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PLASTIC - AN ECOLOGICAL DISASTER OF OUR OWN MAKING
SALON, BEST LIFE MAGAZINE ^ | 09/08/2008

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 ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Education; Health/Medicine; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: disaster; doomed; plasticpollution; zot
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1 posted on 10/01/2008 6:46:17 AM PDT by sportsone234
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To: sportsone234

Why? anything made on this earth came from the elements of the earth to begin with. There is nothing “un-natural”.


2 posted on 10/01/2008 6:50:33 AM PDT by Clock King (Under revision...)
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To: sportsone234

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.


3 posted on 10/01/2008 6:50:51 AM PDT by Cacique (quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat ( Islamia Delenda Est ))
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To: sportsone234

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.


4 posted on 10/01/2008 6:51:02 AM PDT by dirtboy
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To: Clock King
No super-natural?
5 posted on 10/01/2008 6:52:26 AM PDT by In veno, veritas (Please identify my Ad Hominem attacks. I should be debating ideas.)
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To: sportsone234
Welcome to Free Republic.


6 posted on 10/01/2008 6:52:59 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: sportsone234
Plastic grocery bags, most of them labeled from WalMart, cover almost every inch of fenceline along the highways of every state between Louisiana and Montana, I discovered on two trips we've driven. They are particularly bad in Texas and New Mexico. The next ranking culprit is the styrofoam "to-go" boxes.
7 posted on 10/01/2008 6:54:41 AM PDT by JustaDumbBlonde (America: Home of The Free Because of The Brave)
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To: sportsone234
Whoever wrote this is a moron. Without UV stabilizing agents every plastic made is inherently unstable in the elements. And with the stabilizers they are less unstable but still vulnerable.

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.

8 posted on 10/01/2008 6:55:28 AM PDT by pgkdan
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To: sportsone234

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.


9 posted on 10/01/2008 6:56:14 AM PDT by denydenydeny ("[Obama acts] as if the very idea of permanent truth is passe, a form of bad taste"-Shelby Steele)
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To: JustaDumbBlonde

You don’t see that kind of thing on VA roads very often. We don’t throw our trash out our car windows.


10 posted on 10/01/2008 6:56:47 AM PDT by pgkdan
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To: dirtboy

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.


11 posted on 10/01/2008 6:57:12 AM PDT by sportsone234 (German campaign poster)
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To: Cacique

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.

12 posted on 10/01/2008 6:57:39 AM PDT by Albion Wilde (The Word of God is powerful. That's why so many people are afraid to read it.)
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To: sportsone234

http://www.mcnblogs.com/mcindie/archives/images/onoz_omg2.gif


13 posted on 10/01/2008 6:58:15 AM PDT by bmwcyle (Vote McWhatshisname and PALIN)
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To: sportsone234
Baloney.

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.

14 posted on 10/01/2008 6:59:32 AM PDT by Senator_Blutarski (No good deed goes unpunished.)
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To: sportsone234; Clock King

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.


15 posted on 10/01/2008 6:59:35 AM PDT by petro45acp (NO good endeavor survives an excess of "adult supervision" (read bureaucracy)!)
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To: sportsone234

Plastic is killing us?

Plastic needs to get in line!


16 posted on 10/01/2008 6:59:39 AM PDT by gridlock (The Democrats have attacked Motherhood. If they attack Baseball and Apple Pie, we got it made!)
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To: sportsone234

Hey, don’t blame me. I burn my plastic trash.


17 posted on 10/01/2008 7:01:09 AM PDT by technically right
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To: pgkdan
I'm not so sure it all comes from throwing it from car. Some probably comes from trash that got ripped open by some animal and I have seen quite a bit of crap fly from garbage trucks. No doubt though, most of it is thrown.

What I do know for sure is that it makes an ugly statement up against a wire fence for mile upon unending mile.

18 posted on 10/01/2008 7:01:34 AM PDT by JustaDumbBlonde (America: Home of The Free Because of The Brave)
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To: sportsone234
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...

19 posted on 10/01/2008 7:01:53 AM PDT by Axenolith (Government blows and that which governs least blows least...)
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To: sportsone234
No one is asking you to do anything

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.

20 posted on 10/01/2008 7:03:47 AM PDT by dirtboy
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