Plastics Are Awesome For Use By Humans .... But Not So Much For the Rest of the World

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/28/business/samsung-plastic-packaging/index.html

Good to see companies stepping up their game..... the world is like your house in a way ... it needs to be maintained and kept clean

Spot on Haggart,,We have known about the problem for years and choose to ignore it,,Both corporate America and the people who consume the products
Plastics pollute our Oceans and waterways,,and our land fills with stuff that doesn't deteriorate....Here they are just starting a recycling program with house hold trash,,It only takes a second to throw your recyclable items into a second bin.. Going to the grocery you amass a lot of plastic bags that add to the waste,,I bought a bunch of the cloth bags at Wal Mart and always bring them with me and have been reusing them for years There must be a way to make water bottles that are bio-degradable when I walk my dog downtown I see them on the street ten feet away from a trash can,,I pick them up but then they just end up in the land fill forever
,Packaging is ridiculous a small item is inside a plastic square 5 times the size of the item and sometimes has to be cut open with a razor knife..
Hopefully people and companies can become aware of the problem and take actions to reduce toe waste and reduce the amount of plastics ruining our environment

The use of plastics for packaging is definitely something that needs to go away as much as possible - I'm tired of having to grab a #%&*$# knife just to open something.

The use of plastics for actual PRODUCTS isn't going away - that genie left the bottle decades ago, but #%&*$# some of this packaging nowadays...

Recycling is key in either case, and it needs to be taught in schools. Look at practically any residential (let alone business) recycle bin - people don't know how to sort...

I didn't know this to just recently, black plastic can't be recycled.

It will be interesting to look up which companies are the major manufacturers of plastic in the world and then see which politicians they have contributed money to.

Link to German packaging law, https://www.bing.com/search?q=germa...mp;cvid=8719c38dd3ec40d8943611afb401c029

A supermarket chain in the UK, Budgens , recently stopped using plastic packaging entirely. This is not some fringe hippy style chain either. They just told their suppliers that they would delist their products if they arrived wrapped in any sort of plastic. The conversion apparently took less than 3 months from start to finish. Now they use paper bags or folks bring their own. cellophane wraps, cardboard boxes etc.......just like ALL STORES when I was kid

Here's a link but the reporting is poor because in only talks about a store in London.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/07/britains-first-plastic-free-supermarket-zones-open/

Take your politics to WCE.

Offended much or do you own a ton of shares in a plastic manufacturing company?

Please lets keep this post about plastic waste problems/recycling/solutions on the Community Hall side and not delve into any political side of it - thanks !

Smokers piss me off the most with their cigarette trash at the beach.

The map graphic is suspect, as it claims all life in the oceans will be dead in just two generations.

Every bit of life in all the oceans dead in sixty years.

Just a big sterile bunch of water that covers seventy percent of the globe. We can use it for medical purposes, as it will be completely sterile.

No it doesn't Dart. You missed the word 'could'.

I was surprised to see how much plastic the birds out on some of the pacific islands will eat. Dead bird carcasses scattered around, cut them open and their internals are gorged with plastic bottle caps.

That's just humanity doing its part to help evolve smarter, tougher birds...

Oh come on man, I hope that was in jest and not serious. Man needs to realize that as stewards of this planet, it comes with responsibility, and because we have the power to destroy all life on Earth, we must strive to do better. And if that means finding a way to produce less waste, then we should feel obligated to do so.

+1 Quadrillion.

When we take natural material and make it into something unnatural then we use it for a purpose. Once that is exhausted we should either find a way to re-purpose it, or find a way to "put it back how we found it".

When or if we screw up the food chain people will start realizing - but it'd be too late by then...

Sorry, could be sterile of all life in sixty years.

Sterile. Of. All. Life.

It also could give rise to Godzilla.

Actually ALL plastic can be recyled, you just have to chop it up into little pellets so it can be remoulded into sheets/shapes. The issue with the black plastic (at least in the UK) is that the laser in the sorting machines cant "see" them and classes it as waste and chucks it out the system. Its then bagged up and just taken to the dump because theres nothing in place to actually deal with it ... and no incentive to, bugger the planet, they want profit!

Its the same all over the uk, stuff IS recyleable, however the infurstructer isnt there due to money/business/policital reasons.

Is that how "infrastructure" is spelled in the UK?

I've lived here for 8 years and finally this town is starting a recycling program next month..You will have two cans one for general trash and the other for recyclables,,,Just one big can and it gets sorted at the landfill..It's good to see .Takes a spot of a little extra work but once people get used to it becomes second nature Before you could always take them to the land fill with recyclables separated out..But that's 5 miles and with no car hard to walk It's a small town and a lot don't own cars and some seniors don't drive and most are too lazy to do it Guess the figure they will be gone before the Earth is
When I lived in CT our town did recycling two bins one for glass and paper and cardboard were bundled Also there was a 5 cent a can deposit on beverage containers,(some of us remember when there was a 2 cent deposit on soda bottles) You store them up took them to machines at grocery stores and fed them into a cruncher and got a receipt and went inside and got cash,,One side effect was the usual pile of cans at the freeway entrances /exits vanished ..Here I walk the dog downtown in the morning and stop often to pick up water bottles,,cans etc sometimes on a bench that has a trash can at the end...But it's good to see my town taking a step in the right direction..Takes a bit of thinking to do the right thing..The whole world won't change but my town is trying..

It was serious, and sarcastic. Evolutionary theory is based upon the specimens that adapt better passing on their DNA and behaviors. That adaption isn't limited to only naturally occuring circumstances.

That isn't advocacy, it is just an observation.

Meaningfully addressing the problem should start with looking at where most of that plastic in the Pacific ocean is coming from. Feel free to take that up in PWEC, as it will be a political problem.

That is what I understood but the local TV news said not to put black plastic in the recycle.

Saw this while roaming around small country but in my opinion forward looking..

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/vanuatu-plastic-ban-law-ocean-pollution_n_5c6ee757e4b0f40774cd355d

Thanks rwatson interesting article. Here's a company which started in Europe and now has recycling plants in the U.S. ....Covanta Holding Corp. They recycle just about everything and turn it into electricity or re-sell it in the case of metals. Stock symbol (CVA). https://www.covanta.com/Sustainability/Energy-from-Waste

That really surprises me. Every company, around here, has had a similar system in place for nearly 20 years. The only issue is that it is not mandatory.

"One word....plastics!"

pretty much says it all

The word that comes to my mind is "slobs".

Those bottles didn't throw themselves into the water.

Yep.


A quick Google search shows that that picture was taken in Malaysia. No surprise there.

thats what peeves me off more than anything, everyone's just gone the easy route instead of tackling the harder issue of people littering and lack of clearing it up.

I'm waiting for paper to get banned once people realise how much more trees are gonna get cut down to fuel the supply ...

that's true Meatsheild which is why the plastics pollution issues will not be solved by recycling alone but must also include continuing advances in recycling and biodegradable products as well as education

We're going to quickly get into PWEC territory over the notion of the government going through my trash to ensure I'm not throwing out a bit of cardboard that should have been in the recycling bin.

Gonna need much, much larger jails to hold all the violators of the Recycling Laws.

Getting seriously draconian with litter penalties (especially in the oceans) might be a good place to start. Landfills might not be the greatest thing, but better for plastics to end up there than in the ocean and environment.

https://www.wimp.com/diver-rescues-tiny-fish-stuck-inside-plastic-bag/

good find Zamzow .... one tiny fish but a great example of a bigger problem

Of course for all we know that could have been staged too - but even if that's the case it's still illustrative of a very real problem...

you guys read the news ? antropods in the bottom of mariana trenchs were found to have plastic pieces in their gut,,,,,BOTTOM of MARIANA TRENCH ! its over ! the whole ecosystem is screwed already. #%&*$# recycling..lets trow a david ID4 tantrum.....
it really is too late,

That's why we need to elect a world talking head!

We could trust it right?