers and other e-garbage, nuclear waste. People are working on it and I’m happy to hear about it.
This article is from 1996, but I remember reading it on FR just a few years ago. I have no idea if it has any merit or not.
Recycling Is Garbage
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE1DF1339F933A05755C0A960958260
This isn’t the commerical I grew up with, but here’s Woody the Owl for a trip down memory lane:
Woodsy Owl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WyBwxUqoDw
Found the program I watched on cable. It was on the Science Channel. This plant isn’t the garbage blaster plant I was talking about, but this is from the same program:
Science Channel - Single Stream Recycling MRF
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls_Y7cadISc
Here’s a commercial from an upcoming? already aired? program on NatGeo.
National Geographic Channel - 2008 Human Footprint Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsZAfrE2SaQ
The things I don’t like about some environmentalists is they take it to the extreme and want people to stop having children and live like cavemen to “save the planet”. There’s got to be a happy medium between the extremists.
It won’t last for “thousands of years”. If plastics were so tough we’d used it to coat the space shuttle, airplanes, road surfaces, houses, etc. I used to purchase the most expenses deck stain and finishes (liquid plastic) for the decks of my 42 foot ketch. So how come I was always having to redo the decks? You’d be amazed at what the sun and salt air can degrade. I agree with you though to dispose of things in a responsible manner.
There is no viable substitute for the many ways plastic is used. That’s just a cold, hard fact. Greenies should realize they are beating their head against a wall attempting to ban plastic.
The “solution” lies in processes like the one in this story.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/business/09plastic.html
A Plastic Wrapper Today Could Be Fuel Tomorrow
WASHINGTON, April 8 — Scientists worldwide are struggling to make motor fuel from waste, but Richard Gross has taken an unusual approach: making a “fuel-latent plastic,” designed for conversion. It can be used like ordinary plastic, for packaging or other purposes, but when it is waste, can easily be turned into a substitute diesel fuel.
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