Hawaiian beach turning into plastic

reply to post by Muckster


Thanks for the post Muckster, the plastics people need to see the amount of damage they are inadvertantly doing to the planet.

It's disgusting ...and I though Blackpool (UK) was bad
Airease

reply to post by TheRedneck


From an economical point of view, that’s exactly what I’m saying... Which is why i believe that the long-term solution would be to vastly reduce our dependence on plastic. I'm not suggesting an outright ban... there are some uses for plastics that are necessary, such as medical applications.

But do we really need plastic shopping bags? Or plastic furniture? Would it really destroy children’s lives to go back to playing with wooden toys?

If we want to protect and look after our planet, we need to make some sacrifices and changes.

I recycle all of my plastics such as clear plastic bottles 1 Liter bottles as well as the gallon milk/water jugs as well.

I at least try to make an effort to keep them out of the world's oceans and waterways.

Speaking of plastics recycling,
There is an American built electric motorcycle company in Oregon, which I am looking at that actually uses recycled plastics in the formation/molding of it's body panels.

Its a real motorcycle with Brembo brakes and Marzocchi Forks commonly found on high performance sport bikes.

Too bad more companies like GM/Ford aren't taking the lead in doing this especially with the amount of plastics used in cars today.

How difficult would it be for GM/Ford to make an inexpensive part such as fender wheel well liners out of recycled plastics ?
They are just lightweight pieces of plastic anyway ?

I digress....anyway. Check out these electric bikes if you are into 2 wheeled excitement....and even if you're not.

www.brammo.com...

reply to post by Muckster

I have been posting sort of tongue-in-cheek thus far, but you are saying the absolute truth. We are too dependent on plastics for temporary uses. Grocery bags are one great example. I actually re-use mine as trash bags (I keep several in the car), but most people just toss them out. When they were introduced, plastic grocery bags were called the greatest thing since sunshine, because of all the trees they would save, thus making them a 'green' item. Yeah, right.

Soft drink bottles are another. When I was young, I used to ride up and down the road here on my bicycle, picking up refundable bottles so I could buy a drink for myself. It taught me a lot about working for a living and commerce. And it kept me out of trouble. Now, there is no deposit in most areas and kids have lost yet another way to make a few bucks on their own and learn responsibility. Plus, the bottles just lay there and accumulate... no one wants them.

I actually go out of my way to either buy aluminum cans (which I can bag up and carry down to get a few bucks at the scrap metal yard) or 2-liter bottles which I can put to a wide variety of uses. They are great for reusable bottles, funnels, or even plastic tubes if you cut the ends out. I have thought about building a homemade pontoon boat from them.

Now for some things, plastics are wonderful... for instance, bottles for chemicals. They are very inert and do not contaminate the chemicals inside. Ceramics are coming into wide use in high-temperature applications. Fiberglass (yes, the resin is a type of plastic) is low-weight and high-strength.

A friend once told me: "We do things backward in America. My house is built of wood, which has a tendency to rot. It is supposed to last me a lifetime and beyond to my children and maybe their children. This Coke bottle is supposed to last until I finish drinking it, maybe 30 minutes, yet it is made out of plastic which lasts for thousands of years."

Plastic studs and joists are available for construction; you can, right now, build a house completely out of plastic. The problem is, it will cost you three times the materials cost of wood. If plastic is so darn cheap and plentiful to make disposable bottles out of it, why does it become expensive in other applications?

TheRedneck

It is hard to believe there are people here on the internet who hasn't heard about the continent of plastic forming the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Why is there so much plastic, and why is it so cheap?

Plastic is a byproduct of petro refinery. In other words, plastic is a waste product of oil. If the oil companies didn't find uses for plastic, and ways to encourage the use of plastic, they would have to pay for its disposal.

In third world countries, plastic is everywhere and used for everything. They use it as rope, as well as everything else. I remember reading an article by a journalist traveling through Somalia, where he describe so much plastic on the ground, it seems to be growing out of the ground.

Who should pay for the clean up of plastic?

The oil companies.

The oil companies used their financial clout to ensure our cities were set up they were reliant upon the automobile for transportation. This insured that everyone would have to consume gasoline in order to participate in the U.S. economy. They further insured this be working to get out industries and technology ever more concentrated in suburban centers which vastly increases the amount of driving we must do, and therefore the amount of gasoline we must consume.

Cheap oil means cheap shipping costs, thus allowing manufacturers to ship our jobs overseas. Consumerism has been created to enable the accumulation of massive amounts of wealth for the elites, for which our descendants will be paying for generations to come.

The answer is to consume less, and avoid plastics, which is hard to do.

It is sad how few people are aware of how badly we have been taken advantage of by the manipulations of the oil companies. They are the source of the true PTB.

Again the reason i dont trust BBC is for my own reasons, i can speak for the same for all other so called news networks.


Now i agree that the beach turning into plastic is a real problem.

ATS: Proganic(R) is the 2010 "Biomaterial of the Year" - Can Almost Replace Plastic Completely!

reply to post by TheRedneck


The problem with the "recycle it" solution is................there is no profit in it.

Its already not very profitable to recycle, even if people bring the waste to you all cleaned up and ready to go. If you have to spend good money going out, collecting it, dragging it back, sorting it, storing it, etc. it is totally a waste of money in terms of economics.

The free market doesnt respond well to all issues. Thats why most recycling programs and environmental protection programs are funded by the government.

And of course no one wants the government to spend money cleaning up the environment, or making rules against dumping. That would be bad for profits on the other end.

What we are seeing is the " tragedy of the commons."

reply to post by Illusionsaregrander

And if the UN or nation states made laws that all plastic is to be recycled - people would start screaming about "OMG teh Nw0 iz Comin 2 getz m3!!"

The world needs to recognise common goals and move in such a direction, the IMF and all the other phoney banks, could make it profitable to make change. But it doesn't have short term gains.

This is the problem with the ever-lagging free-market, it constantly has to wait for critical-mass to come into effect before a change we knew needed to happen decades ago and begin to take place.

reply to post by ghostsoldier


Exactly. Which is why it would be nice if more people had an understanding of what the free market can and cannot do, rather than just assuming it can do everything. Even Adam Smith realized that no matter how ideal the circumstances, the free market had limitations.

Unfortunately most people get their understanding of economics from Talk Radio University.

Considerable research has gone into developing plastic's additives. These are added into the batch to effect the long-term stabiity of the long-chain plastic polymers. Often-times these are starch-based additives that interfere again with the stability / durability of the long-chain polymers. Research has been directed toward activating this break-down process through exposure to ultra-violet light. Obviously the plastic can't degrade too early or it will not serve it's intended purpose .. a bag of milk should not come apart at the seams before it's due-date. Various opposing requirements have to be considered. Challenging lab work ahead to develop a "universal additive" that is cost-effective and bio-friendly (as wel)l. Trust this all as reasonable and on-topic .. this link speaks more to this end...

Google: BioD Plastics Additives





[edit on 25-4-2010 by Kolchak]

What I find the most astonishing about this is that, as much as we know about such topics we do nothing... what can we do. There is a chain of command in getting things done in the world today... And most of it involves kissing Government @$$ and Paying them money to do something they should be doing anyways.

Also a similar article was posted a while back on ATS... Something about the amount of plastic that is at the heart of the pacific ocean.

Humanity is always looking for a calling from God... its so funny. No.. its not... Its Ironic. They are looking to God for answers when its right in front of them. I had a friend ask me one time... and he is one of the dumbest guys I know... He said, ya know I think cancer comes from plastic... think about the chemicals that get into your food and stuff... especially when the plastic heats up and releases it. I think my jaw may have dropped 6 inches. Amazed at what a "dumb" guy thought of I was like wow. It may not CAUSE cancer but think of the chemicals being leached into our bodies. I was told by somebody that our bodies contain cancer already but the cancer cells are activated by something?! Not sure what that was about because my belief has always been that its introduced seeing as cancer did not start killing humans in such large numbers until the last 120 years or so.

So Why is it that we are all watching our world fade away. Our Ocean is dying... But we watch it... kind of like we watch accidents happen and then think that once they are over... maybe we should act? Well the kids dead. All you can do is tell his story. Well who will tell our story when humanity destroys itself and the planet? Will it heal itself? Maybe... Who knows?

We have a chance to reverse things if we try really hard and dedicate more research to other things. Billions are WASTED on cancer research. People have come up with cures... but they are hushed up. How do you think Americans and others have jobs? The planet is over populated... there are only so many jobs to be filled. Then we start making jobs by making people need other stuff. Such as the medical system. Healthy people hardly get sick. So if everyone werent distracted by TV and other crap... then how would the medical system work with no patients??

ETC ETC

We are ignoring whats happening to our world. While it is only a beach now... soon fish lungs will be clogged with plastic and plastic will start ceasing normal sea flows and sealife... destroying the largest producer of oxygen in the world (plankton) reverts co2 back into oxygen.

Oh well. If the Government doesnt enforce us to take better care of the planet we wont. Its as simple as that. And You and I alone will never be enough to make a difference in the "Independent Personality" that Americans possess.

So why should anyone really care. Honestly? We watch and wait, nothing changes. Are we the ones that fail to act? Are others? What can be done?

Originally posted by rjmelter
What I find the most astonishing about this is that, as much as we know about such topics we do nothing... what can we do.

Its not totally hopeless. What we can do is use less plastic.

As business hijack governments by buying democracy, people lose one kind of power, but gain another. Vote with your dollars. Stop buying cute useless crap. Just say no to bottled water and disposable anything.

Thats what we can do. And if we do it, and mean it, and stick to our guns, the market will respond to some degree. Make it profitable for them to change their behaviors by refusing to buy the stuff that causes the problems. Be willing to pay more for recycled things or do without. Americans and other members of industrialized countries are addicted to disposable stuff and plastic crap we dont need.

Stop using it, and educate yourself and your friends on how to make companies change their behaviors.

Edit to add,

Seeing all those dead baby birds with plastic bottle caps in their bellies has made me determined never to buy another bottle of water as long as I live. I already limited my use of them, but I am going to try to never, ever buy them. We just need to all decide that our convenience is not worth more than the lives of the beings we share the world with. And then we need to discipline ourselves to keep our word. Its not easy, but we arent helpless.

[edit on 25-4-2010 by Illusionsaregrander]

First cities in china haul there trash out to sea and dump it.

In mexico many cites dump there trash into canyons that flow to the sea.

Ever year this trash is removed by rains and the towns can replace it with more.

In the US trash could be turned into syntheth oil and reused if only the government would require cities to do it.
The process to make oil from trash has been around since the 1920s.
en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by ANNED


Unfortunately, the cost of oil has to rise to a certain level to make that kind of recycling into oil make economic sense.

And when we subsidize the oil industry, by paying trillions of dollars to safeguard their interests in the middle east with wars and other foreign policy, we keep the price of oil artificially low.

Accurate costing would make HUGE inroads. Making companies factor in the disposal and recycling costs into their product at the manufacturing stage, for one. Making oil companies bear the financial burden of safeguarding their own interests in the middle east for another.

All of these things would make things cost more. Which would force us to consume less. Which is why we dont do it. That means less profit for companies, less wealth for the rich, and less junk for those of us at the bottom.

I didn't see this on here and it's probably one of the best independent docs on the gyre/patch:

www.vbs.tv...

Totally changed my perspective of what it is and how sad it is.

EDIT: to add a warning, there is some occasional coarse language in the films

[edit on 4/26/2010 by Fiverz]

The Pacific ocean now has more plastic than plankton... The ratio last I heard was 6 plastic particles per 1 plankton

ever heard of this? Great Pacific Garbage Patch

edit: beat me to the punch Muckster

[edit on 4/26/10 by MoothyKnight]

Yup, in the link I posted above they found upwards of 1000-1 plastic to plankton. Think of like a can of chunky chicken noodle soup dumped into a bathtub.

Scary to think too once you go up the food chain how much plastic and contaminants you really eat.

Shrimp eat contaminated plankton.
Small fish eat contaminated shrimp.
Big fish eat contaminated small fish.
We eat contaminated big fish.

And that all doesn't even factor in that at each level there may already be reproductive or developmental issues and/or chemicals present that get passed on to offspring. It's mind boggling.

Let's not forget that if we switch from plastic to metals and wood, we will then be cutting down large numbers of trees, and we'll also need ore mining. Neither of which are environmentally friendly. I think the answer is greater recycling, better waste disposal techniques, and lowering consumption of plastics for things like water bottles.

Neither of these will ever be released into the world because you would lose control once they get out there. No one wants an infection eating the soda aisle of a Kroger store or the Saudi Arabian oil reserves being digested.

Then genetically modify the bacteria so it can only live under certain conditions so that if it gets into the environment it will die.

[edit on 26/4/2010 by C0bzz]

reply to post by C0bzz



You are totally correct regarding wood and metal... However, it would be achievable with better land management and metal recycling!


It is often said that, in the west, we eat far too much red meat! This can lead to illnesses such as Cancer... Red meat IS great, full of protein and Sooo tasty... but should be consumed in moderation.
Imagine if we halved our meat intake... and the 50% of surplus cattle ranches, and grazing fields, were turned into tree production? Manageable forest (of different wood types) for felling at maturity.

It would take a huge amount of pressure from existing forests and become havens for wildlife.

Although metal mining is destructive the long term implications are far less than that of plastic, if managed correctly and laws regarding handling of chemicals (used to extract the metal) are followed!

You do have a good point.... if it wasn’t done correctly it would be an ecological disaster... but i believe it is possible!

Like i keep saying, all it takes is some sacrifice from us!