# Killing our planet with plastics



## begreen

*"The amount of plastic produced in a year is roughly the same as the entire weight of humanity." *
This is a must fix situation. The plastic bottle blitz started in the 1990's. Now CocaCola alone produces 100 BILLION bottles a year!! They won't use recycled plastics because they think their customers won't like it. Time to make these bottlers assume cradle to grave responsibility for this blight on the planet. In the time it takes to read this thread about a million single-use plastic bottles have been produced. It's time we required these manufacturers to assume cradle to grave responsibility for their products. 
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...c-bottle-binge-as-dangerous-as-climate-change


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## EatenByLimestone

How do you suppose that should be done?


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## Hasufel

I have one word for you, @begreen , just one word - plastics! 

On a more serious note, I understand that much of the growth in demand is in developing countries where I suspect the reduce/reuse/recycle ethic hasn't yet been widely embraced. Perhaps there's a way to monetize waste plastics, like you do in some states here with deposits on glass bottles? Not sure how feasible this would be, though. Overall the economics of recycling just aren't very favorable, especially with oil remaining fairly cheap. Our trash service used to weigh our recyclables and give us credits toward discounts at local merchants, but that ended because the market for recyclable materials bottomed out after the 2008 financial crisis.


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## Squirrel

As with most pollution problems this is easily solved, quit buying the stuff.

 Companies are very good at telling us we need to buy stuff, no government will ever close down a money making,  job producing bussiness.

Be like the humming bird taking a beak full of water to put out a forest fire..."It ain't much, but it's all I can do right now"


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## begreen

Fortunately many locations including some third world economies are taking leadership here. Single use plastics have been banned outright in Rwanda and in Delhi India they banned them in the city as of last January. In a lot of Europe there are cradle to grave laws for manufacturers that make them much more responsible and paying for the recycling programs. Out of these laws comes innovation.

A plant based plastic like resin has been developed that makes great plastic-like bags. They are tough and durable, yet break down in sunlight in 240 days instead of hundreds of years. In the ground or a landfill they take about 2-3 yrs, but they still break down into simple elements with no plastic residue. Even better the resin can be employed in existing bag manufacturing equipment without retooling. A Polish wheat grower has developed disposable plates, bowls and cutlery made out of wheat bran. They are tough yet break down completely in 30 days. Point being that we can and should come up with alternatives to fossil fuel based, single-use plastics. In the meantime let the bottling companies pay for the disposal, landfill and recycling costs.


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## Where2

Hasufel said:


> Perhaps there's a way to monetize waste plastics, like you do in some states here with deposits on glass bottles? Not sure how feasible this would be, though. Overall the economics of recycling just aren't very favorable, especially with oil remaining fairly cheap.



Maine has $0.05 deposits on most plastic bottles and aluminum cans, paid by the consumer at the point of retail sale, and refunded at the point of recycling (redemption center). I still find them littering the local roadways when I walk the 3/4 mile along the paved county road into town from my farm. To someone like me who already recycles, finding a few extra recyclables when I walk just helps me pay off the farm mortgage faster. I usually also manage to find a bag to collect them in, and it beautifies the neighborhood. It's ironic that the same neighbors who are destroying the look of their own neighborhood are in a way helping me pay a small fraction of my mortgage.

In South Florida, our local municipal waste facility still manages to make annual payments to each municipality based on the weight of recyclables they collect and deliver to the solid waste facility. Part of the value to the recyclables is that they do not add to the solid waste stream if they are recycled properly. Every pound of solid waste properly disposed of costs $$$, whether the disposal method is incineration or burying it in a landfill.

There are plenty of alternatives to purely petroleum based plastics. One of the large aquatic theme parks has been using plant based plastic utensils for more than seven years. If you find a drinking straw in an aquatic theme park, it's usually a paper straw, because having an animal ingest a plastic straw is expensive.


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## EatenByLimestone

The waste issue will not be solved until the cost to throw the bag of trash away becomes much more expensive.  That will drive change back up the chain to reduce packaging and waste.  Less packaging means less goes to the landfills.  On the other side of that, there are projects ongoing to use gasification of landfill waste to generate electricity.


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## begreen

Yes, our county landfill is capturing methane, though landfilled plastics don't generate methane. They degrade slowly for centuries. The bottling companies have gotten away with this plastic explosion because they assume no costs for it, only savings (as compare to glass). They need to assume cradle to grave responsibility and costs instead of putting it on the taxpayer's shoulders.


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## EatenByLimestone

It's far beyond methane collection.   It's at the drop a full bag of trash on the feed belt and ash and kwh come out the other end.   So far 2 tons of trash equal 60kw.   I'm sure a lot of heat must be used to dry the fuel.


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## begreen

That is another solution, but with a serious problem - dioxin. The areas surrounding waste gasification plants are reporting elevated dioxin levels. Dioxin is a very serious toxin. I like the idea, but this problem concerns me.


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## jatoxico

Our area supermarket pretty successfully converted our community to using reusable shopping bags so we get far fewer than we used to. The county is considering banning them altogether. Many, many people are ready to voluntarily make changes to make improvements if provided with a reasonable alternative even if it costs slightly more.

You periodically hear of the promise of biodegradable plastics, they can't get here soon enough IMO.


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## woodgeek

Meh.  Most plastic recycling is a drain on the recycling program budget (because it doesn't pay like metals do).  There is PLENTY of room to inexpensively landfill all this plastic for a long time, removing these hydrocarbons from the biosphere for at least centuries, and in a modern landfill this stuff is inert and does no harm.

The plastics in the sea issue deserves to be studied, but frankly, is more than a bit overblown.  The ocean 'garbage patch' conjures up an idea of a mass of garbage that you could almost walk on, or at least see with your eyes.  When you dig into the technical literature, you find figures that list microscopic particles per square meter or cubic meter that would not be detectable to the naked eye...or something you could collect easily with a net.  This does end up in the food chain...and we should know more about what happens then.  IT seems that a lot of it ends up in marine sediment. Of course, floating litter DOES end up on beaches....its a natural concentration system....not evidence that the sea is covered in litter.

A reasonable solution, as upthread, is a deposit on plastic bottles that gets them returned at a high rate, followed by their landfilling en masse or burning them (if that pays ok).  And heavy fines (and public awareness campaigns) in coastal areas for plastic littering.  Done.


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## WoodyIsGoody

woodgeek said:


> Meh.  Most plastic recycling is a drain on the recycling program budget (because it doesn't pay like metals do).  There is PLENTY of room to inexpensively landfill all this plastic for a long time, removing these hydrocarbons from the biosphere for at least centuries, and in a modern landfill this stuff is inert and does no harm.



Buried plastic does not removing anything from the biosphere. The fossil fuel it came from was already removed from the biosphere and if the plastic is recycled it's still not contributing to global warming. Burying it does delay the contribution to GW but you can't remove something that wasn't there to begin with. Garbage is incinerated in many areas and incinerating plastic does contribute to global warming.


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## begreen

woodgeek said:


> Meh.  Most plastic recycling is a drain on the recycling program budget (because it doesn't pay like metals do).  There is PLENTY of room to inexpensively landfill all this plastic for a long time, removing these hydrocarbons from the biosphere for at least centuries, and in a modern landfill this stuff is inert and does no harm.
> 
> The plastics in the sea issue deserves to be studied, but frankly, is more than a bit overblown.  The ocean 'garbage patch' conjures up an idea of a mass of garbage that you could almost walk on, or at least see with your eyes.  When you dig into the technical literature, you find figures that list microscopic particles per square meter or cubic meter that would not be detectable to the naked eye...or something you could collect easily with a net.  This does end up in the food chain...and we should know more about what happens then.  IT seems that a lot of it ends up in marine sediment. Of course, floating litter DOES end up on beaches....its a natural concentration system....not evidence that the sea is covered in litter.
> 
> A reasonable solution, as upthread, is a deposit on plastic bottles that gets them returned at a high rate, followed by their landfilling en masse or burning them (if that pays ok).  And heavy fines (and public awareness campaigns) in coastal areas for plastic littering.  Done.


True the giant gyres are mostly microplastics, though they appear to be far from benign. There are several. The great Pacific gyre is huge, twice the size of Texas and about 9ft deep. It's like a big soup. There are over 7 tons of plastics floating in it and it is expected to double within the next 10 years. And this is only one of 5 large patches. There is six times more plastic than there is plankton, the food of the ocean. This is not a trivial problem.
Then there is the case of Henderson Island which is covered with about 38 million pieces of plastic. This island is about as remote as you can get, yet it is accumulating large plastics at the rate of about 13,000 pieces per day.
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...ste-found-on-uninhabited-south-pacific-island
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/05/henderson-island-pitcairn-trash-plastic-pollution/
Remember that single-use plastics is a very recent phenomenon. The rate they are accumulating is alarming to say the least. 

The doubling factor alone should set off worldwide alarms. We are killing our oceans with acidifcation, overfishing and plastics and dsiregarding that the oceans sustain terrestrial life. What happens when the ocean is dead? It's not a pretty picture for humanity.
http://www.seashepherd.org/news-and-commentary/commentary/if-the-ocean-dies-we-all-die.html


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## woodgeek

WoodyIsGoody said:


> Buried plastic does not removing anything from the biosphere. The fossil fuel it came from was already removed from the biosphere and if the plastic is recycled it's still not contributing to global warming. Burying it does delay the contribution to GW but you can't remove something that wasn't there to begin with. Garbage is incinerated in many areas and incinerating plastic does contribute to global warming.



Fair enough.  I should be more precise. 

I guess I am hung up on ENERGY and the damage that energy use (which is still mostly fossils) does to the planet first and foremost through AGW and ocean acidification.  Those social-media driven campaigns to ban plastic grocery bags....studies have shown that the alternatives use more resources and energy (making a heavy cloth bag, or a bunch of heavy paper bags) than the plastic bags do.  Same for Styro cups versus (often doubled) paper cups.   The latest social media campaign (just sent me by my well-intentioned SIL) is that we will save the world and the oceans, if we all carry a fork in our back pockets, and never use a plastic utensil again.

How do we feel about switching plastic packaging for paper packaging that uses more energy for manufacturing, shipping (weight), land use (making virgin paper), water (ditto), and which then gets landfilled anyway (because it is greasy) or uses even more energy to wash (with hot water pre-recycling).  And all that fossil energy makes AGW and ocean acidification worse on balance...versus making a thin plastic wrapper, and then landfilling it?

I would really love it if campaigns like this actually had an impact, but in my neighborhood I am surrounded by wealthy people driving their Escalades and Land Rovers to the Whole Paycheck store two towns over, canvas bags in tow, because they have this ineffable feeling that buying organic food (with less efficient production versus energy or land use than conventional), and putting it in a canvas bag, and saving 5 grams of plastic use, will save the world and the oceans.  The problem is that these people are eagerly consuming 'feel good' misinformation while they are driving the earth and the biosphere off a cliff with their fossil energy habit.  

Every time we spur someone to positive action with one of these campaigns....we REDUCE their interest and willingness and desire to do something else, that might have had an actual impact, but might have required a little thought (like shopping closer to home), or adjustment (to a smaller vehicle), or upfront money (like putting solar on their roof). Nope, these people will recycle earnestly, buy some organic cotton canvas bags online, now carry a never-used fork in the bottom of their purse, and will sleep like babies knowing that they have done their part and are part of the solution!


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## begreen

Forgive me for being skeptical but this sounds like a well-crafted plastics/oil industry response that cherry picks data to make a point. Did they tally the total real costs of manufacturing, packaging, uses and landfilling of the plastic bags? Were environmental costs included for the oil extraction, transport, refining, pollution before the plastic resins were created? Did they cover the even greater environmental cost of mining coal and extraction of benzene or the effect of CFCs that were used? I suspect one can be reasonably certain that they did not include any costs for cleaning up this crap.  I find it very hard to believe that my wife's 20+ year old canvas shopping bags that are used twice a week took more energy than the >2000 trips these shopping bags have seen. They will most likely outlast us, yet when and if they are landfilled they will break down quickly. Styrofoam and plastics will take ~500yrs to breakdown. Average landfill these days is about 25-30% styrofoam.

The studies I have read seem to rely on burning plastics to tip the scales in plastics favor. Incineration is not a popular, or perhaps wise option. The dioxin emissions from these incineration plants create some serious community health issues that are now just coming to light. Toxicity of these products both to workers in mfg and leaching is often not reported. That said there are steps the paper industry could also take to reduce environmental effects starting with eliminating bleaching.


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## woodgeek

I appreciate your skepticism and the fact that you have used your canvas bags 2000 times...plenty of people 'forget' their bags, toss them when they get skeezy and use heavy paper bags instead.  And paper production also makes dioxin (but probably not brown paper?)

Still not clear to me what problems plastic in a landfill creates.  The oil to make the plastic bags for your grocery run are a fraction of what folks use to drive to the store and back.  There is a reason they cost pennies....it doesn't take much oil to make each bag.

If you don't like oil (I don't either) go get an EV and really stick it to those guys.  Oh yeah...you already DID!


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## begreen

The most definitive comparison report I could find was a detailed 149 page tome comparing plastic cups and plates vs paper products. They did a decent job, but the bias (and customer) was clearly toward the plastics industry. Not noted were the products I mentioned like benzene, ethylene that are required for production of the CFCs, nor health care costs associated. Landfill costs were easily dismissed and buried in the report as well. No mention of river and marine pollution.

Can we do better, yes. And I think the best solution will not be petroleum based. In the meantime we will continue to use our trusty grocery bags, stainless water bottles, and bring our own cups for coffee wherever possible. (Did that for over 20 yrs on the job)


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## woodgeek

Ok.  I found out that making a disposable HDPE plastic grocery bag uses 0.5 MJ of oil.  This works out to 1 gallon of gasoline equalling at least 250 disposable bags.  At my family usage of about 25 bags/week, we are in for about 5 gallons of gasoline usage per year.  So by switching I can reduce my oil footprint by that amount minus the amount of oil required to make the reusable bag.

Litter (onshore and marine) of said bags is a whole other issue, indeed.

And whats wrong with ethylene again?


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## begreen

Low levels of ethylene are supposed to be ok. Some fruit generates this gas when ripening. But repeated exposure to ethylene oxide is a serious health issue and one to be concerned about when working in the styrofoam industry. Robotics are reducing this exposure.Styrene leaching from hot containers (especially when microwaved) is also considered a health threat.


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## Sprinter

Maybe someone can steer me right, but it seems like I just read somewhere that our newer ethylene deposits extracted from shale and maybe fracking found in large amounts are being used in "mass quantities" (from SNL skits lol) to make plastics that are largely exported now.  Some feel that this is a boon to US economy.  Others may feel different.

I'll confess that this is not a subject I follow closely, but others here clearly do.  So this is just to see what the others here know about it.  Been a long time since I actually studied this stuff and my Chem E friends are no longer close.


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## Sprinter

Squirrel said:


> As with most pollution problems this is easily solved, quit buying the stuff.


Nice idea, good luck... Just being silly, but if someone wants something, they're going to buy it.  I hate to say it (really), but Americans seem to be the worst example, unless an industry can sell it cheaper to someone else, then it's "out of sight, out of mind" and nobody seems to care then.


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## maple1

woodgeek said:


> Ok.  I found out that making a disposable HDPE plastic grocery bag uses 0.5 MJ of oil.  This works out to 1 gallon of gasoline equalling at least 250 disposable bags.  At my family usage of about 25 bags/week, we are in for about 5 gallons of gasoline usage per year.  So by switching I can reduce my oil footprint by that amount minus the amount of oil required to make the reusable bag.
> 
> Litter (onshore and marine) of said bags is a whole other issue, indeed.
> 
> And whats wrong with ethylene again?



25 bags a week? 

Holy heaps of food Batman - how big is your family?


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## woodgeek

Sprinter said:


> Maybe someone can steer me right, but it seems like I just read somewhere that our newer ethylene deposits extracted from shale and maybe fracking found in large amounts are being used in "mass quantities" (from SNL skits lol) to make plastics that are largely exported now.  Some feel that this is a boon to US economy.  Others may feel different.
> 
> I'll confess that this is not a subject I follow closely, but others here clearly do.  So this is just to see what the others here know about it.  Been a long time since I actually studied this stuff and my Chem E friends are no longer close.



I had the same question....

The shale 'gas' and shale 'oil' deposits are all on a continuum.  In fact, most of the 'oil' deposits give out more gas than oil.  Given the low price of NG these days, it was the oil producers who had more gassy and less oily wells that went belly up when the oil price collapsed. I think you may be confusing ethylene with ethane, however.  A lot of these wells have some heavier (or 'wetter') contents like ethane and propane.

I looked it up....the first process decades ago for making HDPE was based one ethane and ethylene, but it seems that the industry actually does make the feedstocks from lighter oil fractions now.  So they are indeed made from oil, not NG or ethane.


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## woodgeek

maple1 said:


> 25 bags a week?
> 
> Holy heaps of food Batman - how big is your family?



I was being generous, and have two teens in the house....and adding in bags for 'sundries' other than groceries.

It might be closer to 15 a week and 3 gallons of oil/yr.

EDIT: stated some other 'weighs':

Plastic production is comparable to the mass of humans on the planet: 0.3 billion metric tons/year
But oil production can be easily estimated to be about 5 billion tons/year,

or 16x greater.

Consistent with other estimates that less than 10% of oil globally goes to making materials, the rest is burned.

Country with highest per capita rate of burning that oil: the US of A.  No other large country comes anywhere close.  The number works out to be about 900 gallons of oil per year for every man, women and child, and half of that is just for powering our driving habits in our super-sized 20% energy efficiency car fleet.

My family's outsized plastic grocery bag habit: 3 gallons/3600 gallons typical family of 4 = *0.083%* of our 'share' of US oil demand.


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## Seasoned Oak

Since oil is likely to remain too cheap for the foreseeable future, a deposit on plastic bags may sound crazy but it may also work. Also a surcharge on the Mfg of bags to go to an environment cleanup fund.


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## Sprinter

woodgeek said:


> I think you may be confusing ethylene with ethane, however. A lot of these wells have some heavier (or 'wetter') contents like ethane and propane.


 Yes.  As I understand it, ethylene is steam-cracked from the lighter components, but takes a lot of energy?  This is really straining my memory banks...


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## Sprinter

begreen said:


> Low levels of ethylene are supposed to be ok. Some fruit generates this gas when ripening. But repeated exposure to ethylene oxide is a serious health issue and one to be concerned about when working in the styrofoam industry.


The Oracle of Delphi seemed to love the stuff (ethylene).  I wonder what concentration she was subjected to?  The oxide form, I know nothing about.

I always keep my ripening fruit together for that reason.  I never thought about sniffing my bags of peaches, though  I'll let you know how that works out (if I can...)


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## beatlefan

begreen said:


> *"The amount of plastic produced in a year is roughly the same as the entire weight of humanity." *
> This is a must fix situation. The plastic bottle blitz started in the 1990's. Now CocaCola alone produces 100 BILLION bottles a year!! They won't use recycled plastics because they think their customers won't like it. Time to make these bottlers assume cradle to grave responsibility for this blight on the planet. In the time it takes to read this thread about a million single-use plastic bottles have been produced. It's time we required these manufacturers to assume cradle to grave responsibility for their products.
> https://www.theguardian.com/environ...c-bottle-binge-as-dangerous-as-climate-change


We should go back to the good ole returnable glass bottles like they had when I was a kid.  100% recyclable.  I remember riding my bike around the neighborhood, picking them up from the ground and taking them to the store for 10 cents a piece.


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## Sprinter

beatlefan said:


> We should go back to the good ole returnable glass bottles like they had when I was a kid.  100% recyclable.  I remember riding my bike around the neighborhood, picking them up from the ground and taking them to the store for 10 cents a piece.


FWIW (not much), I like glass much better too.  I wonder if the plastic bottle craze is more a matter of shipping weight than anything.   Frankly, I've not given it much thought, but I'd like to hear some thoughts from industry folks.  Glass is so cheap to make, I don't get it.


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## heritageguy2005

It's really kind of ironic when you think about it. All the tree hugging "green" fanatics are the ones who buy bottled water by the case. You never see them without a plastic water bottle in their hands. Me, being the unsolicited redneck I am, I stroll over to the kitchen sink and fill my glass. During the summer, we always have a cold gallon jug in the refrigerator.

Sent from my E6782 using Tapatalk


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## WoodyIsGoody

heritageguy2005 said:


> It's really kind of ironic when you think about it. All the tree hugging "green" fanatics are the ones who buy bottled water by the case. You never see them without a plastic water bottle in their hands. Me, being the unsolicited redneck I am, I stroll over to the kitchen sink and fill my glass. During the summer, we always have a cold gallon jug in the refrigerator.



I never knew "green fanatics" drank more bottled water than everyone else. I drank from plastic liter bottles most of my life (now I have insulated metal bottles). But it was/is just tap water. I would buy a liter of club soda for $1 once every year or two so I always had a convenient bottle handy. Some bottles lasted me 5 years or more.  You have no idea what's in those plastic bottles so don't be so quick to judge. It might just be vodka! 

Or the same tap water you drink.

My water district has tap water that comes out of the tap 41-42 degrees, year round. It's pure unchlorinated unfluorinated and uncontaminated groundwater from melting glaciers composed of compacted mountain snowfall that fell 10,000 years ago. It has just enough dissolved minerals to be the most delicious water you've ever tasted but not so much to leave water spots or to need a water softener for laundry. I get all I can use for a flat rate of $25/month (but there would be a cu/ft. rate if I exceeded typical household use).  They test it regularly for bacteria/pathogens but there are never any so they don't add disinfectants. 



> Sent from my E6782 using Tapatalk



Want me to show you how to get rid of that useless clutter?


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## begreen

Right. Rednecks don't drink no bottled water, but they are good recyclers.


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## heritageguy2005

All I can say is I drive truck for a major retailer and it absolutely blows my mind the amount of bottled water we haul. Can't keep it on the shelves.

Sent from my E6782 using Tapatalk


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## beatlefan

I wish I was the guy that thought of that one.  Who'd have thought that you could get people to buy water in a bottle.  When I was a kid, it would have been considered crazy. But now we all do it. Lol


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## begreen

beatlefan said:


> I wish I was the guy that thought of that one.  Who'd have thought that you could get people to buy water in a bottle.  When I was a kid, it would have been considered crazy. But now we all do it. Lol


I refuse to do it unless forced, like when travelling on a plane.


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## WoodyIsGoody

begreen said:


> I refuse to do it unless forced, like when travelling on a plane.



I bring my empty water bottle through airport security and fill it with fresh tap water from the restroom/fountain in the secure area.


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## begreen

Here is one interesting solution coming from the UK. They take plastics from recycling (including bags), pelletize them and blend them into asphalt for roads. The roads made from this product are supposed to be less expensive, tougher and more resistant to potholing. The claim is this product will outlast regular asphalt roads by 60%.
http://www.macrebur.com/


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## Seasoned Oak

Seems like a good thing for roads ,but there may be a downside.
Once the plastic degrades on the roads i would imagine as small bits it winds up in the streams and eventually the oceans. I can see the oceans fast becoming a cesspool of modern human habitation beyond our ability to clean them up. Radical change is needed quickly by the masses and not just small groups of concerned citizens like us. Im not very optimistic about this.  The cost of cleanup needs to be borne by the Mfg of these materials in order to affect change IMO.


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## sportbikerider78

I'll chime in...since I work in a plastic injection molding facility.  

We recycle 100% of our waste.  If a part is scrap for whatever reason, it is either ground up and reused or it is ground and sent to another facility for them to reuse.  We make dairy containers.  Much emphasis is on how thin you can make a container in order to save material costs.  

I think the biggest bang for our buck isn't wraps and bags...they have very, very little mass.  One use containers have quite a bit of mass..think your sour cream container. There is no deposit, so all are either recycled at home, or tossed in the trash and may be in the landfill or recycled by the trash collection center.  

The problem isn't an easy one, because rinsing fatty sour cream, yogurt, cottage chesse,,ect out in your sink...isn't a good idea.  And no one wants to have stinky cheese smelling trash in their garage, waiting for a collection day.  

The demand for bigger and bigger dairy containers is only growing.  We make a very popular 40oz greek yogurt container.  

To give you some perspective...my one little obscure facility produces well over 100MM lbs of plastic products each year.


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## venator260

sportbikerider78 said:


> The problem isn't an easy one, because rinsing fatty sour cream, yogurt, cottage chesse,,ect out in your sink...isn't a good idea.  And no one wants to have stinky cheese smelling trash in their garage, waiting for a collection day.



Alright, perhaps this should be common knowledge; but I've never heard this warning extended to these products. Cooking grease and butter yes; I have removed a 'butter plug' from my drain. Does sour cream and yogurt have the same effect?


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## begreen

I suppose if one dumped a half a container down the drain multiple times that could be a problem, but not from just rinsing out an empty container. After the container is rinsed out, there is no smell, even after weeks in the recycling bin. We've reused used cottage cheese containers for years. There has never been a sanitation problem.


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## venator260

begreen said:


> I suppose if one dumped a half a container down the drain multiple times that it could be a problem, but not from just rinsing out an empty container. After the container is rinsed out, there is no smell, even after weeks in the recycling bin.




That's what I had always figured. I do wash out any dairy containers, and I usually have to store my recyclables for a couple of weeks as I don't have curbside pickup. I was asking because it's a fairly long run from my kitchen sink to the septic tank, and I have no desire to cut open PVC to clean crud out of the pipe.


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## beatlefan

No one should buy sour cream or cottage cheese. They're gross!


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## BrotherBart

beatlefan said:


> No one should buy sour cream or cottage cheese. They're gross!



What about yogurt? I was raised in the country and know clabbered milk when I see it.


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## begreen

BrotherBart said:


> What about yogurt? I was raised in the country and know clabbered milk when I see it.


They're similar but different bugs. Clabber is thinner and works at room temp and uses local wild bacteria. Yogurt is thermophilic, it requires heat to culture and uses a different strain of bacteria.


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## sportbikerider78

venator260 said:


> Alright, perhaps this should be common knowledge; but I've never heard this warning extended to these products. Cooking grease and butter yes; I have removed a 'butter plug' from my drain. Does sour cream and yogurt have the same effect?


All oil/grease/fat when hit by cold water hardens up.  

I don't know if it's an issue or not....but fat is fat.


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## begreen

Most cottage cheese and yogurt is low-fat.


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## maple1

sportbikerider78 said:


> All oil/grease/fat when hit by cold water hardens up.
> 
> I don't know if it's an issue or not....but fat is fat.



Not all, I don't believe. I don't think I've ever seen my oil based salad dressings go hard in the fridge, for example.


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## begreen

Our homemade olive oil dressings congeal in the refrig. Not solid, but it won't pour.


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## venator260

begreen said:


> Our homemade olive oil dressings congeal in the refrig. Not solid, but it won't pour.




That was my thoughts too. At the temperature of my drainpipes (basement usually doesn't get below about 65 degrees year round) sour cream is fairly liquid. What bits of cottage cheese that would go down the drain would be liquid as well. Not sure about the run between the wall and the septic, but I would think that one person showering would get things warmed up enough to get it moved to the septic tank.


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## begreen

Yes, like I said, it would be a bad idea to dump a half-container down the drain, but rinsing out an empty container, no problem. These containers need to be recycled or reused and not landfilled.


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## WoodyIsGoody

sportbikerider78 said:


> The problem isn't an easy one, because rinsing fatty sour cream, yogurt, cottage chesse,,ect out in your sink...isn't a good idea.  And no one wants to have stinky cheese smelling trash in their garage, waiting for a collection day.



I use silicone spatulas. Makes it very easy to use all of the product. So there's not enough to worry about rinsing the container in your sink.


----------



## Highbeam

The sewers can handle solids so it isn't about the chunkiness. The greases, oils, and fats,(FOG) are a problem in sewers because they adhere to the walls and leave a thin layer of FOG as they pass. Those layers accumulate over time until flow is reduced and you get a backup. Then you need to clean the whole line. Very seldom does it clog in just one spot with the rest of the line clean. So dumping a slug of fat one time is not as bad as dumping a little bit of fat every day for an extended period.

What many folks do with a FOG backup is dump a boiling pot of water down the drain to remelt the FOG and send it down the line.

We don't recycle garbage and do not wash FOG down the drain. No stink. The real stink is from rotting meat scraps.


----------



## venator260

Well, this should be too much of a problem for me. My sink runs into the pipe that comes from first the dishwasher, and then, on the other side of the wall, the washing machine. I would think that those get enough hot water run through them to take care of any problems associated with a buildup of fats. I suppose if I ever do have a problem, I'll have to cut into the lines, in which case I'll install cleanouts


----------



## Seasoned Oak

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/03/22/great-pacific-garbage-patch-grows/446405002/
UPDATE!! Seems like its growing fast!


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> In the meantime let the bottling companies pay for the disposal, landfill and recycling costs.


Let them put a small deposit on bottle Mfgs. Can be small to start,a nickle or 2. Would be enough for people to collect and turn in discarded bottles that would not find their way to waterways. Exempt plant based and glass bottles. Industry would find solutions as soon as plastic becomes more expensive than alternatives. .I already recycle all my plastic bottles, water,detergent,milk,food containers ect ect.


----------



## begreen

I was very impressed with how well they recycle in Colombia. There are recycling bins everywhere. You can even take a bag of your plastic bottles and recyclables to the Metro and pay your fare with them or by a multiride pass. We saw recycling crews at work and noted the city streets are very clean.
Here is a recycling station at a Medellin Metro stop.


----------



## WiscWoody

Seasoned Oak said:


> https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/03/22/great-pacific-garbage-patch-grows/446405002/
> UPDATE!! Seems like its growing fast!


I heard about this in the radio yesterday, they said the patch is twice the size of Texas and there’s more patches around the world too. This always makes me think of George Carlin’s view of the whole messed up planet.


----------



## begreen

Yes, the recent study reported in Nature shows that previous estimates for size and volume of the GPGP are very low. This is a detailed, and conservative study. And yes this is just one of six human garbage collecting gyres. If people thought of this in terms of petroleum dumped in the ocean they would be much more alarmed, but that is essentially what it is, time-released, but just as fatal in many ways. And this is just one issue. It was reported in the past week that we have also grossly underestimated the amount of microplastics that is currently pouring into the oceans from freshwater rivers. And this is before ocean acidification. We are killing our very source of life, the seas. Without ocean produced oxygen, terrestrial life as we know it will not survive.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22939-w

PS: Love Carlin, but since he did that monologue we are up to 150-200 species going extinct per day. That is way above the background rate of 25 per day that he mentions. The planet is our habitat and the only one we have. In the big picture he is correct, the planet will survive without us, but at the current rate humanity's days are numbered. It's basic math.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Yea the planet will be fine, its our own butts we need to save not the planet . But we can do a lot more so we dont have to live amongst the garbage we generate.


----------



## WiscWoody

begreen said:


> Yes, the recent study reported in Nature shows that previous estimates for size and volume of the GPGP are very low. This is a detailed, and conservative study. And yes this is just one of six human garbage collecting gyres. If people thought of this in terms of petroleum dumped in the ocean they would be much more alarmed, but that is essentially what it is, time-released, but just as fatal in many ways. And this is just one issue. It was reported in the past week that we have also grossly underestimated the amount of microplastics that is currently pouring into the oceans from freshwater rivers. And this is before ocean acidification. We are killing our very source of life, the seas. Without ocean produced oxygen, terrestrial life as we know it will not survive.
> 
> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22939-w
> 
> PS: Love Carlin, but since he did that monologue we are up to 150-200 species going extinct per day. That is way above the background rate of 25 per day that he mentions. The planet is our habitat and the only one we have. In the big picture he is correct, the planet will survive without us, but at the current rate humanity's days are numbered. It's basic math.


Between that and the warming planet which will make food and water more scarce in the future possibly unleashing water wars things could be tough for the future. It’s a shame that the government is basically controlled by corporations and special interest groups meaning not many in DC will vote their conscience but will instead vote just to keep their own job. It disgusts me.


----------



## begreen

If the zooplankton ecosystem collapses then we lose about 70% of our oxygen supply. Not many species will survive that until the system resets itself. Imagine a future life based on tardigrades and cockroaches.


----------



## EatenByLimestone

Probably wouldn't want to use up the oxygen with a fire, so they'd be raw roaches!  You could season them with a little sea salt though.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

We definitely could go to alternative packaging and drastically cut plastic use. Its TOO cheap. My plastic waste is most of my garbage. I guess were waiting until the garbage patch goes shore to shore in the ocean before acting. One sure fire way to get rid of plastic it to TAX IT.


----------



## sportbikerider78

Is this 


Seasoned Oak said:


> https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/science/2018/03/22/great-pacific-garbage-patch-grows/446405002/
> UPDATE!! Seems like its growing fast!


So who dumped it there?  Are they still dumping there?


----------



## WiscWoody

sportbikerider78 said:


> Is this
> 
> So who dumped it there?  Are they still dumping there?


From what I heard on the radio they said there’s many different languages on the plastics including English. They also said that 48% of the gppp is fishing nets. They are cheap and often cut free from shops and they kill everything that gets caught in them. I’ve also seen reports on cruise ships that dump their trash in the middle of the night.


----------



## WiscWoody

Seasoned Oak said:


> We definitely could go to alternative packaging and drastically cut plastic use. Its TOO cheap. My plastic waste is most of my garbage. I guess were waiting until the garbage patch goes shore to shore in the ocean before acting. One sure fire way to get rid of plastic it to TAX IT.


My commingled recycling is definitely much more than my garbage and here in the sticks we buy bags to take our garbage to the dump but the recycling is taken for free so it just makes sense to separate out all recycling but still some up here don’t do it or they illegally burn all of their trash, plastics and all. I especially hate to see that as we have good clean air up here. These people who do that are the laziest people imo.


----------



## begreen

sportbikerider78 said:


> Is this
> 
> So who dumped it there?  Are they still dumping there?


This has been building for decades. A big part appears to have been added during the largeJapanese tsunami that washed entire towns out to sea. But there are objects in the gyre dated from 40 years ago too. Places like Indonesia are still contributing a lot. About a third of the materials found there were from China. Not sure if this has since declined significantly as the Chinese put stricter environmental controls in place. Their rivers are still a major source.  Most importantly, this is only one of 6 major garbage gyres around the planet. The Atlantic gyres would have content from the Americas. But it is reported that 10 rivers are responsible for the most contributions. 

http://www.dw.com/en/almost-all-plastic-in-the-ocean-comes-from-just-10-rivers/a-41581484
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2016/12/world/midway-plastic-island/


----------



## maple1

Build some big factory ships that can process that stuff into compressed brick type stuff, then bring it ashore and burn it in some co-gen plants. That have stack scrubbers and stuff.


----------



## begreen

Seasoned Oak said:


> We definitely could go to alternative packaging and drastically cut plastic use. Its TOO cheap. My plastic waste is most of my garbage. I guess were waiting until the garbage patch goes shore to shore in the ocean before acting. One sure fire way to get rid of plastic it to TAX IT.


In Norway you pay 1 krone when you buy a soda or water, etc. in a plastic bottle. At every store and in public areas there are machines that then take in the returned empty bottles. This eliminates a lot of handling. The cost is covered by the bottling companies. They get lower taxes for complying.


----------



## begreen

maple1 said:


> Build some big factory ships that can process that stuff into compressed brick type stuff, then bring it ashore and burn it in some co-gen plants. That have stack scrubbers and stuff.


That thought has come to mind. I don't like incineration, it's often poorly done, but the Swedes seem to be perfecting the scrubbing and filtering. It could be part of the solution. The other part is a moratorium on new plants producing the raw materials for petroleum based packaging plastics. Since 2010 $180 Billion has been spent on new plants.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Rather than deal with it as toxic waste it seems it would be so much simpler to produce a biodegradable substance to replace plastic altogether. Bottles may be a few pennies or a nickle more expensive but they would return to the environment as compost or some inert less dangerous material. Once plastic enters the waste stream it is hard and expensive to deal with it.


----------



## begreen

There are companies working on that overseas. Not sure about in the US.


----------



## EatenByLimestone

I've seen what appears to be plastic bottles stating that they are plant based, not plastic.

I've seen plastic bottles that claim to degrade with the sun, but they are buried at the landfill.

Not sure what exactly you were talking about though.  I bet waxed paper milk and oj containers degrade or are recycled just fine.


----------



## WiscWoody

I wander how glass bottles would compare ecologically compared to plastic bottles and jars? Back in the early 80’s I worked for Brockway Glass Co., it was the 2nd largest bottle and jar maker (and we made the Looney Tunes glasses for a fast food restaurant too) in the world at the time but plastics came on strong around then and they were lighter to ship and used less energy to make so our plant in Minnesota was shut down on Christmas 1984. We made a million bottles and jars a day in the one plant and it was a good paying job. Shortly after the shut down the company merged with Owens Illinois, the largest glass maker in the world.


----------



## begreen

EatenByLimestone said:


> I've seen what appears to be plastic bottles stating that they are plant based, not plastic.
> 
> I've seen plastic bottles that claim to degrade with the sun, but they are buried at the landfill.
> 
> Not sure what exactly you were talking about though. I bet waxed paper milk and oj containers degrade or are recycled just fine.


Oh there are products I am sure, I just haven't stumbled on many of them yet. I have seen some hemp oil based plastics and some sugar cane based. Our community is going to undertake a study this summer to see if we can come up with good solutions for local vendors and festivals.

There are products listed and made here, but the question is how well they work and then how does the plastic break down (UV, heat, etc.) and into what components or elements. Many "compostable" plastics will not breakdown in your home compost pile. They require higher temps to break down and must be sorted for industrial composting.

Milk cartons are no longer wax coated, they are plastic coated. Same with coffee cups. They bring their own problems. 
http://www.ecocycle.org/microplasticsincompost/faqs


----------



## begreen

WiscWoody said:


> I wander how glass bottles would compare ecologically compared to plastic bottles and jars? Back in the early 80’s I worked for Brockway Glass Co., it was the 2nd largest bottle and jar maker (and we made the Looney Tunes glasses for a fast food restaurant too) in the world at the time but plastics came on strong around then and they were lighter to ship and used less energy to make so our plant in Minnesota was shut down on Christmas 1984. We made a million bottles and jars a day in the one plant and it was a good paying job. Shortly after the shut down the company mergers with Owens Illinois, the largest glass maker in the world.


Glass is so much more recyclable. Part of why plastic costs less is because the manufacturers place the cost on their disposal or recycling on the consumer and taxpayer. Another part is because our oil industry is subsidized.


----------



## begreen

A bit more research is showing me that the US is in over-production mode. That $180 Billion invested is being made to pay off. As long as there is too much plastic resin and no drivers for the resin producers to be part of the solution, the value of recycled plastics will remain low. As long as there is no demand, there will be no incentive to move toward circularity and waste will continue to be systemic issues. This appears to be where change needs to start.


----------



## WiscWoody

begreen said:


> Glass is so much more recyclable. Part of why plastic costs less is because the manufacturers place the cost on their disposal or recycling on the consumer and taxpayer. Another part is because our oil industry is subsidized.


I would think that if glass were in the ocean as a open bottle for example, it would sink to the bottom and be eventually buried by sand forever.


----------



## vinny11950

This is just freaking depressing.  Having these beautiful creatures killed by garbage is just wrong.  Only small animals and insects that can adapt to our environmental disruption will thrive.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-its-digestive-system/?utm_term=.89040696dc87


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Wondering if this situation could render seafood inedible at some point. 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...c-cigarette-butts-packing-material/549115002/

Or if it already has.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42270729


----------



## begreen

We a close to the tipping point, if not already there.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> We a close to the tipping point, if not already there.


Once that tipping point is reached it will be many years before it flushes itself out again ,probably a few lifetimes. I simple solution would be to impose a small but graduated tax on all plastic in order to spur innovation to biodegragable products. Plastic water bottles being the top offender with grocery bags a close second should be done at a faster pace. OR do we wait until seafood is no longer on the menu?


----------



## begreen

With the death of the oceans, we are not far behind. 70% of the world's oxygen comes from the seas.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

If plastics Mfg were made responsible for the proper recycling or disposal of their product would help a great deal. Its not unheard of.We pay a disposal fee when we buy new tires.  Dont want to pay the fee? Change to a safer product. Our garbage is at least 70% plastic.


----------



## begreen

Seasoned Oak said:


> If plastics Mfg were made responsible for the proper recycling or disposal of their product would help a great deal. Its not unheard of.We pay a disposal fee when we buy new tires.  Dont want to pay the fee? Change to a safer product. Our garbage is at least 70% plastic.


That is a big part of the problem. In the US the taxpayer bears the cost of plastics disposal. In Europe the manufacturer owns them, cradle to grave. This has led to more of a cradle to cradle attitude, with more careful use of plastics and less, more innovative packaging.

In the meantime one garbage truck load of plastics enters our oceans every minute.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/artic...owly-killing-our-sea-creatures-fish-and-birds


----------



## begreen

There are a lot of solutions being worked on. There are several new bioplastics that are showing promise and there are some innovative solutions using previous waste product like wheat bran and compressing that into common single-use items like plates, cups, cutlery that are used for picnics, fast food, events, etc..

This is a recent polymer development that could be one to watch.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/04/180426141530.htm


----------



## sportbikerider78

begreen said:


> Glass is so much more recyclable. Part of why plastic costs less is because the manufacturers place the cost on their disposal or recycling on the consumer and taxpayer. Another part is because our oil industry is subsidized.


It is also, much, much, much heavier.  Everything requires distribution with trucking and that is not to be overlooked.

How many 16oz bottles would a pound of plastic make?  25-40?
Now how about glass?  3-5?

For plastics, the pellets come in on a rain car, vacuumed into a silo, go directly into the molding machine and then (very often) they are automatically packed.  They stack inside each other VERY efficiently and are relatively light to move.  A tractor trailer can hold over a million Cool Whip sized containers.  How many glass containers of that size could it move?  10,000, if you're lucky and that would be much heavier.
Don't glass bottles also require a plastic seal combined with a plastic or metal retainer?  That is additional manufacturing, usually in a different plant.  More transportation.  

The plastic is very recyclable.  Grind it up.  Mix it with virgin material and make whatever your heart desires.

I don't know how common glass bottle/container manufacturing is, but plastics is often close to the source for large containers.  Most of the time, they are made close to their point of consumption so the trucking is minimized to a few hours or less.

Logistics matter and all of these factors are considered when companies decide where to build facilities.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> In the meantime one garbage truck load of plastics enters our oceans every minute.


I think that is wildly Underestimated. World wide much, much more than that. Perhaps every second.


----------



## begreen

sportbikerider78 said:


> It is also, much, much, much heavier.  Everything requires distribution with trucking and that is not to be overlooked.
> 
> How many 16oz bottles would a pound of plastic make?  25-40?
> Now how about glass?  3-5?
> 
> For plastics, the pellets come in on a rain car, vacuumed into a silo, go directly into the molding machine and then (very often) they are automatically packed.  They stack inside each other VERY efficiently and are relatively light to move.  A tractor trailer can hold over a million Cool Whip sized containers.  How many glass containers of that size could it move?  10,000, if you're lucky and that would be much heavier.
> Don't glass bottles also require a plastic seal combined with a plastic or metal retainer?  That is additional manufacturing, usually in a different plant.  More transportation.
> 
> The plastic is very recyclable.  Grind it up.  Mix it with virgin material and make whatever your heart desires.
> 
> I don't know how common glass bottle/container manufacturing is, but plastics is often close to the source for large containers.  Most of the time, they are made close to their point of consumption so the trucking is minimized to a few hours or less.
> 
> Logistics matter and all of these factors are considered when companies decide where to build facilities.


For sure, plastics have worked their way into our culture for a reason. But the costs of this miracle are steep and mounting. Why I am glad to see several local breweries switching aluminum cans. Even better yet our local store now fills growlers! There I prefer glass and will clean my own.

#1 and 2 plastics are easily recyclable. Others are not. And were it really gets bad is clever packaging that has multiple plastic types. That stuff is almost impossible to recycle. Burning may be the best answer for them.


----------



## semipro

begreen said:


> But the costs of this miracle are steep and mounting.


Reminds me of some other products of "better living through chemistry" such as pesticides, fire retarders, endocrine disruptors, etc.


----------



## semipro

The issue with Albatross chicks is what got my attention on this issue some years back.
https://www.fws.gov/news/blog/index.cfm/2012/10/24/Discarded-plastics-distress-albatross-chicks


----------



## begreen

Whales dying with a stomach full of plastic is another blatant symptom of our excess.


----------



## semipro

begreen said:


> Whales dying with a stomach full of plastic is another blatant symptom of our excess.


Yeah, I saw that.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> Whales dying with a stomach full of plastic is another blatant symptom of our excess.


Its really heartbreaking. And getting worse. For our own survival and also to leave our kids a clean environment some small steps can mean a lot.Eventually it will overwhelm us in the sheer magnitude of the problem.


----------



## begreen

We're working locally to reduce single use plastics consumption. Hopefully many other communities are too and a larger awareness will coalesce. China's National Sword program is helping convince govt. officials that we need to rethink policy and examine options.


----------



## vinny11950

There is so much capacity available to do these things but we just can't get it together.

I am always amazed by the bottle deposit program that sends people looking for can and bottles.  For five cents!


----------



## begreen

vinny11950 said:


> There is so much capacity available to do these things but we just can't get it together.
> 
> I am always amazed by the bottle deposit program that sends people looking for can and bottles.  For five cents!


Bottling companies (Coke and Pepsi) fought a bottle deposit tooth and nail in WA. They spent some big bucks to destroy the vote and won.


----------



## sportbikerider78

Mexico has a huge return policy on bottles and cans.  It was in place 15 years ago.  Still trash everywhere.  Just no bottles and cans.  

If it is other countries dumping trash into the ocean...not sure how local policy change is going to help.


----------



## begreen

Third world countries definitely have a serious problem and often one sees the issue where there is no govt. infrastructure to deal with waste or recycling. OTOH when we were in Colombia it was very impressive how clean the streets were in cities like Medellin. Civic pride, environmental employment and good infrastructure really help.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

I was wondering if and when someone would take on this behemoth ,but it certainly will need more ships and manpower and is probably much less effective on the backside of the plastic ocean problem. A small tax on plastic producers and importers would be much more effective in helping pay for cleanup and also finding alternatives. 
https://www.usatoday.com/videos/new...tackles-great-pacific-garbage-patch/37758301/


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Some of the market that plastic occupies can be taken back by paper products. Things like egg cartons. We landfill all our unrecyclable plastic and it is the lions share of our waste stream. Mostly food packaging.


----------



## begreen

It's a very big and multifaceted issue. Some govts. have started tackling it, but many continue to ignore the problem. We have created some great non-petroleum based plastics that breakdown safely into organic compounds in the US, but our market is small so they have been developed and marketed in Europe.

I'm following a series about plastic. So far it has listed some interesting data:

*How plastic is used*

Depending upon the region, packaging consumes 35 to 45 percent of the synthetic polymer produced in total, where the polyolefins dominate. Polyethylene terephthalate, a polyester, dominates the market for beverage bottles and textile fibers.

Building and construction consumes 20 percent more of the total polymers produced, where PVC pipe and its chemical cousins dominate. PVC pipes are lightweight, can be glued rather than soldered or welded, and greatly resist the damaging effects of chlorine in water. Unfortunately, the chlorine atoms that confer PVC this advantage make it very difficult to recycle — most is discarded at the end of life.

Polyurethanes, an entire family of related polymers, are widely used in foam insulation for homes and appliances, as well as in architectural coatings.

The automotive sector uses increasing amounts of thermoplastics, primarily to reduce weight and hence achieve greater fuel efficiency standards. The European Union estimated (PDF) that 16 percent of the weight of an average automobile is plastic components, most notably for interior parts and components.

Over 70 million tons of thermoplastics per year are used in textiles, mostly clothing and carpeting. More than 90 percent of synthetic fibers, largely polyethylene terephthalate, are produced in Asia. The growth in synthetic fiber use in clothing has come at the expense of natural fibers such as cotton and wool, which require significant amounts of farmland to be produced. The synthetic fiber industry has seen dramatic growth for clothing and carpeting, thanks to interest in special properties such as stretch, moisture-wicking and breathability.

As in the case of packaging, textiles are not commonly recycled. The average U.S. citizen generates over 90 pounds of textile waste each year. According to Greenpeace, the average person in 2016 (PDF) bought 60 percent more items of clothing every year than the average person did 15 years earlier, and keeps the clothes for a shorter period of time.
https://www.greenbiz.com/article/world-plastics-numbers


----------



## semipro

I'm not sure if its true but I heard recently that cigarette butts comprise the majority of plastic waste in oceans. 
Regardless, it seems crazy that we haven't been able to come up with biodegradable cigarette filters by now.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

semipro said:


> I'm not sure if its true but I heard recently that cigarette butts comprise the majority of plastic waste in oceans.
> Regardless, it seems crazy that we haven't been able to come up with biodegradable cigarette filters by now.


I seems that is the case to some extent at least worse than plastic straws. Lots of filtering media is biodegradable starting with your air filter in your car. At least the paper parts of it. Since there is no tax on the bad stuff or requirement to use biodegradable materials ,its a business decision. So dont expect most business to do the right thing voluntarily.


----------



## semipro

At a Celanese plant not to far from my house they turn trees into acetate plastic for cigarette filters - ironic that.
As with many plastics, claims are that they are biodegradable.  The question is in what time frame and how much damage do they do.
Like airborne particulate matter, it appears that its the smaller sized particles that actually do the most damage so "breaking down" isn't always a good thing, at least in the short term.

I'm wondering how my of those that toss their butts away into the environment realize the legacy they're creating.


----------



## Ashful

Seasoned Oak said:


> So dont expect most business to do the right thing voluntarily.


Boy, you have a poor view of these noble cigarette companies.  It’s not like they’re knowingly putting out a product that could harm people, or something like that...


----------



## sportbikerider78

Seasoned Oak said:


> I seems that is the case to some extent at least worse than plastic straws. Lots of filtering media is biodegradable starting with your air filter in your car. At least the paper parts of it. Since there is no tax on the bad stuff or requirement to use biodegradable materials ,its a business decision. So dont expect most business to do the right thing voluntarily.



Yet many do the right thing voluntarily.  As do many individuals who make up companies.

I suspect we all do many things voluntarily.


----------



## begreen

sportbikerider78 said:


> Well..we create companies....so....
> 
> Any tax is just passed to the consumer anyway.


Most of the costs are passed on to the consumer and tax payer. Waste collection, disposal and cleanup are not free, nor is health care. Our current system makes it convenient for manufacturers to pass those costs from their products and their manufacture onto the public.


----------



## begreen

Let's keep on topic for this thread - the effect and problem of dumping billions of tons of plastics into the environment. The taxes and tariffs discussion has moved to the Inglenook.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> Let's keep on topic for this thread - the effect and problem of dumping billions of tons of plastics into the environment. The taxes and tariffs discussion has moved to the Inglenook.


Was somewhat on topic as we were discussing taxes and tariffs as a partial solution to find alternatives to plastic and fund cleanup. But yes, taxes and tariffs could easily occupy its own thread. I applaud the effort of that one ship but it just seems like using spoon to move   a mountain . A mountain that is probably growing faster than that one ship can clean it up.


----------



## begreen

Yes, the problem has to be addressed at the source. We are now producing nearly *300 million* tons of plastic every year, half of which is for single use. More than 8 million tons of plastic is dumped into our oceans every year. 91% of plastics created are not recycled. It doesn't take that long for it to become a global issue and we've been at it for 60 years.


----------



## Doug MacIVER

had an uncle that started work in the late 50's for Borg-Warner, the were in every telephone, forever, maybe today.other stuff from women's high heel shoes to electrical boxes. could have pulled off this?


----------



## Ashful

Doug MacIVER said:


> had an uncle that started work in the late 50's for Borg-Warner, the were in every telephone, forever, maybe today.other stuff from women's high heel shoes to electrical boxes. could have pulled off this?



Good recall, but it goes back 20 years before that... when Sam was telling George to invest in plastics.


----------



## begreen

Plastics started in the early 1900s with bakelite, but their use and purpose was for things meant to last. The ubiquity of disposable plastics and trashing the environment started in the 60's.


----------



## semipro

I don't understand why we don't do more waste-to-energy conversion, especially with plastics.  My understanding is that most plastics are a great fuel.  
Use of abandoned coal power plants for this seems to make sense to me.  They typically have the transportation infrastructure, machinery, waste handling, and grid connectivity needed for such an effort. 
I suspect that the equipment required to deal with potential toxic air emissions must be the deal killer.


----------



## begreen

This is what I would like to see in our region. There is a coal plant in Centralia that is getting decommissioned. It has the rail lines and power infrastructure already in place.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Their is talk of holding drug Mfg partly responsible for the addiction opioids cause so we are seeing more business,s be held to account for the impact on society of their products. I am not anti-business at all, just the opposite ,but sometimes govt has to step in and regulate a bit. .


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> Yes, the problem has to be addressed at the source. We are now producing nearly *300 million* tons of plastic every year, half of which is for single use. More than 8 million tons of plastic is dumped into our oceans every year. 91% of plastics created are not recycled. It doesn't take that long for it to become a global issue and we've been at it for 60 years.


A perfect argument for some kind of environmental tax on single use plastic. Sometimes it only takes a penny or two to make switching to a less toxic product, cost effective.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

This stuff is just everywhere. Were swimming in it and it is swimming in us. 
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...y-particles-plastic-study-says-yes/427210002/


----------



## begreen

They have found that bugs like mosquitoes are spreading microplastics to many species of animals, particularly those that eat them.


----------



## Ashful

Seasoned Oak said:


> This stuff is just everywhere. Were swimming in it and it is swimming in us.
> https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...y-particles-plastic-study-says-yes/427210002/


This may be true, but let's not ignore the disclaimer, "the study, which has not been peer-reviewed or published in a journal..."

Also, "Researchers caution that it's unclear what effect microplastics can have on the human body."

Definitely something to watch with interest, but I suspect something else might kill me before this is ever settled.


----------



## begreen

Due caution is warranted about overstating the effect of microplastics in humans. It will take time to study, but by then it could be too late. Plastics have an affinity for all sorts of toxins. This is causing serious scientists to warn of unknown and unexpected consequences. The problem is growing at an alarming rate. Is this worth the risk? We may be too old to be affected, but what about the children?
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(17)30121-3/fulltext
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/22/health/microplastics-land-and-air-pollution-intl/index.html


----------



## maple1

semipro said:


> I don't understand why we don't do more waste-to-energy conversion, especially with plastics.  My understanding is that most plastics are a great fuel.
> Use of abandoned coal power plants for this seems to make sense to me.  They typically have the transportation infrastructure, machinery, waste handling, and grid connectivity needed for such an effort.
> I suspect that the equipment required to deal with potential toxic air emissions must be the deal killer.



I agree 100%. Actually find it a bit mind boggling. We have two problems (one is huge and growing and not just confined to plastic waste but waste of all kinds of other burnable stuff) that seem to be solutions to each other. I am quite sure emissions could be dealt with adequately with some tech - aside from that, I don't see where much more investment would be needed. Everything is already mostly in place.


----------



## sportbikerider78

semipro said:


> I don't understand why we don't do more waste-to-energy conversion, especially with plastics.  My understanding is that most plastics are a great fuel.
> Use of abandoned coal power plants for this seems to make sense to me.  They typically have the transportation infrastructure, machinery, waste handling, and grid connectivity needed for such an effort.
> I suspect that the equipment required to deal with potential toxic air emissions must be the deal killer.


Likely because plants can't meet emissions regulations?


----------



## sportbikerider78

Seasoned Oak said:


> Their is talk of holding drug Mfg partly responsible for the addiction opioids cause so we are seeing more business,s be held to account for the impact on society of their products. I am not anti-business at all, just the opposite ,but sometimes govt has to step in and regulate a bit. .


Can we hold cheese companies accountable for high cholesterol and heart conditions?  Maybe I can get Kraft to cover my gym membership.


----------



## begreen

sportbikerider78 said:


> Likely because plants can't meet emissions regulations?


There are several of waste to energy plants in the US already, over 71 and more coming online. They do meet current emissions regulations, though not perhaps some stricter European emissions standards. I would like to see more plants here on the model that the Swedes have developed. 

That said, the quickest and most cost effective near term solution is to reduce the consumption of non-biodegradeable, single use plastics. Newer packaging solutions do exist, but the market is weak for them in the US. In Europe it's much more robust and growing rapidly due to cradle-to-cradle manufacturing mandates. Part of those mandates puts the costs of recycling on the manufacturers instead of municipalities and taxpayers.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

sportbikerider78 said:


> Can we hold cheese companies accountable for high cholesterol and heart conditions?  Maybe I can get Kraft to cover my gym membership.


Then your proposing the cleanup cost be a public expense?  Or do nothing and let the stuff pile up and pollute everywhere. The fact the product does not degrade could be seen as a defect for a single use product. Would be one way to attack the problem.


----------



## sportbikerider78

Seasoned Oak said:


> Then your proposing the cleanup cost be a public expense?  Or do nothing and let the stuff pile up and pollute everywhere. The fact the product does not degrade could be seen as a defect for a single use product. Would be one way to attack the problem.


No, I was talking to your point of making the companies accountable instead of the consumer.  
If you put another regulation on all companies in a particular market, you have a public expense, not a private one.  The price goes up. 

Didn't we already establish most of this pollution is from 3rd world countries?  How would a tax locally clean up waste in our oceans?

Kinda unrelated......but related....
I'm actually really shocked so many people still use bottled water.  I'm 40 yrs old and i've been carrying around a Nalgene water bottle since I was in a community college.  Even if these wayyyyyy overpriced bottles of water were $.10, it is still easier to just fill your bottled water with filtered water.  
I don't get people.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Yes it is the consumer that is doing most of the polluting. Not much can be done to change that. Deposits help,even on plastic bottles. Something that will degrade when exposed to sunlight for long periods would be helpful.


----------



## Ashful

Seasoned Oak said:


> Something that will degrade when exposed to sunlight for long periods would be helpful.


Wouldn’t that just add to the micro plastics problem you were previously discussing?


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Ashful said:


> Wouldn’t that just add to the micro plastics problem you were previously discussing?


Probably would not contain any plastic at all. Some plastic bottles are already partly plant based. Decomposing rather than just breaking down into smaller pieces.


----------



## Ashful

Seasoned Oak said:


> Probably would not contain any plastic at all. Some plastic bottles are already partly plant based. Decomposing rather than just breaking down into smaller pieces.



... just as long as they don’t break down while sitting in my cupboard, and ruin the wood work.  In some households, it might be common for a bottle pushed to the back of the cupboard to sit for a few years.

... and what happens when I leave it in the cup holder of my car at the airport, or over a long weekend?


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Ashful said:


> ... just as long as they don’t break down while sitting in my cupboard, and ruin the wood work.  In some households, it might be common for a bottle pushed to the back of the cupboard to sit for a few years.
> 
> ... and what happens when I leave it in the cup holder of my car at the airport, or over a long weekend?


The Stainless steel Water bottles are getting more popular ,i have  a few of them. As far as things like mayo jars they only recently became primarily plastic before that were mostly glass. All this wont mean much to most of us, ill be lucky if i have 10 yrs or so left on the planet. The next generation will be dealing with most of it, as well as all the Debt.


----------



## Ashful

The next generation is going to have bigger fish to fry.  Start educating yourself on some of the most recent breakthroughs and thoughts on artificial intelligence, plastics will no longer occupy your worries.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Ashful said:


> Start educating yourself on some of the most recent breakthroughs and thoughts on artificial intelligence,.


Ill be 62 tomorrow so i wont need any new skills. Ill be busy divesting property for the next 10 years
 if i make it that long. My kids will have to worry about it.


----------



## Doug MacIVER

should we send this back?https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article218982585.html


----------



## Ashful

Doug MacIVER said:


> should we send this back?https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article218982585.html


Bummer.  I vacationed one year in Topsail beach, probably summer 1988.  Was pretty rural and quiet, back then.  Almost got stuck out on the water as a tropical storm or fizzling hurricane approached, when I made the decision to do some water skiing in the hours before the storm hit, and our boat battery died out on the water.  Got a frightening tow from a commercial fishing boat that was way too big to safely tow our little ski boat, but beggars can’t be choosers.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Iv been thinking that deposits may be a good way to tackle much of this problem. That way were only the actual polluters are paying for cleanup  since many of us are careful this stuff does not get into the environment. Any excess money collected in deposits earmarked for cleanup activities. That goes for aluminum cans as well.


----------



## semipro

Ashful said:


> Bummer.  I vacationed one year in Topsail beach, probably summer 1988.  Was pretty rural and quiet, back then.  Almost got stuck out on the water as a tropical storm or fizzling hurricane approached, when I made the decision to do some water skiing in the hours before the storm hit, and our boat battery died out on the water.  Got a frightening tow from a commercial fishing boat that was way too big to safely tow our little ski boat, but beggars can’t be choosers.


Topsail has an interesting history with respect to weapons testing.  We went there a few years back and enjoyed it.  The concrete structures that hosted high speed observation cameras can still be found. 
https://www.starfishrentalsandrealty.com/operation-bumblebee.htm


----------



## semipro

Seasoned Oak said:


> Iv been thinking that deposits may be a good way to tackle much of this problem. That way were only the actual polluters are paying for cleanup  since many of us are careful this stuff does not get into the environment. Any excess money collected in deposits earmarked for cleanup activities. That goes for aluminum cans as well.


Deposits have proven very effective.  All you have to do is compare the roadsides in that states that do and don't have container deposits.  
We had one legislator in VA that tried numerous times to pass what was termed a "bottle" bill.   It was never supported well in our Republican-controlled legislature.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

You would think a bottle bill would be a very NON partisan issue.


----------



## Ashful

Seasoned Oak said:


> You would think a bottle bill would be a very NON partisan issue.


Right vs. Left have become the new religion, entrenched battle lines from which neither side will budge, and from which neither side really even makes much sense anymore.

It's really a shame there was no strong third-party candidate, as we were left with what seemed to me like the worst two candidate options in my lifetime.  There could have been a real shake-up, if someone on the level of Ron Paul had been running this time around, and fifteen years younger.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Ashful said:


> Right vs. Left have become the new religion, entrenched battle lines from which neither side will budge, and from which neither side really even makes much sense anymore.
> 
> It's really a shame there was no strong third-party candidate, as we were left with what seemed to me like the worst two candidate options in my lifetime.  There could have been a real shake-up, if someone on the level of Ron Paul had been running this time around, and fifteen years younger.


I always liked Ron Paul. He made more sense than anyone ,but not many seemed to be listening, not even his fellow congressmen.


----------



## semipro

Something related: 
https://inhabitat.com/even-fish-can...at-could-answer-the-plastic-pollution-crisis/


----------



## begreen

This reads more like a marketing piece. Although I object to the article headline, it will be interesting to see how well this one works. There are already several bioplastic approaches that have demonstrated good properties for use in the packaging industry, especially for single-use plastics. However, plastics are used in all sorts of applications and for some uses bioplastics don't always stand up. For example say to heat, or shelf life. Not sure how Nuatan will measure up in this regard. They list no testing standards that the product has passed. It's unclear how well it would work for a soda bottle, plastic cutlery, bags or a yoghurt container. Their website is very basic and offers little detail.


----------



## sportbikerider78

Saw this on my Twitter feed this morning.

Very cool system to clean up the plastics in the ocean.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevor...rgest-ocean-cleanup-has-officially-begun/amp/


----------



## semipro

Plastics to energy via "cold plasma pyrolysis". 
https://www.ecowatch.com/how-we-can-turn-plastic-waste-into-green-energy-2609844770.html


----------



## begreen

We certainly can't keep kicking the can down the road, then blaming 3d world countries for the problem. 
https://mic.com/articles/191793/now...-is-in-the-midst-of-a-trash-crisis#.vmdThb5nW


----------



## semipro

begreen said:


> We certainly can't keep kicking the can down the road, then blaming 3d world countries for the problem.
> https://mic.com/articles/191793/now...-is-in-the-midst-of-a-trash-crisis#.vmdThb5nW


What a mess - figuratively and literally.


----------



## Doug MacIVER

not much fanfare!https://www.usatoday.com/videos/new...s-bill-aimed-reducing-sea-pollution/38125451/

from the Anchorage Daily, $10mil/5 yrs. quote from the article and link.
"Speaking with reporters after the signing, Sullivan said much of the waste comes from a handful of Asian nations, including China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The countries lack proper controls, and waste is bulldozed into rivers that carry it to oceans. More than 8 million tons of plastic trash is dumped into oceans globally." pretty convenient ?https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/env...ska-lawmakers-praised-by-trump-cleanup-group/


----------



## Sodbuster

The answer will ultimately come from Packaging Engineers, who will make it financially advantageous  for companies to make environmental friendly packaging. Better to lead a horse than to prod it.


----------



## Ashful

Sodbuster said:


> The answer will ultimately come from Packaging Engineers, who will make it financially advantageous  for companies to make environmental friendly packaging. Better to lead a horse than to prod it.


Germany started an interesting practice about 25 years ago, in that all manufacturers were made liable to take back all products and packaging they manufacture, disassemble, recycle, or re-use them.  It was over the top, and manufacturers truly didn’t know how to handle this (was Mercedes to take back 25 year old cars, disassemble them, and somehow re-use the materials?), but it shows a line of thinking that I like.

If the costs of managing the waste from packaging were somehow placed back onto manufacturers (or importers) of these products, you would see a revolution in packaging design.  Yes, the cost is ultimately passed on to the consumer, but by incentivizing manufacturers to reduce that overall cost (to remain competitive), the overall costs (and waste) would be lowered.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Ashful said:


> If the costs of managing the waste from packaging were somehow placed back onto manufacturers (or importers) of these products, you would see a revolution in packaging design.  Yes, the cost is ultimately passed on to the consumer, but by incentivizing manufacturers to reduce that overall cost (to remain competitive), the overall costs (and waste) would be lowered.


Same result as a tax or surcharge or deposit. Levying a tax on Mfg for single use non biodegradable products they produce will quicky lead to that same Mfg finding a way to make it biodegradable or at least easily recycled.  The old adage applies:Whenever you tax something you get less of it ,subsidize it, you get more.


----------



## Sodbuster

Seasoned Oak said:


> Same result as a tax or surcharge or deposit. Levying a tax on Mfg for single use non biodegradable products they produce will quicky lead to that same Mfg finding a way to make it biodegradable or at least easily recycled.  The old adage applies:Whenever you tax something you get less of it ,subsidize it, you get more.



I would love to see plastic grocery bags outlawed. We were on vacation last year in the FL Keys, and we were behind a garbage truck that was overloaded, and plastic bags were popping up and blowing all over. You know they'll find the water and stay there for the next 500 years. Nothing wrong with good ol paper.


----------



## begreen

Ashful said:


> Germany started an interesting practice about 25 years ago, in that all manufacturers were made liable to take back all products and packaging they manufacture, disassemble, recycle, or re-use them.  It was over the top, and manufacturers truly didn’t know how to handle this (was Mercedes to take back 25 year old cars, disassemble them, and somehow re-use the materials?), but it shows a line of thinking that I like.
> 
> If the costs of managing the waste from packaging were somehow placed back onto manufacturers (or importers) of these products, you would see a revolution in packaging design.  Yes, the cost is ultimately passed on to the consumer, but by incentivizing manufacturers to reduce that overall cost (to remain competitive), the overall costs (and waste) would be lowered.


Germany took a strategic, leadership role in cradle to cradle concept that has dramatically reduced waste in the country. Since 1996 the country has reduced total net waste by 37 million tons. This is a thorough program that had different phases for different industries. It didn't apply to past manufacturing only future production. Manufacturers were given time to tool up. They were required to design with waste avoidance, waste recovery and environmentally compatible disposal in mind. It's been quite successful in segwaying the country to a more circular economy. The seed for this started with the EPEA program between 1987 and 1992 which developed a concept called: “_Intelligent Product System_” for transforming the linear economy into an economically and environmentally sustainable system of intelligent products.

"In 1991, Germany adopted its Packaging Ordinance, which requires all manufacturers to collect and then recycle or reuse their packaging after it is disposed of by consumers.

Making corporations responsible for their packaging to the end of its life cycle encourages them to package goods with fewer materials in order to minimize recycling and disposal costs.

The Ordinance focuses on improving three categories of packaging:

Transport packaging (crates and shipping boxes)
Secondary packaging (non-essential boxes, such as around bottles of vitamins)
Primary packaging (casings that come in contact with the product, such as toothpaste tubes)"
The German programs have become a successful model for several other nations. 

https://earth911.com/earth-watch/trash-planet-germany/


----------



## begreen

Sodbuster said:


> I would love to see plastic grocery bags outlawed. We were on vacation last year in the FL Keys, and we were behind a garbage truck that was overloaded, and plastic bags were popping up and blowing all over. You know they'll find the water and stay there for the next 500 years. Nothing wrong with good ol paper.


Imagine this being your home where your kids play.


----------



## Doug MacIVER

Doug MacIVER said:


> not much fanfare!https://www.usatoday.com/videos/new...s-bill-aimed-reducing-sea-pollution/38125451/
> 
> from the Anchorage Daily, $10mil/5 yrs. quote from the article and link.
> "Speaking with reporters after the signing, Sullivan said much of the waste comes from a handful of Asian nations, including China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The countries lack proper controls, and waste is bulldozed into rivers that carry it to oceans. More than 8 million tons of plastic trash is dumped into oceans globally." pretty convenient ?https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/env...ska-lawmakers-praised-by-trump-cleanup-group/


outstanding comments by the folks here, your gov't responds with action directly relating to the thread and ZERO,ZERO COMMENTS? unless I've missed it no other person here has mentioned the bill when it was moving thru? what is up !here this reminds me when webby sold out and nobody saw it? speakin of the webmeister, last seen may 2017, howse he doin?


----------



## begreen

Stop trying to politicize the thread. One act does not indicate a general trend. There is a long list of industry appointees by the current administration that are completely reversing environmental controls in favor of industry.


----------



## Sodbuster

8 years were given to ban plastic bags and it didn't happen, wonder why. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$


----------



## Doug MacIVER

begreen said:


> Stop trying to politicize the thread. One act does not indicate a general trend. There is a long list of industry appointees by the current administration that are completely reversing environmental controls in favor of industry.


no politics intended here, never mentioned the administration, you did!. I did mention Government. it is a very small move made by unanimous consent without amendments. here a link for those that may be interested. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/756


----------



## begreen

It's good to see the funding extended and any small step is welcome. Some big steps would be also.

PS: Thanks for providing the link to the actual bill. I was too lazy to look it up.


----------



## Doug MacIVER

meanwhile else where, 3000 families live in a 200 acre Jakarta dump? https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...-landfill_us_5b9fcc13e4b013b0977d47ce.article claims pickers earn Indonesia min. wage!


----------



## sportbikerider78

Sodbuster said:


> 8 years were given to ban plastic bags and it didn't happen, wonder why. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$


Obviously, because people want them. 

What US company is dumping plastic in the ocean?


----------



## Ashful

Doug MacIVER said:


> meanwhile else where, 3000 families live in a 200 acre Jakarta dump? https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entr...-landfill_us_5b9fcc13e4b013b0977d47ce.article claims pickers earn Indonesia min. wage!



This is failure in government, on every level.  Meanwhile, they’ve been running a surplus of 15% - 20% every year, due to various administrative blockages on spending and procurement.

In this case, the fundamental problem is that they’re producing garbage quicker than they can process it.  That mountain is still growing, every day.  This is a clear case where waste reduction could and should be heavily incentivized, it is a home-grown problem.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Plastic certainly is everywhere. 
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...d-human-poop-pilot-study-ueg-week/1736745002/


----------



## Ashful

Seasoned Oak said:


> Plastic certainly is everywhere.
> https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...d-human-poop-pilot-study-ueg-week/1736745002/



Really makes you wonder about the spun plastic fiber whole-house or local-use water filters that so many have installed in their homes, today.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Ashful said:


> Really makes you wonder about the spun plastic fiber whole-house or local-use water filters that so many have installed in their homes, today.


Yes iv got one of those and the filter sure isnt paper. Also lots of nasty things water treatrment plants DONT take out of municipal water supplies when sourcing it from rivers like drugs and now micro plastics.
https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-09-05/if-youre-drinking-tap-water-youre-consuming-plastic-pollutants 
My water supply comes from mountain lakes, so were first use, but everyone downstream that sources from streams and rivers gets the recycled stuff that comes out of our local waste treatment plant. But after it goes through my chlorine removal filter which is mostly plastic,all bets are off.


----------



## Sodbuster

sportbikerider78 said:


> Obviously, because people want them.
> 
> What US company is dumping plastic in the ocean?



No one CEO is standing there throwing plastic into the ocean, it just finds its way there, haven't you seen the giant plastic patch in the ocean. Google it.


----------



## sportbikerider78

Ashful said:


> Really makes you wonder about the spun plastic fiber whole-house or local-use water filters that so many have installed in their homes, today.


I have a 5 stage RO system for just drinking water.  Love it.


Sodbuster said:


> No one CEO is standing there throwing plastic into the ocean, it just finds its way there, haven't you seen the giant plastic patch in the ocean. Google it.


Yes...and as we discussed earlier in this thread...it's not caused by the US.  Thus, banning bags in the US isn't going to solve the issue of a growing mass of plastic in the ocean.  
It would only stop the occasional bag from a careless citizen/municipality.


----------



## begreen

sportbikerider78 said:


> Yes...and as we discussed earlier in this thread...it's not caused by the US. Thus, banning bags in the US isn't going to solve the issue of a growing mass of plastic in the ocean.
> It would only stop the occasional bag from a careless citizen/municipality.


All countries are responsible for this issue. And it's not just in the oceans but the rivers that feed them. Recently testing found some rivers in England that exceeded previous high levels of microplastic measurements in Korea.  There are lots of causes, not just plastic bags. Washing polyester and fleece clothing puts lots of fibers into the environment. Like it or not, this is ubiquitous now and showing up in us.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science...-worst-recorded-microplastic-pollution-world/
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/10/22/659568662/microplastics-are-turning-up-everywhere-even-in-human-excrement


----------



## sportbikerider78

begreen said:


> All countries are responsible for this issue. And it's not just in the oceans but the rivers that feed them. Recently testing found some rivers in England that exceeded previous high levels of microplastic measurements in Korea.  There are lots of causes, not just plastic bags. Washing polyester and fleece clothing puts lots of fibers into the environment. Like it or not, this is ubiquitous now and showing up in us.
> https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science...-worst-recorded-microplastic-pollution-world/
> https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/10/22/659568662/microplastics-are-turning-up-everywhere-even-in-human-excrement


When we talk about banning something as incredibly useful as a plastic bag. Let's have some evidence to bring the table before we just start banning stuff and hoping we see a change in the environment.

If the US isn't dumping plastic in the ocean, that is a good thing.  If the plastic is getting into our rivers/groundwater and making its way to the ocean, clearly that's an issue.  Let's look at how that is happening and what we can do to stop it, rather than just banning random items.  For all we know, other plastic items are a much bigger issue then bags. 
Since it is ending up in human waste, it must be in the drinking water.  Time to take a look at how they filter that water for the masses. 

Environmentalists lose all credibility when they just yell "ban".  Bring evidence of an issue and the root cause of that issue so we can make logical decisions not emotional responses.


----------



## Ashful

Screw the plastic bags.  We should ban polyester clothing!  [emoji14]

It all comes down to one thing:  too many effing people.  If you want to regulate something, that is the solution to all problems.  Incentivize population stabilization, or reduction.  China actually set the bar for this, more than 30 years ago, but this was aided by their more socialist economics.


----------



## Ashful

BTW... I hate hearing any talk of “banning” anything.  It’s not American.  Live free or die, eh?

We should never be talking about “banning” various products or solutions, but incentivizing the communally-responsible choices.  Bush should not have “banned” incandescent light bulbs, he should have insisted the laws were written to just incentivize more responsible choices.  Don’t you dare ban my 6.4 liter sedan, just make it financially painful enough to drive a low-MPG car, that the masses choose the more socially-responsible path.  People would quickly go back to Tupperware, or washing and re-using their Zip-Lok baggies (my grandmother used to do this), if those baggies were 6x their current price.  But, they’d still be there, for those few cases when you really need a disposable solution.

This allows us our freedoms, to choose what is right for us, while effecting the mass changes that are often needed.  You just need to make the less socially-desirable solutions a little painful.


----------



## sportbikerider78

Ashful said:


> BTW... I hate hearing any talk of “banning” anything.  It’s not American.  Live free or die, eh?
> 
> We should never be talking about “banning” various products or solutions, but incentivizing the communally-responsible choices.  Bush should not have “banned” incandescent light bulbs, he should have insisted the laws were written to just incentivize more responsible choices.  Don’t you dare ban my 6.4 liter sedan, just make it financially painful enough to drive a low-MPG car, that the masses choose the more socially-responsible path.  People would quickly go back to Tupperware, or washing and re-using their Zip-Lok baggies (my grandmother used to do this), if those baggies were 6x their current price.  But, they’d still be there, for those few cases when you really need a disposable solution.
> 
> This allows us our freedoms, to choose what is right for us, while effecting the mass changes that are often needed.  You just need to make the less socially-desirable solutions a little painful.


Your view is incredibly elitist.  It that world, only the rich can afford a fun to drive car or plastic ziploks.  
You are even talking about "the masses" as if that does not include you.


----------



## Ashful

sportbikerider78 said:


> Your view is incredibly elitist.  It that world, only the rich can afford a fun to drive car or plastic ziploks.
> You are even talking about "the masses" as if that does not include you.



Not at all.  I am the masses, when it comes to sport bikes, you are the masses when it comes to my hobbies.  Everyone is “the masses”, when it comes to the things for which they do not have a particular passion.

This is already happening, BTW.  There is a “gas guzzler” tax levied against Dodge Hellcats and Jeep Trackhawks.  I know the demographics of the Hellcat owners very well, I hang with that crowd, they are blue collar.  If they’re elitist, it is only about their ride.

The point is, you are not banning those things for which someone does have a passion, but are gently steering the rest away from those things done out of habit or path of least resistance.  Incandescent light bulbs could be a good example, it took some prodding to move most toward LEDs.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Ashful said:


> Screw the plastic bags.  We should ban polyester clothing!  [emoji14]
> 
> It all comes down to one thing:  too many effing people.  If you want to regulate something, that is the solution to all problems.  Incentivize population stabilization, or reduction.  China actually set the bar for this, more than 30 years ago, but this was aided by their more socialist economics.


I have been saying this for a long time. As the population goes up, the quality of life will go down.Were fortunate(so far) that we are not yet packed in shoulder to shoulder like china and india and many overpopulated nations. Humans foul their own nest ,more often than not. 300 million is a good place to stop. Europe is finding out now the effects of instant large population increases and it dont look good for them.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Ashful said:


> This allows us our freedoms, to choose what is right for us, while effecting the mass changes that are often needed.  You just need to make the less socially-desirable solutions a little painful.


This works very well. Its similar to the tariffs place on foreign goods. Its not about collecting taxes or tariffs. Its about gently persuading the public to buy local made products or bring back domestic production of those products. Were not "banning" imported goods just making them a little more expensive.


----------



## Sodbuster

sportbikerider78 said:


> When we talk about banning something as incredibly useful as a plastic bag. Let's have some evidence to bring the table before we just start banning stuff and hoping we see a change in the environment.
> 
> If the US isn't dumping plastic in the ocean, that is a good thing.  If the plastic is getting into our rivers/groundwater and making its way to the ocean, clearly that's an issue.  Let's look at how that is happening and what we can do to stop it, rather than just banning random items.  For all we know, other plastic items are a much bigger issue then bags.
> Since it is ending up in human waste, it must be in the drinking water.  Time to take a look at how they filter that water for the masses.
> 
> Environmentalists lose all credibility when they just yell "ban".  Bring evidence of an issue and the root cause of that issue so we can make logical decisions not emotional responses.



Just for the record, I'm only talking about those super cheap, once use and they are crap, grocery bags, not any other type of bag, like zip locks, garbage bags, or lawn and leaf bags. They are not replaceable in my mind.


----------



## Ashful

Sodbuster said:


> Just for the record, I'm only talking about those super cheap, once use and they are crap, grocery bags, not any other type of bag, like zip locks, garbage bags, or lawn and leaf bags. They are not replaceable in my mind.


Of course, we switched from paper to plastic for environmental reasons, or so I’m told.  I do miss those heavy paper bags, they had a million uses.

In some countries, consumers take their own bags or bins to the store with them, to be loaded and re-used.  I remember everyone carting their “nesting totes”, big plastic tubs, into the grocery store with them in Germany in the 1990’s.  There, you can get disposable bags, but you’d pay something like $2 each for them.  Again, not banned, just incentivized.

I see people taking their own cloth bags to the store here, but it’s still just the Subaru-driving Birkenstock-wearing granola folks, at least in this neck of the woods.  They have the right idea, but it hasn’t caught on, and likely never will around here, without some financial incentive to coerce people out of their current patterns.


----------



## Sodbuster

Ashful said:


> Of course, we switched from paper to plastic for environmental reasons, or so I’m told.  I do miss those heavy paper bags, they had a million uses.
> 
> In some countries, consumers take their own bags or bins to the store with them, to be loaded and re-used.  I remember everyone carting their “nesting totes”, big plastic tubs, into the grocery store with them in Germany in the 1990’s.  There, you can get disposable bags, but you’d pay something like $2 each for them.  Again, not banned, just incentivized.
> 
> I see people taking their own cloth bags to the store here, but it’s still just the Subaru-driving Birkenstock-wearing granola folks, at least in this neck of the woods.  They have the right idea, but it hasn’t caught on, and likely never will around here, without some financial incentive to coerce people out of their current patterns.



Our Meijer still offers them at the self check outs, double them up and see how much I can wedge into one bag, then those bags get used to put the recyclables into and the process starts all over again.


----------



## sportbikerider78

Ashful said:


> Not at all.  I am the masses, when it comes to sport bikes, you are the masses when it comes to my hobbies.  Everyone is “the masses”, when it comes to the things for which they do not have a particular passion.
> 
> This is already happening, BTW.  There is a “gas guzzler” tax levied against Dodge Hellcats and Jeep Trackhawks.  I know the demographics of the Hellcat owners very well, I hang with that crowd, they are blue collar.  If they’re elitist, it is only about their ride.
> 
> The point is, you are not banning those things for which someone does have a passion, but are gently steering the rest away from those things done out of habit or path of least resistance.  Incandescent light bulbs could be a good example, it took some prodding to move most toward LEDs.


I'm pretty sure the $60k+ price tag is what steers most away from a 2dr sports car.  A gas tax is a drop in the bucket to feed more bureaucrats.   
If most are going to spend that much on a vehicle, it has to haul the kiddos too.


----------



## Ashful

sportbikerider78 said:


> I'm pretty sure the $60k+ price tag is what steers most away from a 2dr sports car.  A gas tax is a drop in the bucket to feed more bureaucrats.
> If most are going to spend that much on a vehicle, it has to haul the kiddos too.



Umm... 2 doors?  Where would you get that idea?  The Hellcat is available in 2 or 4 door configurations, the Trackhawk is an SUV.  Both are fully LATCH system-compliant.


----------



## sportbikerider78

I don't


Ashful said:


> Umm... 2 doors?  Where would you get that idea?  The Hellcat is available in 2 or 4 door configurations, the Trackhawk is an SUV.  Both are fully LATCH system-compliant.
> 
> View attachment 231712
> View attachment 231713


I don't follow Chrysler products...I thought it was the Challenger not the Charger.
Regardless...most guys aren't dropping 60k on a car.

Toys are great..but taxing them more than other rides is silly and pointless.  Especially in the case you just made.  It defeats the point of living in a country where you can make decisions for yourself based on what you can afford.  A gas tax does little to nothing to deter you, if you're already dropping that kind of coin on a car.


----------



## begreen

Progress
https://www.npr.org/2018/10/26/660843753/european-parliament-approves-ban-on-single-use-plastics


----------



## begreen

Ashful said:


> In some countries, consumers take their own bags or bins to the store with them, to be loaded and re-used. I remember everyone carting their “nesting totes”, big plastic tubs, into the grocery store with them in Germany in the 1990’s. There, you can get disposable bags, but you’d pay something like $2 each for them. Again, not banned, just incentivized.


Some countries like CA, OR and WA? There are no plastic grocery bags at our local grocery store or Trader Joes. No big deal. We have carried multiple cloth bags in our car for years. No big deal.


----------



## Ashful

begreen said:


> Some countries like CA, OR and WA? There are no plastic grocery bags at our local grocery store or Trader Joes. No big deal. We have carried multiple cloth bags in our car for years. No big deal.


Yeah, I knew about Trader Joe’s, and figured the west coast would be quicker to adopt.  I wasn’t aware your mainstream grocery stores didn’t have bags anymore, though.

Around here, it’s mostly the Whole Foods crowd, that you see going that route.  For me, the biggest hurtle would be keeping a set of bags in each car, so I had them with me when the wife called and asked me to swing by the grocery store, I’m happier just recycling the plastic bags.


----------



## Sodbuster

Ashful said:


> Yeah, I knew about Trader Joe’s, and figured the west coast would be quicker to adopt.  I wasn’t aware your mainstream grocery stores didn’t have bags anymore, though.
> 
> Around here, it’s mostly the Whole Foods crowd, that you see going that route.  For me, the biggest hurtle would be keeping a set of bags in each car, so I had them with me when the wife called and asked me to swing by the grocery store, I’m happier just recycling the plastic bags.



If they can make foam shipping pellets that disintegrate in water, why not plastic shopping bags that break down, say within 48 hours into something innocuous.


----------



## Ashful

Sodbuster said:


> If they can make foam shipping pellets that disintegrate in water, why not plastic shopping bags that break down, say within 48 hours into something innocuous.


But then wouldn’t we just have to change this thread to “Killing our planet with something innocuous”, in fifteen years?

This is an old perennial, but you can’t ignore the mention of “plastic bags” at 3:40, and again at 5:30.


----------



## begreen

Ashful said:


> But then wouldn’t we just have to change this thread to “Killing our planet with something innocuous”, in fifteen years?


No,in spite of that attitude and cynicism humanity is progressing and learning. There are some smart solutions available and new ones being created that don't use petroleum. These could be developing much quicker if the oil industry profits weren't what leads this country by the nose.

A plastic bag that degraded in 48 hrs would not be practical. It would have a poor shelflife. But a bag that degrades in 6 months or a year is practical and available in the US under the BioBag brand. It's made with a US developed formula, but unfortunately the bio-plastic is only made in Europe where there is stronger market demand, which means it needs to be shipped back here.


----------



## Ashful

begreen said:


> No,in spite of that attitude and cynicism humanity is progressing and learning.



Begreen, you are right that my post was cynical, but you misinterpreted the direction I was leaning.  Many of our current problems derive from things that prior generations called “innocuous”.  Short-sightedness is a perpetual problem.


----------



## begreen

Hindsightedness is sometimes even worse. We that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

As large as the problem already is, and growing rapidly,its important looking at solutions to at least begin ASAP .  Seems to be a lackluster attitude to this problem all around. Other countries included.


----------



## begreen

With millions of tons already coating the planet. It may already be too late for many. Who knows what complications will arise as microplastics infiltrate out blood streams. God bless the kids inheriting this mess. 
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesal...turning-up-everywhere-even-in-human-excrement


----------



## Ashful

begreen said:


> With millions of tons already coating the planet. It may already be too late for many. Who knows what complications will arise as microplastics infiltrate out blood streams. God bless the kids inheriting this mess.
> https://www.npr.org/sections/thesal...turning-up-everywhere-even-in-human-excrement



The author is jumping to two pretty significant and unproven conclusions:

1.  That this is all new, and that you didn’t get to your ripe old age with the same plastics already in you.  After all, plastic packaging of food isn’t exactly something new.  

2.  That this is somehow catastrophically bad for all of us.  It doesn’t appear good on the surface, but again, the effects are unknown today. 

This definitely warrants concern and study, but the environmentalists and media have a decades-long history of jumping to the worst possible conclusions every time new evidence is discovered, and they are more often wrong than right.


----------



## begreen

There is some background info that the author may have assumed the reader already knows. That is recent tests of marketed waters, including high end filtered bottled waters are showing microplastics floating in them. These microplastics break down into tinier and tinier pieces, they don't go away. This is not necessarily from the packaging and yes it is relatively new. We've only been manufacturing some of these products for a generation or two. Micro and nanoplastics are increasingly showing up in quantities in water supplies and rivers, seafood and even table sea salt. And yet we continue to dump millions of tons more into the waters at an astounding rate.

Seafood consumption is one entry point for humans. How bad is this for us? These plastics being petroleum based have an affinity for toxins which can bind easily to them. Ad hominem attacks get us nowhere. Dissing environmentalists, tree huggers, Subaru owners, etc. may be a convenient scapegoat, but it will not protect families at risk. It was environmentalists that finally pointed out and got action on the large scale effects of PCBs, etc. Unfortunately a lot of people died some horrible deaths prior to finally getting action. 

There are numerous old and new studies on this topic and yes, the medical community is becoming increasingly concerned. At this point we can not directly tell the net effect on humans, it may take years for issues to develop. Cancer and liver issues don't happen overnight. However, we can observe the effects on lower life forms and extrapolate some reasonable conclusions.  A simple google search will bring up many scientific, published papers on the research. Here are a few.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(17)30121-3/fulltext
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13181-018-0661-9
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749114002425
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es302332w


----------



## Ashful

begreen said:


> Dissing environmentalists, tree huggers, Subaru owners, etc. may be a convenient scapegoat, but it will not protect families at risk.



Good info.  I didn’t disrespect any Subaru owners.  In fact, I was complimenting some for going beyond what the rest of us are willing to do, WRT this particular issue.


----------



## begreen

We're all in this plastic soup now. There is no escaping it. The issues know no age, gender or ethnicity, though mother's milk may be an early warning sign. The quantity spread around the planet is too high. Why anyone would want to continually chit in their own bed is beyond me. But humans do it all the time.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Ashful said: ↑
I see people taking their own cloth bags to the store here, but it’s still just the Subaru-driving Birkenstock-wearing granola folks, at least in this neck of the woods.


begreen said:


> Sorry if I took it wrong, it didn't sound like a compliment. We're all in this plastic soup now. There is no escaping it. The quantity spread around the planet is too high. Why anyone would want to continually chit in their own bed is beyond me. But humans do it all the time.


I read it as a description of a group of people who generally care more about the environment and are pro active about it as opposed to the general population who are not. I can see it as a compliment. Just my 2c.


----------



## begreen

As a counterpoint I would say that industries (oil, plastics, cigarettes, chem giants, mining, etc.) and their paid disinformation media have a decades-long history of dismissing and burying scientific conclusions every time new evidence is discovered, and it's in the courts that they're proven wrong more often than in the right.


----------



## sportbikerider78

Ashful said:


> Around here, it’s mostly the Whole Foods crowd, that you see going that route.  For me, the biggest hurtle would be keeping a set of bags in each car, so I had them with me when the wife called and asked me to swing by the grocery store, I’m happier just recycling the plastic bags.



Aldi's doesn't give you plastic bags.  They have been doing that for years.  I don't know if it nationwide, but in NY it's been that way for a long time.


----------



## begreen

sportbikerider78 said:


> Aldi's doesn't give you plastic bags.  They have been doing that for years.  I don't know if it nationwide, but in NY it's been that way for a long time.


It's their company policy. They are a German company.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> It's their company policy. They are a German company.


Its also a good way for them to get their customers to carry out their cardboard boxes and cardboard is recyclable. a 2fer.


----------



## begreen

They also sell cloth bags if you need them.


----------



## Dug8498

begreen said:


> It's their company policy. They are a German company.


Little late seeing this one. Just wanted to share how much I love their business model. We either bring our own bags or walk out with everything in their leftover boxes. My wife and I's favorite place to shop! AND because they don't have to pay a bagger, someone to retrieve shopping carts, etc, their food is really cheap.


----------



## Rearscreen

Chris Jordan has done some amazing things as far as waste awareness is concerned. http://chrisjordan.com/gallery/rtn2/#carbon


----------



## Seasoned Oak

More uses for waste plastic. 
http://www.lovely.tips/plastic-waste-can-turned-homes-cost-280/


----------



## begreen

I see that Corona beer just switched to non-plastic, biodegradable six pack rings for their can products. That's good news. It should be a requirement for a six pack cans.
https://www.foodbev.com/news/corona-to-launch-plastic-free-six-pack-rings-on-its-beer-cans/


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> I see that Corona beer just switched to non-plastic, biodegradable six pack rings for their can products. That's good news. It should be a requirement for a six pack cans.
> https://www.foodbev.com/news/corona-to-launch-plastic-free-six-pack-rings-on-its-beer-cans/


Nice concept but nothing will make me drink Corona. Im not alone in that,dismal ratings on both Rate beer and Beer advocate. That said its the most popular beer in Mexico, so i guess their standards are that low.


----------



## begreen

I don't drink Coke or Pepsi products either but would welcome the industry adopting this alternative to the ubiquitous plastic six pack rings.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> I don't drink Coke or Pepsi products either but would welcome the industry adopting this alternative to the ubiquitous plastic six pack rings.


Yes, i like the concept. Hopefully others will follow.


----------



## jatoxico

Seasoned Oak said:


> Nice concept but nothing will make me drink Corona. Im not alone in that,dismal ratings on both Rate beer and Beer advocate. That said its the most popular beer in Mexico, so i guess their standards are that low.



C'mon Oak when its 95 and humid you gotta go slummin' once in a while and drink a Coor's or Corona.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

jatoxico said:


> C'mon Oak when its 95 and humid you gotta go slummin' once in a while and drink a Coor's or Corona.


You mean if im dying of thirst and all thats available is the water in Mexico or the beer. Not sure which one will kill you first!  When the water is that bad it helps the beer industry.


----------



## jatoxico

Seasoned Oak said:


> You mean if im dying of thirst and all thats available is the water in Mexico or the beer. Not sure which one will kill you first!  When the water is that bad it helps the beer industry.


I subscribe to the middle age theory that spirits are indeed safer than water.


----------



## Woody5506

Seasoned Oak said:


> Nice concept but nothing will make me drink Corona. Im not alone in that,dismal ratings on both Rate beer and Beer advocate. That said its the most popular beer in Mexico, so i guess their standards are that low.



All macro beers on those sites get rated poorly because they are meant to focus more on craft beer, and us snobby craft beer drinkers for the most part seem to have a problem adjusting our expectations regarding macro beers. 

In regards to the actual topic here though theres another brewery in Florida who I cant remember the name of who switched from the plastic 4 pack holders which have become the norm for craft beer to something biodegradable and edible for sea life made from wheat and barley byproducts from beer production. I havent seen these in person but thought it was a cool idea, considering even the 100% recycled normal 4 pack holders still seem to be that of a pretty heavy gauge plastic.


----------



## Ashful

Seasoned Oak said:


> Nice concept but nothing will make me drink Corona. Im not alone in that,dismal ratings on both Rate beer and Beer advocate. That said its the most popular beer in Mexico, so i guess their standards are that low.



I probably have the most expensive beer budget on this forum, but even I’ll slam a Corona once or twice each summer by the pool.  Jam a lime down the throat of that bottle, like you’re in college again, and remember what it’s like to be young and not care.

BTW, to me, Corona is not “beer”.  Not even close.  But it is something that occasionally hits the spot on a hot day by the pool or at the beach.  It’s usually no worse than the other limited options, at many pool or beach bars.


----------



## PaulOinMA

I 've had my own shopping bags in the cars for at least 10 years.  Used to bring home way too many plastic bags.

Have purchased a lot of recycled plastic outdoor furniture this year.


----------



## PaulOinMA

Has the water bottle ban here in Concord, MA been mentioned?

http://divideinconcord.com/about-the-film/

I agree with the concept.  But, I strongly disagree with the "I, government, will decide what you will do" aspect of the ban.  I'm a small government person.

The old lady (now deceased) behind the ban was in the news a lot up here.  She came across as a real nut case to me.


----------



## Ashful

PaulOinMA said:


> Have purchased a lot of recycled plastic outdoor furniture this year.


My newest boat is made from recycled plastic bottles.  It’s a process called rotomolding, very popular for small boats, these days.  Makes a great racing training boat, they’re almost indestructible in the hands of a student.


----------



## PaulOinMA

That's really neat!  Didn't know they made boats with recycled plastic.

Can you post the web site of the manufacturer?  I'd like to read about them.

The last batch of outdoor furniture I bought was really funny.  Was going to buy ONE Adirondack chair from a shopping center that sells off outdoor furniture after the season at a great price to replace it with new furniture next year.  Bought one chair.  Then decided to get another for another deck.  Put them with the old furniture, which now looked really crappy.  So, back to get two more chairs.

There was only one other Adirondack left and also a pub table that had a great price on it.  Bought them.  Neighbor said, "you went to buy one chair and ended up buying five chairs and a table?"


----------



## Ashful

PaulOinMA said:


> That's really neat!  Didn't know they made boats with recycled plastic.
> 
> Can you post the web site of the manufacturer?  I'd like to read about them.


Very funny story about the furniture.  Been there!

Our boat came from RS, but I know Hartley is also doing rotomold boats, and I think Laser Performance does, too. 

Here’s RS, I got the Zest from them for my young kids to learn on.  Great little boat!

https://www.rssailing.com/en/


----------



## begreen

Woody5506 said:


> All macro beers on those sites get rated poorly because they are meant to focus more on craft beer, and us snobby craft beer drinkers for the most part seem to have a problem adjusting our expectations regarding macro beers.
> 
> In regards to the actual topic here though theres another brewery in Florida who I cant remember the name of who switched from the plastic 4 pack holders which have become the norm for craft beer to something biodegradable and edible for sea life made from wheat and barley byproducts from beer production. I havent seen these in person but thought it was a cool idea, considering even the 100% recycled normal 4 pack holders still seem to be that of a pretty heavy gauge plastic.



I applaud this kind of thinking. We need more of it, a lot more. 

Saltwater Brewery, the Florida-based craft brewery that originally worked on the idea with We Believers, started using the new rings earlier this year. The product is now in more than 500 stores in Florida. To date, Vega says, it’s performing well, both for consumers and for retailers who have to handle the six-packs. Other craft breweries in the U.S., Australia, Scotland, and South Africa are also beginning to use the packaging. The next step will be to begin to get Big Beer on board, beginning with Corona.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90273606/corona-is-testing-plastic-free-six-pack-rings


----------



## PaulOinMA

Neat sailboats!

I've mentioned the Draken on here in other threads.  It's a recreation Viking ship that's wintering at Mystic, CT.  Don't know their 2019 plans yet, but they may be looking for volunteer crew.  Folks that have done it have said it's a great experience.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/277020215675452/

https://www.drakenhh.com/


----------



## PaulOinMA

begreen said:


> It's their company policy. They are a German company.



Yeah, Germany has a strong green movement.  Learned that when I worked for a consumer products company in the 1990s.

Some of our VWs have had an old-style cartridge oil filter where you replace just the filter element in a housing, rather than a spin-on filter.  I was told that it's more easily crushed to extract the oil in the filter element.  What's old is new again!


----------



## PaulOinMA

Was the dead whale that had 1,000 plastic pieces in its stomach posted? 

https://www.google.com/search?sourc...0....1..gws-wiz.....0..0i131j0i10.1qEM0JeMElI


----------



## begreen

PaulOinMA said:


> Was the dead whale that had 1,000 plastic pieces in its stomach posted?


----------



## CaptSpiff

I looked up that google link and found this photo. I thought it looked staged.
Then a bit more searching found the article header below.
Damn it, fake photos do not help the cause


_Headline: "Sperm Whale Stuffed with 64 Pounds of Plastic Washes Up Dead In ..."
Byline: The Inertia
A representation created by Greenpeace Philippines. While it's not real, it's getting...._


----------



## Seasoned Oak

IV been there and they need to find uses for recycling plastic more than we  do. If there is even the smallest price paid for waste plastic the asian population would clean up their environment quickly as even the lowest paying jobs are quickly filled there. People will work for a dollar a day cuz the govt does not act as everyones nanny like here. Not saying thats right or wrong but thats the reality.


----------



## begreen

CaptSpiff said:


> I looked up that google link and found this photo. I thought it looked staged.
> Then a bit more searching found the article header below.
> Damn it, fake photos do not help the cause
> 
> 
> _Headline: "Sperm Whale Stuffed with 64 Pounds of Plastic Washes Up Dead In ..."
> Byline: The Inertia
> A representation created by Greenpeace Philippines. While it's not real, it's getting...._
> 
> View attachment 234901


It was done to draw attention to an issue that is happening around the planet. There are many cases showing up of beached whales with bellies full of plastics. Birds too. 
https://www.theinertia.com/environm...und-dead-with-stomachs-full-of-plastic-trash/


----------



## CaptSpiff

begreen said:


> It was done to draw attention to an issue that is happening around the planet. There are many cases showing up of beached whales with bellies full of plastics. Birds too.


Yup, no doubt done with the best intentions. But this photo is also being "shopped" around to support the cause without letting viewers know it is staged. Sometimes this leads to more harm than good. You know how it goes, making a strong argument against plastic pollution and someone points out the photo is fake and you just lost half the room. Just my POV.


----------



## begreen

Yes, truth in advertising is important. The situation is terrible and needs no exageration, even if some people need a sledgehammer to the head to wake up.


----------



## PaulOinMA

BBC World News America (I try to watch news that isn't people talking over each other  ) had a piece this past summer on plastic pollution in some Asian countries.  Literally rivers that are completely covered by plastic.

This was the story.  "Content Unavailable" in my locale.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p069vjw6


----------



## mnowaczyk

It stinks that it seems so many say the answer is government regulation because industry and social responsibility it too slow to pick up on the issue at hand.  So we claim we need more regulation, more government, less freedom, more constraints on the free economy, less capitalism, more socialism, more recycling, less consumerism.  It seems that a general statement could be made that most things that are good for the economy are bad for the environment.  So much technology that makes our lives “better” also makes the long term livability of the planet shorter.  Is a huge meteor or volcano more likely to destroy life as we know it, or will it be man, or will we be able to save this planet until it is ultimately swallowed up by our sun in a supernova? 

These questions leave me wondering if picking plastic plates and cups out of the trash at parties, and carefully sorting trash from less environmentally responsible people is worth it. And what recyclable materials that I’m trying to clean with tap water are worth the tap water I’m using clean them.  Are they helping or hurting the recycling facility’s profitability? 

How should I be spending my life’s time here to try and extend the livability of this planet?  I pick up the trash and recycle what I can almost everywhere I go.  I use everything I can to it’s fullest extent.  I’m a recycler, but not a great consumer.  I still drive a gasoline vehicle, use natural gas to heat my home, run multiple computers at once, leave lights on, and even have several incandescent bulbs in my house. Heck, there are many parts of my home that need better insulation. 

Is plastic the problem?  Or is it just what is most in our faces at the moment.  It seems global warming and the constant killing of green spaces that turn CO2 into Hydrocarbons and O2 are what we need the most.  It makes me think I should go live in the woods, but then I’d probably end up killing more trees.  Maybe instead I should try to buy green space to preserve.  Can we buy portions of the ocean to make ocean farms?

Who will save this planet?


----------



## Seasoned Oak

It will take some Govt intervention simply because large swaths of the population will not just "do the right thing" like so many here on this forum will. But a lot can be done with small changes. Either way I  wont lose any sleep about things i cant control.


----------



## mnowaczyk

I long for a reliable organization that can rate our individual and corporate levels of “green” that would allow us as consumers to also easily see the levels of “green” in various products we use or buy.  I understand the action itself would not cover small things like how much extra gasoline it costs me to get locally grown produce from the co-op, farmers market, or the cost of buying soil and water to grow my own as opposed to buying from the grocery store a few blocks away.  But it could be a start.  

With a closer relation to this thread, any improperly disposed of garbage floating into our oceans, or even natural human sewage is bad for our oceans.  

We can be hyper-sensitive ourselves in our affluent world, but the people of lesser means will be struggling to get to a more comfortable current lifestyle before they can worry about the world as a whole.  That’s where the whole argument comes full circle.  Those plastic bottles that are economically providing life sustaining water may be ruining the planet on the one hand, but on the other hand, they are helping people also come to a higher level of lifestyle and awareness.  

So you have to look at all angles.


One thing that bothers me as a Parent is watching the tons of plastic toys that aren’t really recyclable go to the landfill.  I’ve disassembled toys to minimize the quantity that goes to the landfill.  Do I not buy those toys?  Or does the educational value for my children out-weight the landfill cost?  


I would love to spend my career working towards a more efficient and simpler solution to help others understand what they SHOULD be doing to save our planet.  The problem is that even though I care, I don’t myself know.


----------



## mnowaczyk

Seasoned Oak said:


> It will take some Govt intervention simply because large swaths of the population will not just "do the right thing" like so many here on this forum will. But a lot can be done with small changes. Either way I  wont lose any sleep about things i cant control.



Government is corrupt and full of special interests.  You also can’t trust that lawmakers know what is best for our environment.  What they can do is implement incentives to comply or penalties for not.  The methods they use to do this may not always result in the best results for our planet.  VW diesels proved this. You thought you were green buying that new VW diesel, but you actually just pollutedthe environment, wasted your money, and now have another car to stuff in the landfill.


----------



## semipro

mnowaczyk said:


> It stinks that it seems so many say the answer is government regulation because industry and social responsibility it too slow to pick up on the issue at hand.  So we claim we need more regulation, more government, less freedom, more constraints on the free economy, less capitalism, more socialism, more recycling, less consumerism.  It seems that a general statement could be made that most things that are good for the economy are bad for the environment.  So much technology that makes our lives “better” also makes the long term livability of the planet shorter.  Is a huge meteor or volcano more likely to destroy life as we know it, or will it be man, or will we be able to save this planet until it is ultimately swallowed up by our sun in a supernova?
> 
> These questions leave me wondering if picking plastic plates and cups out of the trash at parties, and carefully sorting trash from less environmentally responsible people is worth it. And what recyclable materials that I’m trying to clean with tap water are worth the tap water I’m using clean them.  Are they helping or hurting the recycling facility’s profitability?
> 
> How should I be spending my life’s time here to try and extend the livability of this planet?  I pick up the trash and recycle what I can almost everywhere I go.  I use everything I can to it’s fullest extent.  I’m a recycler, but not a great consumer.  I still drive a gasoline vehicle, use natural gas to heat my home, run multiple computers at once, leave lights on, and even have several incandescent bulbs in my house. Heck, there are many parts of my home that need better insulation.
> 
> Is plastic the problem?  Or is it just what is most in our faces at the moment.  It seems global warming and the constant killing of green spaces that turn CO2 into Hydrocarbons and O2 are what we need the most.  It makes me think I should go live in the woods, but then I’d probably end up killing more trees.  Maybe instead I should try to buy green space to preserve.  Can we buy portions of the ocean to make ocean farms?
> 
> Who will save this planet?


I struggle with some of the same questions and also try to "live green" within reason (whatever "reason" means).  
I truly believe that humans should save the planet for our own needs and that those needs can be complementary with those of other inhabitants. One thing is for sure though, human's are having a detrimental impact on the planet that would be diminished if there were less of us.   
Our own species' quality of life would almost certainly increase if we were able to tap our superior intellect and exercise some self control.


----------



## CaptSpiff

semipro said:


> Our own species' quality of life would almost certainly increase if we were able to tap our superior intellect and exercise some self control.


LOL,... that's hilarious!
I remember a few times tapping my superior intellect, unfortunately it was not synonymous with self control.


----------



## Connecticut Yankee

Ashful said:


> For me, the biggest hurtle would be keeping a set of bags in each car, so I had them with me when the wife called and asked me to swing by the grocery store,


I've found this to be a pretty low hurdle to get over.  Now I'm working on remembering to get the bloody things out of the trunk _before_ I hike into the store.  (Although a few experiences of going back out to the car have been helpful in jogging my memory, lol!)


----------



## semipro

Connecticut Yankee said:


> I've found this to be a pretty low hurdle to get over.  Now I'm working on remembering to get the bloody things out of the trunk _before_ I hike into the store.  (Although a few experiences of going back out to the car have been helpful in jogging my memory, lol!)


I picked up a reusable shopping bag from Home Depot some years back use the heck out of it.  I like it better than the flowered ones my wife got.


----------



## Connecticut Yankee

mnowaczyk said:


> It stinks that it seems so many say the answer is government regulation because industry and social responsibility it too slow to pick up on the issue at hand.


But that's human nature.  The logic of self-interest is based on greed and sloth.  'Twas ever thus.  The solution is not to complain that people won't pick up after themselves, but to structure the rules of the game to make the path of least resistance lead to the best outcome (assuming we can figure out what that might be, of course).  Often this action has to take place at the level of the entire society, which means government.  This does not negate the role of individual responsibility, because every little bit helps, and _someone _has to set an example, but large-scale problems often need large-scale (and sometimes coercive) solutions.

Like taxes, government is inevitable.  We don't have to like it, but we do have to accept it.  If there were a better way to run and pay for society, surely _someone_ would have come up with it at some point over the past twelve or fourteen thousand years, no?


----------



## mnowaczyk

True.  My state banned smoking in restaurants, and I thought it was unjust, but I love the outcome.  My state apparently just banned plastic bags at grocery stores too.  Back to paper!  It seems unjust, but I like it.  

Thank you for you wise comment.


----------



## questarthews

........Ashful said: ↑
If the costs of managing the waste from packaging were somehow placed back onto manufacturers (or importers) of these products, you would see a revolution in packaging design. Yes, the cost is ultimately passed on to the consumer, but by incentivizing manufacturers to reduce that overall cost (to remain competitive), the overall costs (and waste) would be lowered......



Seasoned Oak said:


> Same result as a tax or surcharge or deposit. Levying a tax on Mfg for single use non biodegradable products they produce will quicky lead to that same Mfg finding a way to make it biodegradable or at least easily recycled.  The old adage applies:Whenever you tax something you get less of it, subsidize it, you get more.



I've included both quotes for clarity-

I'd think that placing the responsibility for the full lifecycle of a product on the manufacturer would be a much better deterrent/incentive to be more responsible overall.  Yes, the costs are still passed on to the consumer, but the manufacturer can wash their hands once the product leaves their control.  Their only concern would be to remain less expensive overall than their competitors.

Making them responsible for the end of life cycle means they have to make sure their products and services are actually more sustainable, and not just less expensive.


----------



## begreen

In our linear economy we pay at least twice for the privilege of consumption. Once to buy the item and then again as our tax dollars pay for the ever more costly means of collection and disposal. Often we pay even more due to increased pollution and health issues. In a circular economy disposal is eliminated or minimal at worst case. Can this work? Visit the Netherlands and Germany as good examples. They still buy beer and yoghurt and still recycle vigorously but the number of landfills has dramatically been reduced and single-use plastics are getting phased out.


----------



## questarthews

begreen said:


> In our linear economy we pay at least twice for the privilege of consumption. Once to buy the item and then again as our tax dollars pay for the ever more costly means of collection and disposal. Often we pay even more in increase pollution and health issues. In a circular economy disposal is eliminated or minimal at worst case. Can this work? Visit the Netherlands and Germany as good examples. They still buy beer and yoghurt and still recycle vigorously but the number of landfills has dramatically been reduced and single-use plastics are getting phased out.


I mentioned this in another topic, but I think doing this is pretty critical for being able to move to a future where AI and automation will begin replacing the need for humans to work.

If we become more efficient and sustainable, such a future would be far more likely to work.

I also believe that the focus on climate change as an issue is one of the biggest hurdles getting in the way, since it's an easy thing for corporations and politicians to use and keep us arguing with each other, rather than actually moving forward and improving things for everyone.

Can you imagine a politician telling people that clean air, water, and soil isn't really that big of a deal like they are currently getting away with in regards to climate change?


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Whales dying due to ingesting large amounts of plastic. I can see this as being a big problem going forward. As whales and other marine life subsist on filtering the water of what used to be small shrimp and krill. Now there is so much plastic floating in the ocean that its all but impossible for them to avoid it. 
https://www.foxnews.com/science/war...ic-waste-appears-to-have-killed-another-whale


----------



## begreen

It's a horrific mess. Microplastics are showing up in the bloodstreams of most fish now.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/from-fish-to-humans-a-microplastic-invasion-may-be-taking-a-toll/
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/05/microplastics-impact-on-fish-shown-in-pictures/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6132564/


----------



## SpaceBus

begreen said:


> It's a horrific mess. Microplastics are showing up in the bloodstreams of most fish now.
> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/from-fish-to-humans-a-microplastic-invasion-may-be-taking-a-toll/
> https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/05/microplastics-impact-on-fish-shown-in-pictures/
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6132564/



When we found out the "exfoliates" in many liquid soaps are simply small plastic beads we stopped using them. We have a septic tank, so theoretically they can't escape into the ground water, but it's the thought that counts, right?


----------



## begreen

SpaceBus said:


> When we found out the "exfoliates" in many liquid soaps are simply small plastic beads we stopped using them. We have a septic tank, so theoretically they can't escape into the ground water, but it's the thought that counts, right?


It is a big enough problem that legislation was put in place to ban them. It's an issue for septic systems too, but not as much as microfibers from synthetic clothing, especially fleece. Microbeads and fibers can pass thru to the soil distribution where they may eventually plug when your septic drain field filter. Also, when a system tank is pumped, where is it dumped?

https://pumpgrump.com/tiny-terrorists-in-your-septic-system/
https://wilsonservices.com/microfibers-septic-care-new-wastewater-treatment-challenge/


----------



## SpaceBus

begreen said:


> It is a big enough problem that legislation was put in place to ban them. It's an issue for septic systems too, but not as much as microfibers from synthetic clothing, especially fleece. Microbeads and fibers can pass thru to the soil distribution where they may eventually plug when your septic drain field filter. Also, when a system tank is pumped, where is it dumped?
> 
> https://pumpgrump.com/tiny-terrorists-in-your-septic-system/
> https://wilsonservices.com/microfibers-septic-care-new-wastewater-treatment-challenge/



A properly functioning septic system shouldn't ever need to be pumped, but you bring up a valid point. In fact, everyone in NC I knew with a septic tank has needed it to be pumped multiple times over the last year due to all of the rain. I hadn't thought of synthetic fibers at all, thank you for mentioning it. We are trying to not buy any more synthetic materials whenever possible. It's amazing how pervasive petrochemicals really are.


----------



## begreen

Septic systems regularly need to have the solids pumped out that accumulate over time. Household septic tanks are typically pumped every three to five years. How frequently will depend on the tank and household sizes and lifestyle. Then there are circumstances that can accelerate the pumpout schedule. If you suddenly have 10 people staying for a wedding or other event, for example. Heavy antibiotic or chemotherapy drugs use is another issue, misuse is yet another common one, (tissues, kitty litter, garbage disposal, etc.).
https://inspectapedia.com/septic/Septic_Tank_Pumping_Schedule.php


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Again worldwide population will determine how fast things go downhill. Each person times x number of consumables. Were living on a larger version of Easter Island.


----------



## CaptSpiff

Seasoned Oak said:


> Again worldwide population will determine how fast things go downhill. Each person times x number of consumables. Were living on a larger version of Easter Island.


Yup, that's why China (and India) cannot commit to "reasonable" increases in future climate targets.

We want to look at their past & present pollution and GHG numbers, and use those as anchor numbers.
They know as their vast population transitions from 3rd world into middle class consumerism, each person's energy consumption and personal pollution & waste rises (on a per person basis).

That means they'll have problems replacing those "coal polluters" with newer clean tech, because they'll need em just to keep up with growth/demand. Maybe run em even harder if they go thru normal economic downturns.


----------



## begreen

China is a huge topic, with some mind-boggling statistics. It deserves its own thread because they are using some strategies that would be impossible here. They don't mind starting with a clean slate if it is the best way to achieve their objective. That includes complete, giant cities from scratch which allow them to put in infrastructure to better deal with waste and provide the newest technologies. So far, they have been quite successful.  India otoh has not so far except in some smaller areas like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, Noida, yet India population is exploding.

That said, this thread should stick to the topic of plastics. Another thread either on developing nations, China or the 600# gorilla in the room, over-population would be a better place to expand on these interesting and important topics.


----------



## semipro

SpaceBus said:


> A properly functioning septic system shouldn't ever need to be pumped, but you bring up a valid point. In fact, everyone in NC I knew with a septic tank has needed it to be pumped multiple times over the last year due to all of the rain. I hadn't thought of synthetic fibers at all, thank you for mentioning it. We are trying to not buy any more synthetic materials whenever possible. It's amazing how pervasive petrochemicals really are.


Non-organic materials (minerals) and synthetics that don't break down biologically in a septic tank will accumulate there and require eventual removal - a lot like ash in a wood stove.
I installed a filter between our septic tank and drain field to capture synthetic fibers that will collect and hinder infiltration.   This should hopefully extend the life of our drain field. Coincidentally a semi-yearly reminder popped up today for me to clean the filter. 

Edit: for fun sometime, filter the water coming out of your clothes washer.  I was astounded by the amount of synthetic fiber (and pet hair) in ours.


----------



## SpaceBus

semipro said:


> Non-organic materials (minerals) and synthetics that don't break down biologically in a septic tank will accumulate there and require eventual removal - a lot like ash in a wood stove.
> I installed a filter between our septic tank and drain field to capture synthetic fibers that will collect and hinder infiltration.   This should hopefully extend the life of our drain field. Coincidentally a semi-yearly reminder popped up today for me to clean the filter.
> 
> Edit: for fun sometime, filter the water coming out of your clothes washer.  I was astounded by the amount of synthetic fiber (and pet hair) in ours.



We don't have a washer, yet, but we do have three dogs. I fill a Dyson canister every day.


----------



## semipro

SpaceBus said:


> We don't have a washer, yet, but we do have three dogs. I fill a Dyson canister every day.


IIRC hair and fingernails act a lot like synthetics in that they take quite a long time to break down biologically.


----------



## SpaceBus

semipro said:


> IIRC hair and fingernails act a lot like synthetics in that they take quite a long time to break down biologically.


I'll have to talk to the plumber about a drain filter.


----------



## CaptSpiff

semipro said:


> Edit: for fun sometime, filter the water coming out of your clothes washer.  I was astounded by the amount of synthetic fiber (and pet hair) in ours.


I drain my washer into a slop sink, and I do this by tying a woman's stocking over the end of the drain hose. Amazing how much lint is captured in a few washes.
If I didn't do that I'd run my washer into a separate dry-well.


----------



## semipro

CaptSpiff said:


> I drain my washer into a slop sink, and I do this by tying a woman's stocking over the end of the drain hose


We recently added a utility sink and relocated our clothes washer nearby so we just discharge to that sink now.  A screen strainer in the bottom collects the lint.  We have to clean it with almost every washer load.


----------



## Ashful

This thread has been a real eye-opener.  I had no idea!

We are also trying to maximize the life of an old drain field, as our only replacement option is putting in a very inconvenient mound, and pumping up-hill to it.  Not attractive.


----------



## AlbergSteve

Finally...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/plastics-ban-trudeau-mckenna-1.5168828


----------



## paulnlee

AlbergSteve said:


> Finally...
> 
> https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/plastics-ban-trudeau-mckenna-1.5168828



I heard today he's pushing for paper cartons for water. Wonder why. Could it be the huge paper industry in Canada. Also a CEO of a carton maker here in the good old USA called in and described what goes into a paper carton. More crap than you would want to know.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Now its in the rain? I thought the rain consisted of evaporated water that is essentially pure at least until it hits polluted air. Unless thats where the plastic gets in.
https://www.foxnews.com/science/plastic-raining-rocky-mountains


----------



## SpaceBus

Seasoned Oak said:


> Now its in the rain? I thought the rain consisted of evaporated water that is essentially pure at least until it hits polluted air. Unless thats where the plastic gets in.
> https://www.foxnews.com/science/plastic-raining-rocky-mountains


That's depressing.


----------



## Ashful

If we look back over the decades of past health scares, one thing that’s been pretty consistent is the medical establishment’s inability, or decades-long delays in being able to tie effects to their causes.  Using the cellular telephone as a great example, we have had the ability to measure the electric and magnetic field strengths at various distances for 100 years, but it’s nearly always multiple decades past the obsolescence and decommissioning of any cellular protocol before the medical folks have any consensus as to its effect on the users.  Heck, they’re just wrapping up many studies on the health effects of exposure to radiation levels commensurate with your father’s 1980’s car phone, in the last two years!

Unfortunately, it appears to me that microplastics are falling into the same trap.  We can detect and measure the content of microplastics in our food and water supplies, and everyone is making gross (and almost certainly wrong) assumptions as to the health risk they create.  It will likely be decades before that is really understood.

This isn’t an argument to ignore the problem, just an observation, when I see articles like the one above opening with statements about their disastrous effects on our health.  That is an assumption, with very little evidence behind it.  It is an emotional response to a scientific problem.


----------



## SpaceBus

Ashful said:


> If we look back over the decades of past health scares, one thing that’s been pretty consistent is the medical establishment’s inability, or decades-long delays in being able to tie effects to their causes.  Using the cellular telephone as a great example, we have had the ability to measure the electric and magnetic field strengths at various distances for 100 years, but it’s nearly always multiple decades past the obsolescence and decommissioning of any cellular protocol before the medical folks have any consensus as to its effect on the users.  Heck, they’re just wrapping up many studies on the health effects of exposure to radiation levels commensurate with your father’s 1980’s car phone, in the last two years!
> 
> Unfortunately, it appears to me that microplastics are falling into the same trap.  We can detect and measure the content of microplastics in our food and water supplies, and everyone is making gross (and almost certainly wrong) assumptions as to the health risk they create.  It will likely be decades before that is really understood.
> 
> This isn’t an argument to ignore the problem, just an observation, when I see articles like the one above opening with statements about their disastrous effects on our health.  That is an assumption, with very little evidence behind it.  It is an emotional response to a scientific problem.



I am 100% certain ingesting petrochemicals is bad.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

From what i understand rainwater is as pure as distilled water initially, but the air is not pure. Im betting all the pollutants in rain water come from passing through polluted air so the article is a bit misleading.


----------



## SpaceBus

Seasoned Oak said:


> From what i understand rainwater is as pure as distilled water initially, but the air is not pure. Im betting all the pollutants in rain water come from passing through polluted air so the article is a bit misleading.


Unless the small plastic particles are becoming airborne like Saharan dust that makes its way across the Atlantic.


----------



## CaptSpiff

Seasoned Oak said:


> From what i understand rainwater is as pure as distilled water initially, but the air is not pure. Im betting all the pollutants in rain water come from passing through polluted air so the article is a bit misleading.


Nerd mode triggered...

Isn't the formation of raindrops based on the presence of "condensation nuclei"?

Think plastic dust??


----------



## Ashful

CaptSpiff said:


> Nerd mode triggered...
> 
> Isn't the formation of raindrops based on the presence of "condensation nuclei"?
> 
> Think plastic dust??



 Maybe microplastics are the solution for some of our drought issues.  People in South America don’t have enough water, thanks to Avacado farmers taking it all for irrigation of trendy Europeon exports.  Answer:  microplastics!

Of course I’m being facetious.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Yes this article confirms what i surmised that its all in the air. Then transfers to the rain (and snow).

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...c-trash-discovered-in-arctic-snow/2009273001/


----------



## begreen

Ashful said:


> If we look back over the decades of past health scares, one thing that’s been pretty consistent is the medical establishment’s inability, or decades-long delays in being able to tie effects to their causes.  Using the cellular telephone as a great example, we have had the ability to measure the electric and magnetic field strengths at various distances for 100 years, but it’s nearly always multiple decades past the obsolescence and decommissioning of any cellular protocol before the medical folks have any consensus as to its effect on the users.  Heck, they’re just wrapping up many studies on the health effects of exposure to radiation levels commensurate with your father’s 1980’s car phone, in the last two years!
> 
> Unfortunately, it appears to me that microplastics are falling into the same trap.  We can detect and measure the content of microplastics in our food and water supplies, and everyone is making gross (and almost certainly wrong) assumptions as to the health risk they create.  It will likely be decades before that is really understood.
> 
> This isn’t an argument to ignore the problem, just an observation, when I see articles like the one above opening with statements about their disastrous effects on our health.  That is an assumption, with very little evidence behind it.  It is an emotional response to a scientific problem.


While true that we will be studying this for years, there is an ample body of science proving that the bioaccumulation of plastics have harmful effects on animals. Mammals bioaccumulate in fatty tissue. Not good for women at all. The fossil fuel/petrochemical industry is banking on the delayed, provable effect on humans, but scientists are already sounding the alarm

The big issue is that while research continues, these particles of plastic aren't disappearing. They just continue to break down into tinier nano-plastic particles. These get airborne, they pass through filters, they are in bottled water. As the particles break down, the "stable" long-chain molecules breakdown and release toxins that were used to create these ubiquitous plastics. Toxins like BPA and phthalates. BPA is a known endocrine disrupter.  Most concerning is once they are small enough to show up in the bloodstream. This is a global catastrophe developing and yet the fossil fuel industry has the pedal to the floor, building more refineries and producing a great deal more plastics.

Here is a tiny sample of recent research. There has been a lot in the past several years. No one is saying this is a trivial problem:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6132564/
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13181-018-0661-9
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20100320/Impact-of-plastics-on-human-health-and-ecosystems.aspx


----------



## begreen

This was on the wires today. Plastic particles are showing up in arctic ice cores and in snowfalls in the Alps. This illustrates how planet-wide the terrifying problem is.
_“Once we’ve determined that large quantities of microplastic can also be transported by the air, it naturally raises the question as to whether and how much plastic we’re inhaling,” Bergmann said in a statement._
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...ind-micro-plastic-in-arctic-ice-idUSKCN1V41V2


----------



## begreen

And this report just in from USGS in the Rockies. It's in the air there too. I think we can assume it's everywhere. 
https://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2019/1048/ofr20191048.pdf


----------



## jetsam

Here's a (much) smaller 5mb version.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Why It's Probably Better for the Planet to Throw Plastic in the Trash | RealClearScience
					

Millions of Americans dutifully fill their recycling bins each week, motivated by the knowledge that they're doing something good for the environment. But little do they know, there's a recycling...




					www.realclearscience.com


----------



## begreen

Kind of a harmful article and only partially true. I have been doing a deep dive into plastics recycling in our region. I have spoken with plastics manufacturers, responsible recycling management companies and will soon be speaking with Waste Management, the largest landfill and waste handler in the country. The path of recycled plastics is more complicated right now and in transition. But there are North American markets, especially for #1 & 2 plastics. They definitely shouldn't be landfilled and done right, they can be profitable. Other plastics like styrofoam are also very recyclable. The main issue is transportation costs. What the article also doesn't mention is that there are new pipelines and chemical refining solutions that are now either coming online or being built. It takes time for this infrastructure to get in place, but there are solutions. Also, China is cleaning up in some areas, but some of the worst offenses are the massive amounts of plastics used for ground cover in agriculture. These break down after a season or so into millions of pieces that are then washed down rivers or windblown. And that is just one example.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> some of the worst offenses are the massive amounts of plastics used for ground cover in agriculture. These break down after a season or so into millions of pieces that are then washed down rivers or windblown. And that is just one example.


Never thought about that.


----------



## SpaceBus

begreen said:


> Kind of a harmful article and only partially true. I have been doing a deep dive into plastics recycling in our region. I have spoken with plastics manufacturers, responsible recycling management companies and will soon be speaking with Waste Management, the largest landfill and waste handler in the country. The path of recycled plastics is more complicated right now and in transition. But there are North American markets, especially for #1 & 2 plastics. They definitely shouldn't be landfilled and done right, they can be profitable. Other plastics like styrofoam are also very recyclable. The main issue is transportation costs. What the article also doesn't mention is that there are new pipelines and chemical refining solutions that are now either coming online or being built. It takes time for this infrastructure to get in place, but there are solutions. Also, China is cleaning up in some areas, but some of the worst offenses are the massive amounts of plastics used for ground cover in agriculture. These break down after a season or so into millions of pieces that are then washed down rivers or windblown. And that is just one example.


I have been wondering about what farmers do with the poly sheeting for hoop houses and stuff like that. The poly usually starts to disintegrate after a season or two.


----------



## Ashful

begreen said:


> ....some of the worst offenses are the massive amounts of plastics used for ground cover in agriculture. These break down after a season or so into millions of pieces that are then washed down rivers or windblown. And that is just one example.


You won’t be surprised that when this forum first made me aware of the micro plastics problem, my first and second thoughts were the large rolls of plastic I’d been using to cover my own wood stacks, and then that extended to the similar rolls farmers use today for weed control.

I found a way to eliminate my own small contribution, but I fear the chemical solution they’ll find to eliminate theirs.


----------



## Sawset

When this thread comes up, I think about these.  Last year we were cleaning out a fence row of brush and trees, and came across a pile of buried fertilizer bags.  Used when planting, discarded at the end of the field. The last time bags like these were used on the farm was 1968.


----------



## begreen

Ashful said:


> You won’t be surprised that when this forum first made me aware of the micro plastics problem, my first and second thoughts were the large rolls of plastic I’d been using to cover my own wood stacks, and then that extended to the similar rolls farmers use today for weed control.
> 
> I found a way to eliminate my own small contribution, but I fear the chemical solution they’ll find to eliminate theirs.


The chemical refining process has been designed and built in the US by Eastman Chemical. It breaks almost all plastics down to their constituent parts so that new virgin plastics can be made from them. This is important because it means that most plastics will become truly recyclable, not just downcyclable.





						Eastman News and Stories | Global Specialty Materials Company
					

News and stories from Eastman Chemical Company around the world, related to our innovation, sustainability and all our different products




					www.eastman.com


----------



## begreen

Sawset said:


> When this thread comes up, I think about these.  Last year we were cleaning out a fence row of brush and trees, and came across a pile of buried fertilizer bags.  Used when planting, discarded at the end of the field. The last time bags like these were used on the farm was 1968.


Yes, many plastics last almost forever when they are not exposed to sunlight. The sad thing is that these bags, like many products today (wood pellets, bird seed, pet supplies, etc.) are still being packaged in virgin plastics. The issue is value. Due to the fracking boom it has become a little bit cheaper to make plastics from fossil fuels than to recycle them. It wouldn't take much to reverse the balance. It is a consequence of oil and gas subsidies, in the US and abroad.


----------



## begreen

SpaceBus said:


> I have been wondering about what farmers do with the poly sheeting for hoop houses and stuff like that. The poly usually starts to disintegrate after a season or two.


It's an environmental mess, to put it in the most kind words.  Plastic production for agricultural mulch was expected to see a 69% increase to 7.4 million tons by 2019.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Most of my plastic always went to the landfill as its not in the form of recylable bottles which is all they take. Its food and consumer goods packaging and amazon plastic bubbles.  We dont use bottled water.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> It's an environmental mess, to put it in the most kind words.  Plastic production for agricultural mulch was expected to see a 69% increase to 7.4 million tons by 2019.


I see this situation getting a lot worse before it gets any better.  One trigger to a turn around may be certain seafood a species designated unfit for human consumption due to microplastic contamination. That may be the wake up call.  Species such as oysters that filter water for food would be at high risk if they are not already.


----------



## begreen

Seasoned Oak said:


> Most of my plastic always went to the landfill as its not in the form of recylable bottles which is all they take. Its food and consumer goods packaging and amazon plastic bubbles.  We dont use bottled water.


Not uncommon in some areas. It's why better solutions are needed and why Eastman's approach may make true plastics recycling more viable. 

In our state we are slowly working toward solving this problem with a multi-pronged approach.
a) the reduction and elimination of single-use plastics
b) better packaging standards that reduce compound packaging (for example paper and plastic combined)
c) a shift toward placing the costs of recycling onto the producer
d) promotion of more local plastics collection nodes and regional plastics preprocessing centers to raise value and access to more communities for plastics recycling
e) clear labeling standards for compostable bio-plastics


----------



## begreen

Waste plastics is a huge, global problem. It's going to take large global solutions to address it. We have enough plastics already on the planet to create new plastics for several generations. Ultimately the best thing we can do to help is to consume less and insist on better methods for true recycling of plastics. One thing that could help would be increasing the cost, just slightly, of virgin plastics. That would greatly increase the demand for recycled plastics. There is a global project now started to do just this.


This article was written before the Eastman plant came online. It is a pretty good assessment of the current issues. We need to change this equation. Our lives may depend on coming up with much better solutions.








						No good solution to the plastics problem | Bellevue Reporter
					

Plastic is piling up everywhere from King County to ocean floors, and humans keep making more.




					www.bellevuereporter.com
				




A bit more info on the methods for chemical recycling of plastics.








						Chemical Recycling of Plastic: Waste No More?
					

When it comes to the circular economy transition, plastics recycling is as much of a challenge as an opportunity. Could chemical recycling make the plastics value chain more circular whilst providing a profitable new industry branch?




					sustainablebrands.com
				




And finally, there is progress and some big $$$ working to tackle these issues at the source - the companies creating these products. Some major companies like Coke and Unilever are making large long-term commitments toward reducing plastic waste. Let's hope they stick to their promises.





						Alliance To End Plastic Waste
					

Ending plastic waste is ambitious. At AEPW, We bring together a diverse network of resources and expertises and take collective action to solve this problem.




					endplasticwaste.org


----------



## WinterinWI

begreen said:


> global problem. It's going to take large global solutions to address it.



There's that word again. How would this global agreement be enforced? What would your solution be for the countries that refuse or come to the table in agreement and then do nothing? Should the US be the global policeman for the agreement? I would hope not...


----------



## SpaceBus

WinterinWI said:


> There's that word again. How would this global agreement be enforced? What would your solution be for the countries that refuse or come to the table in agreement and then do nothing? Should the US be the global policeman for the agreement? I would hope not...


The same way Newfoundland put a moratorium on fishing. It's not like we are talking about black market organ sales or drugs. You need complex machinery and chemists to make plastics. If all nations ban the import and production of plastics (not going to happen, but an example) then no legal companies will be producing plastic.


----------



## WinterinWI

SpaceBus said:


> If all nations ban the import and production of plastics



My question was how would you enforce that on the global level that was suggested?

Overfishing is hardly a good example, many countries ignore and over-fish areas they control.


----------



## SpaceBus

WinterinWI said:


> My question was how would you enforce that on the global level that was suggested?
> 
> Overfishing is hardly a good example, many countries ignore and over-fish areas they control.


Except it did work in Newfoundland, that's why I referenced it. If all nations agree not to import certain items, then it falls to the black market. Plastics are easy to enforce because there aren't any clandestine plastic factories for the black market to produce plastic. The policy will enforce itself in this case. It's not like you can just pull plastic out of the ground, you must have chemists and lots of equipment. Crude oil is a substance that could possibly be smuggled, but it would be quite difficult I imagine. There already exists a system to prevent illegal smuggling. Again, we aren't trying to eliminate all plastic full stop, just the stuff that is destroying the planet.

What is your plan? Do nothing because it's too hard?


----------



## WinterinWI

SpaceBus said:


> Except it did work in Newfoundland, that's why I referenced it. If all nations agree not to import certain items, then it falls to the black market.



Remember we are talking globally. Last I checked, Newfoundland was just a small part. Again, how do you enforce all nations agreeing to ban certain items?  Global police force? Controlled by who?


----------



## Ashful

Seasoned Oak said:


> Most of my plastic always went to the landfill as its not in the form of recylable bottles which is all they take. Its food and consumer goods packaging and amazon plastic bubbles.  We dont use bottled water.


Same here.  Maybe this is naive of me, but I just stick it all in the recycling bin.  If it's clear polyethelene, the same material as the plastic bottles, I figure they'd best recycle it.  That goes for the miles of clear heavy weight polyethylene plastic I used for covering my prior wood stacks.  In fact, I have taken to just putting nearly all packaging material of all types in the recycling bin, and letting them sort it out.  If I'm wrong, then I hope that getting enough of something they don't currently process will be instigation to consider it in the future, to minimize the cost of transporting it out of the recycling facility.



begreen said:


> Ultimately the best thing we can do to help is to consume less and insist on better methods for true recycling of plastics.


Good luck with that.  A more realistic goal would be to have folks favor products with less wasteful packaging, like buying your SuperCedars un-wrapped, versus the individually-wrapped standard.  With consumer education, packaging can just be one more factor in the purchase decision.  Asking people to consume less is not only futile, but wishing for reduced consumption of goods is wishing for another recession.



begreen said:


> Some major companies like Coke and Unilever are making large long-term commitments toward reducing plastic waste. Let's hope they stick to their promises.


They won't, but the goals are good.  Large corporations have demonstrated a long history of setting such goals, and making eventual progress toward them, but nearly always coming up short of the hopeful timeline.  It's good that they're setting goals, though.



SpaceBus said:


> It's not like you can just pull plastic out of the ground, you must have chemists and lots of equipment...


Really??? You need  to talk with Sawset.   


Sawset said:


> Last year we were cleaning out a fence row of brush and trees, and came across a pile of buried fertilizer bags.  Used when planting, discarded at the end of the field. The last time bags like these were used on the farm was 1968.


----------



## begreen

Ashful said:


> Same here. Maybe this is naive of me, but I just stick it all in the recycling bin. If it's clear polyethelene, the same material as the plastic bottles, I figure they'd best recycle it. That goes for the miles of clear heavy weight polyethylene plastic I used for covering my prior wood stacks. In fact, I have taken to just putting nearly all packaging material of all types in the recycling bin, and letting them sort it out. If I'm wrong, then I hope that getting enough of something they don't currently process will be instigation to consider it in the future, to minimize the cost of transporting it out of the recycling facility.


Bad procedure, aka wish-cycling. It gums up the works, adds costs to all of us. Follow the rules for your system. If too many people abuse the system it will shut down. Ask if your facility is set up to deal with the sheeting. Most are not. Introducing it to the system can cause hours of shutdown to clean out the sheet plastic. Visit your facility manager and ask how their system works. 


Ashful said:


> They won't, but the goals are good. Large corporations have demonstrated a long history of setting such goals, and making eventual progress toward them, but nearly always coming up short of the hopeful timeline. It's good that they're setting goals, though.


Truth is, some have. Unilever is making some good progress. The pressures in Europe, for example, are higher than here.


Ashful said:


> Good luck with that. A more realistic goal would be to have folks favor products with less wasteful packaging, like buying your SuperCedars un-wrapped, versus the individually-wrapped standard. With consumer education, packaging can just be one more factor in the purchase decision. Asking people to consume less is not only futile, but wishing for reduced consumption of goods is wishing for another recession.


Actually, this is happening. Our consumption is not sustainable and wealth disparity grows. As long as costs keep rising for healthcare, real estate, etc. and real wages are stagnant, the consumer is going to spend less or get deeper in debt, which is another problem.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-consumer-spending-slowed-sharply-in-august-11569587637


----------



## SpaceBus

Ashful said:


> Same here.  Maybe this is naive of me, but I just stick it all in the recycling bin.  If it's clear polyethelene, the same material as the plastic bottles, I figure they'd best recycle it.  That goes for the miles of clear heavy weight polyethylene plastic I used for covering my prior wood stacks.  In fact, I have taken to just putting nearly all packaging material of all types in the recycling bin, and letting them sort it out.  If I'm wrong, then I hope that getting enough of something they don't currently process will be instigation to consider it in the future, to minimize the cost of transporting it out of the recycling facility.
> 
> 
> Good luck with that.  A more realistic goal would be to have folks favor products with less wasteful packaging, like buying your SuperCedars un-wrapped, versus the individually-wrapped standard.  With consumer education, packaging can just be one more factor in the purchase decision.  Asking people to consume less is not only futile, but wishing for reduced consumption of goods is wishing for another recession.
> 
> 
> They won't, but the goals are good.  Large corporations have demonstrated a long history of setting such goals, and making eventual progress toward them, but nearly always coming up short of the hopeful timeline.  It's good that they're setting goals, though.
> 
> 
> Really??? You need  to talk with Sawset.


I saved that photo! My wife couldn't believe how nice that bag looked after decades. Especially after reading about failed buried "time capsules".

I've heard/seen a lot of derisive talk about how to enforce environmental protection laws, but maybe we do need some kind of Earth Police. The lobster fishermen laughed and pretty much said there's no way they will obey the restricted fishing areas set out to protect Right Wales since there's no enforcement or any way to see where the lobster were caught. I bet there would be a lot more respect for the earth if there were a real police force. After hearing some crew members talk about how they use drag nets to get the shellfish out of the shallow tidal waters I would be the first in line if my region formed an environmental police force. I would love nothing more than adding some extra ventilation to these destructive fishing boats from a long distance!


----------



## Sodbuster

SpaceBus said:


> I saved that photo! My wife couldn't believe how nice that bag looked after decades. Especially after reading about failed buried "time capsules".
> 
> I've heard/seen a lot of derisive talk about how to enforce environmental protection laws, but maybe we do need some kind of Earth Police. The lobster fishermen laughed and pretty much said there's no way they will obey the restricted fishing areas set out to protect Right Wales since there's no enforcement or any way to see where the lobster were caught. I bet there would be a lot more respect for the earth if there were a real police force. After hearing some crew members talk about how they use drag nets to get the shellfish out of the shallow tidal waters I would be the first in line if my region formed an environmental police force. I would love nothing more than adding some extra ventilation to these destructive fishing boats from a long distance!



We use nothing but plastic bags, because the store we shop at also offer recycling. After a few bags are stuffed full we take them to the recycle bin. I can only hope they actually get recycled vs thrown in with regular garbage.


----------



## Ashful

begreen said:


> Bad procedure, aka wish-cycling. It gums up the works, adds costs to all of us.


You nailed me, there. It is “wish-cycling”. But I never saw it as a bad thing. Like I said, maybe naive. 



begreen said:


> Follow the rules for your system. If too many people abuse the system it will shut down.


That’s the trouble. When recycling started in our area 30 years ago, the trash hauler used to leave a yearly flyer on our can outlining what could and couldn’t be recycled. It would expand a little, over the years. However, it’s been 20 years since I’ve received one of those, and I really have no idea what’s allowed or dis-allowed today.



begreen said:


> Ask if your facility is set up to deal with the sheeting.... Visit your facility manager and ask how their system works.


Yeah... that’s not gonna happen. Maybe you have all the free time to fart around with crap like this, but I do not. Like most folks, I’m at work when such a facility would be open and the manager accessible. I barely find enough time during my few weekend daylight hours to keep ahead of my wood harvesting and splitting.  I was outside 30 minutes before sunrise this morning, measuring out the foundation for another wood rack, and hauling out the trailer to go fetch the next round of material.  Other than lunch (now), I won’t sit down until an hour or three past dark, tonight.

I suspect that most folks want to do what they can easily do to minimize their impact.  That’s where I land.  I’m glad there are folks like you to lead the charge, but I won’t have time to join your crusade until I retire!


----------



## begreen

Ashful said:


> You nailed me, there. It is “wish-cycling”. But I never saw it as a bad thing. Like I said, maybe naive.
> 
> That’s the trouble. When recycling started in our area 30 years ago, the trash hauler used to leave a yearly flyer on our can outlining what could and couldn’t be recycled. It would expand a little, over the years. However, it’s been 20 years since I’ve received one of those, and I really have no idea what’s allowed or dis-allowed today.
> 
> Yeah... that’s not gonna happen. Maybe you have all the free time to fart around with crap like this, but I do not. Like most folks, I’m at work when such a facility would be open and the manager accessible. I barely find enough time during my few weekend daylight hours to keep ahead of my wood harvesting and splitting.  I was outside 30 minutes before sunrise this morning, measuring out the foundation for another wood rack, and hauling out the trailer to go fetch the next round of material.  Other than lunch (now), I won’t sit down until an hour or three past dark, tonight.
> 
> I suspect that most folks want to do what they can easily do to minimize their impact.  That’s where I land.  I’m glad there are folks like you to lead the charge, but I won’t have time to join your crusade until I retire!


You are not alone. These are common situations. Is there a zero-waste organization in your area? If so, ask them via email for updated info.

Who is your waste and recycling hauler and for what area? I'll bug them.


----------



## Ashful

begreen said:


> You are not alone. These are common situations. Is there a zero-waste organization in your area? If so, ask them via email for updated info.
> 
> Who is your waste and recycling hauler and for what area? I'll bug them.


Thanks for the offer!  But your prompting got me to check myself:  https://www.republicservices.com/cms/documents/RecyclingGuide1pager.pdf

So, I'm guessing my clear polyethylene wood pile covers fall in with "plastic bags", under the "non-recyclable" list.  What a shame!  I'm still tempted to put them in there, just to irritate them to the point of including that in the program, but based on your better advice I will refrain from doing it this year.

I do hate the thought of putting all of that plastic in a land fill, though.  After next year I will be done with plastic-covered stacks, I'm building wood sheds at that rate to replace them.


----------



## begreen

Looks like they are only taking #1 & 2 plastics. That is not unusual, they are the most recyclable and therefore have the highest value. I don't understand what they mean by takeout containers. That can cover a bunch of different plastics.
Here is a more complete guide:








						How to Recycle: Recycling Basics | Republic Services
					

Learn the recycling basics including what you can recycle and how to prepare it for pickup. It’s easy once you know how to recycle!




					recyclingsimplified.com
				




Plastic films take special handling. Very few places are set up to deal with it. In large conveyor systems that are typically dealing with comingled recyclables, these items wrap around the belts and drive wheels creating a serious mess and hazards for the workers.

Here is a handy search engine for recycling locations. Type in your zip code and item.





						Recycling Center Search - Earth911.com
					

Find recycling centers and services in your neighborhood.



					search.earth911.com
				



One place in your area that is set up for plastic films is at the Forge Transfer station
(215) 335-0330
5109 Bleigh Ave
Philadelphia, PA 19136


----------



## Sodbuster

begreen said:


> Looks like they are only taking #1 & 2 plastics. That is not unusual, they are the most recyclable and therefore have the highest value. I don't understand what they mean by takeout containers. That can cover a bunch of different plastics.
> Here is a more complete guide:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> How to Recycle: Recycling Basics | Republic Services
> 
> 
> Learn the recycling basics including what you can recycle and how to prepare it for pickup. It’s easy once you know how to recycle!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> recyclingsimplified.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Plastic films take special handling. Very few places are set up to deal with it. In large conveyor systems that are typically dealing with comingled recyclables, these items wrap around the belts and drive wheels creating a serious mess and hazards for the workers.
> 
> Here is a handy search engine for recycling locations. Type in your zip code and item.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Recycling Center Search - Earth911.com
> 
> 
> Find recycling centers and services in your neighborhood.
> 
> 
> 
> search.earth911.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> One place in your area that is set up for plastic films is at the Forge Transfer station
> (215) 335-0330
> 5109 Bleigh Ave
> Philadelphia, PA 19136



I'm in south east Michigan and we had recycling service with a trash hauler that started out as Duncan disposal, who offered recycling for a couple bucks a month along with a 90 gallon cart. Then they were bought out by Rizzo disposal, who was bought by GFL Corp.  Our recycle cart was almost always full, and there were weeks we didn't even need to put out our refuse cart. The problem was there were weeks when they would skip our whole road, a mile long road. I'd call and they'd say just leave it out, we have a truck in the area. Complete BS, they never came. So I switched companies to one that was much more reliable, but didn't offer recycling, because there's no money in it.  Now it's time for renewal, and I'm torn between going back to the old company with recycling or staying with the current company.  There were rumors and all that GFL did was charge extra for the recycling and just dumped it all in the landfill. I'm not sure how that's regulated if at all. BTW, they would accept #1-#7 plastics.


----------



## begreen

Sodbuster said:


> I'm in south east Michigan and we had recycling service with a trash hauler that started out as Duncan disposal, who offered recycling for a couple bucks a month along with a 90 gallon cart. Then they were bought out by Rizzo disposal, who was bought by GFL Corp.  Our recycle cart was almost always full, and there were weeks we didn't even need to put out our refuse cart. The problem was there were weeks when they would skip our whole road, a mile long road. I'd call and they'd say just leave it out, we have a truck in the area. Complete BS, they never came. So I switched companies to one that was much more reliable, but didn't offer recycling, because there's no money in it.  Now it's time for renewal, and I'm torn between going back to the old company with recycling or staying with the current company.  There were rumors and all that GFL did was charge extra for the recycling and just dumped it all in the landfill. I'm not sure how that's regulated if at all. BTW, they would accept #1-#7 plastics.


I am sorry to say, but some are dumping it in the landfill.   I think this can happen more when the company also manages the landfill. They get paid for incoming tonnage so in essence they are getting paid twice. That is unscrupulous, but it happens. I am pleased that King County has Recology managing their recycling program. They own no landfills and have to pay for hauling anything there so it in their best interests (and the community's) to recycle as much as possible. One way they achieve this is with customer education. Like Ashful pointed out, many don't know what they can recycle, so we help them. As a result, our area has a much lower contamination rate than nationally. I'm glad to say that our town is the best in the county with an under 1% contamination rate even though we recycle at over double the average rate.


----------



## EatenByLimestone

Just got a new flyer on recycling stuff from our trash guys.  The only metal they want is cans.   Looks like they will take any plastic bottles, glass jars, or paper.    It's a shame.  I get rid of a lot of aluminum and steel for work.


----------



## SpaceBus

EatenByLimestone said:


> Just got a new flyer on recycling stuff from our trash guys.  The only metal they want is cans.   Looks like they will take any plastic bottles, glass jars, or paper.    It's a shame.  I get rid of a lot of aluminum and steel for work.


You probably have a local scrap yard that will take it.


----------



## semipro

SpaceBus said:


> You probably have a local scrap yard that will take it.


I've seen ads in CL from those that will collect it from your property and recycle it.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

EatenByLimestone said:


> Just got a new flyer on recycling stuff from our trash guys.  The only metal they want is cans.   Looks like they will take any plastic bottles, glass jars, or paper.    It's a shame.  I get rid of a lot of aluminum and steel for work.


Our local scrap yard still pays for any kind of metal.  Aluminum is 50c Lb  Copper $1.50  Steel or Cast Iron and tin cans about 5c a lb.


----------



## SpaceBus

Seasoned Oak said:


> Our local scrap yard still pays for any kind of metal.  Aluminum is 50c Lb  Copper $1.50  Steel or Cast Iron and tin cans about 5c a lb.


That's a great price for copper. I've got a few hundred feet of copper that needs to come out of our house since I renovated the plumbing. I've also got some welding gas canisters that can't be refilled that will probably end up at the scrap yard. I've been saving up our bottles and cans for the last year, but it's only $0.5 per item.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

SpaceBus said:


> That's a great price for copper. I've got a few hundred feet of copper that needs to come out of our house since I renovated the plumbing. I've also got some welding gas canisters that can't be refilled that will probably end up at the scrap yard. I've been saving up our bottles and cans for the last year, but it's only $0.5 per item.


Brass is over $1  as well  Copper fluctuates between $1.50 to $1.65   A yr ago i was getting $2.65 for copper.  I get a lot of copper and brass renovating, even the waste pipes used to be brass.


----------



## begreen

EatenByLimestone said:


> Just got a new flyer on recycling stuff from our trash guys.  The only metal they want is cans.   Looks like they will take any plastic bottles, glass jars, or paper.    It's a shame.  I get rid of a lot of aluminum and steel for work.


Encourage them to setup for steel and aluminum. These materials are exceptionally recyclable at a profit.


----------



## EatenByLimestone

That's the thing... they'll take tin cans (steel).


----------



## Seasoned Oak

EatenByLimestone said:


> That's the thing... they'll take tin cans (steel).



Cant imagine they wont take Copper,Brass and Aluminum ,thats where the big money is.


----------



## EatenByLimestone

Seems silly to me too.


----------



## Ashful

Seasoned Oak said:


> Our local scrap yard still pays for any kind of metal. Aluminum is 50c Lb Copper $1.50 Steel or Cast Iron and tin cans about 5c a lb.



None of which makes it worth the trip. I’ll throw anything under $100 in the trash to save the effort of starting the car and wasting an hour. Time is money, not to mention the $2 in gas you’ll burn to get $1 back in scrap.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Ashful said:


> None of which makes it worth the trip. I’ll throw anything under $100 in the trash to save the effort of starting the car and wasting an hour. Time is money, not to mention the $2 in gas you’ll burn to get $1 back in scrap.


Last load of copper i took i got around $200 the one before that was $400. As far as steel ,getting paid $60 for a load vs paying $90 to dump it is well worth it and still takes the same amount of time.   I dont go there with just one pound.    .  By that analogy most of us wouldnt be Hauling, chopping, splitting and drying wood either. Ever figure out the hourly rate for your time vs $ saved on your  heating cost?  Or spending time running cardboard and plastic bottles to the recycle center for which we get nothing for our time.


----------



## Sodbuster

Seasoned Oak said:


> Last load of copper i took i got around $200 the one before that was $400. As far as steel ,getting paid $60 for a load vs paying $90 to dump it is well worth it and still takes the same amount of time.   I dont go there with just one pound.   By that analogy most of us wouldnt be Hauling, chopping, splitting and drying wood either. Ever figure out the hourly rate for your time vs $ saved on your  heating cost?



Yes I have and by heating with wood, considering I now have Natural Gas, it costs me money to heat with wood. By the time I cut it, limb it, buck it, split it, stack it, season it, fill my wood rack, and the hassle of constantly tending the stove I pay myself <$5 per hour. I still keep my wood shed full in case the SHTF, but if the furnace runs, I don't care. Not to mention the saw gas, splitter gas, maintenance on all those items its not a money saver. If I had propane or fuel oil, it's a whole different story.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Sodbuster said:


> , it costs me money to heat with wood. By the time I cut it, limb it, ect ect


Yes it does. All the wood prep is the least enjoyable part of wood burning for me.


----------



## Sodbuster

Seasoned Oak said:


> Since oil is likely to remain too cheap for the foreseeable future, a deposit on plastic bags may sound crazy but it may also work. Also a surcharge on the Mfg of bags to go to an environment cleanup fund.



Interesting that you say too cheap, so you want to artificially increase the price of oil which would be essentially be a regressive tax on the working poor. Their heat bills would rise as would their electric and gasoline costs, and the costs of anything made from plastic right down to carpeting. I think a solution that needs to be revisited is burning the combustible trash to generate electricity using advanced scrubbers to keep emissions to a bare minimum. Of course their will be some push back from environmentalist but you can't have your cake and eat it too. I know people that live paycheck to paycheck and increase their utility costs would push them into a very tough financial situation.  Those that are well off could care less how much they pay for fuel, or electricity.


----------



## SpaceBus

Sodbuster said:


> Interesting that you say too cheap, so you want to artificially increase the price of oil which would be essentially be a regressive tax on the working poor. Their heat bills would rise as would their electric and gasoline costs, and the costs of anything made from plastic right down to carpeting. I think a solution that needs to be revisited is burning the combustible trash to generate electricity using advanced scrubbers to keep emissions to a bare minimum. Of course their will be some push back from environmentalist but you can't have your cake and eat it too. I know people that live paycheck to paycheck and increase their utility costs would push them into a very tough financial situation.  Those that are well off could care less how much they pay for fuel, or electricity.


Wealthy people absolutely care about the cost of things. How do you think they became wealthy (aside from those born into wealth)? Forcing the plastic mfgs to pick up the bill is not punishing the lower socioeconomic stratums


----------



## peakbagger

A minor rant is my local Walmart's policy is that anyone carrying anything that is not in a Walmart bag leaving the registers have to show a receipt. If I am carrying a plastic milk jug by the handle without it being in a bag I have to show a receipt, if I slide a bag over it and still carry it by the handle I don't get scanned. The policy encourages a waste of plastic for no good reason.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Sodbuster said:


> Interesting that you say too cheap, so you want to artificially increase the price of oil which would be essentially be a regressive tax on the working poor.


What i meant by that is "Too cheap to encourage conservation" .  I have a lot of experience with the workin poor as i own  a real estate business that rents  housing. The waste is astounding. (a subject for another thread) There are only a few ways to finance cleanup of waste plastic before we are up to our eyeballs in it. Making the producers if this product (as well as the users)at least a little responsible for the mess its making is not out of line.  The money for advanced waste to electric production has to come from somewhere as well. If its extracted from taxpayers as a tax it hits all the same people anyway.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

SpaceBus said:


> Wealthy people absolutely care about the cost of things. How do you think they became wealthy


They also dont waste near as much and spend  much more wisely and recycle as much as possible.  I have tenants who make a good deal more income than i do and are  always 1 paycheck from homelessness , mostly from poor spending habits, and also very wasteful as far as home heating.  This may sound  off topic but is a big part  of the problem, incentives,financial and otherwise are needed. People generally DONT just do the right thing without some kind of incentive. In my experience.


----------



## Sodbuster

SpaceBus said:


> Wealthy people absolutely care about the cost of things. How do you think they became wealthy (aside from those born into wealth)? Forcing the plastic mfgs to pick up the bill is not punishing the lower socioeconomic stratums



I guess I could have worded that better. The wealthy are not as affected as much by a higher than normal power or fuel bill. They may not like it, but they can afford to pay it. When the government passes a law mandating that manufacturers change the way they do things that cost them more money, they'll just raise the price of the product. Unless your talking about price controls which have failed in the past. Personally in the case of bottled water, I don't use it. My Grandfather would be spinning in his grave if he knew people paid to have water in a bottle that you throw away. As a kid if you were thirsty, you turned on the garden hose and chugged away, it's amazing that I'm still alive. I will agree with you on one point if you want people to change their habits price is one way to control it. I'm not a smoker and never have been, but I was behind a guy that dropped $150 for a carton of cigs. When I was a boy, and this will show my age, cigs were .50 a pack and you could buy them from a machine almost anywhere. Knowing that prohibition doesn't work the gov't just kept raising the cost. I think it help a lot of people quit.


----------



## Ashful

Just saw a commercial for these guys.  I like it:  https://4ocean.com/


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Ashful said:


> Just saw a commercial for these guys.  I like it:  https://4ocean.com/


The tip of the iceberg. Virtually noting can be done about all the microplastics that are already in the Rivers and Oceans.  Even if every intact piece of plastic is recovered.  Only keeping it out of the waste stream altogether will have a meaningful impact. IMO. The micro synthetic waste from millions of washing machines are also adding to it daily.


----------



## Ashful

Seasoned Oak said:


> Virtually noting can be done about all the microplastics that are already in the Rivers and Oceans.  Even if every intact piece of plastic is recovered.  Only keeping it out of the waste stream altogether will have a meaningful impact. IMO. The micro synthetic waste from millions of washing machines are also adding to it daily.


I do not see any reason to discourage removing plastic waste from our oceans.  Yes, this is not a fix for the micro plastics that are already in our oceans and rivers, but it is helping to reduce the addition of more.

Today’s discarded soda bottle is tomorrow’s micro plastic, after sufficient UV exposure and mechanical scrubbing.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Ashful said:


> I do not see any reason to discourage removing plastic waste from our oceans.


For sure , but it seems it would be easier to get it on the way rather than chasing around the open ocean. Since most of it probably comes from asian countries rivers that would be hard for us to do.


----------



## begreen

Seasoned Oak said:


> For sure , but it seems it would be easier to get it on the way rather than chasing around the open ocean. Since most of it probably comes from asian countries rivers that would be hard for us to do.


That is true for most of what now makes up the great Pacific garbage patch. However, the greatest concentration of microplastics coming from a river was tested a couple years ago and the results showed the worst was not from Asia, but in England. That surprised a lot of people. Textiles was the suspect.


----------



## SpaceBus

Seasoned Oak said:


> The tip of the iceberg. Virtually noting can be done about all the microplastics that are already in the Rivers and Oceans.  Even if every intact piece of plastic is recovered.  Only keeping it out of the waste stream altogether will have a meaningful impact. IMO. The micro synthetic waste from millions of washing machines are also adding to it daily.


Do you have links for this info? I'd like to show some people I know.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

SpaceBus said:


> Do you have links for this info? I'd like to show some people I know.


The washing machine waste  thing pops up every now and then, im sure if you google it you will find some articles.


----------



## semipro

I can't help but wonder if the risk presented by micro-plastics isn't exaggerated.  No doubt their pervasiveness is alarming but what are the risks relative to other hazards? It would seem to some degree that they are just "roughage".
Large plastic bits are no doubt a problem though.  Their risk to marine life and birds that ingest them is well documented and extremely troubling (check out the photos at the Smithsonian link).


----------



## semipro

A recent piece from The Guardian on the problem. 

A quote from a women living in Java:
 “If it carries on like this we will be buried in plastic. *We have no choice but to throw plastic into the rivers*. Now we are angry. Something must be done,”

Look closely at the the first photo and you'll see a child retrieving a fish from the mess, I'm assuming with the intent to eat it.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

If these places were really serious about cleaning up the mess they would pay a bounty per pound of waste plactic same as they do for invasive species, or deposit on bottles and cans. Those kids on the beach would be more than happy to clean up that beach so they could buy lunch. The producers or importers of these products would have to pick up the tab for that. Everyone must be responsible for their own garbage disposal.  "Free"  disposal in streams and rivers is not working out so well.


----------



## peakbagger

Not sure if this popped up previously but a very extensive article on why recycling single use plastic is not the cure to how to deal with the plastics problem. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/more-recycling-wont-solve-plastic-pollution/


----------



## Seasoned Oak

peakbagger said:


> Not sure if this popped up previously but a very extensive article on why recycling single use plastic is not the cure to how to deal with the plastics problem. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/more-recycling-wont-solve-plastic-pollution/


Thats the 800 lb  gorilla. Its just lip service. True progress would be for the Mfg(along with the customer) to start feeling the pain and cost of cleanup and responsibilty for their product. IMO. Which in turn would usher in bio degradable products and alternatives to single use plastic.  Sometimes the difference  can be just a few pennies per use.  As long as theres no cost in $ (for either the Mfg or the consumer)for destroying the ecosystem it will keep happening on  a large scale. This has already begun on a small scale with Aldis grocery stores providing paper bags and reusable bags and encouraging customers to use their empty cardboard boxes which are easily recyclable. I dont see any single use plastic bags at their locations.


----------



## SpaceBus

Seasoned Oak said:


> Thats the 800 lb  gorilla. Its just lip service. True progress would be for the Mfg(along with the customer) to start feeling the pain and cost of cleanup and responsibilty for their product. IMO. Which in turn would usher in bio degradable products and alternatives to single use plastic.  Sometimes the difference  can be just a few pennies per use.  As long as theres no cost in $ (for either the Mfg or the consumer)for destroying the ecosystem it will keep happening on  a large scale. This has already begun on a small scale with Aldis grocery stores providing paper bags and reusable bags and encouraging customers to use their empty cardboard boxes which are easily recyclable. I dont see any single use plastic bags at their locations.


I've noticed that pretty much every independent store in my town has switched to paper and have no single use plastics. Perhaps my personal boycott of the local supermarket is spreading to other people.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

SpaceBus said:


> I've noticed that pretty much every independent store in my town has switched to paper and have no single use plastics. Perhaps my personal boycott of the local supermarket is spreading to other people.


Now if they can do something about plastic water bottles. I personally dont buy bottled water, but use glass bottles tofor water ,but those things are everywhere by the billions.


----------



## SpaceBus

Seasoned Oak said:


> Now if they can do something about plastic water bottles. I personally dont buy bottled water, but use glass bottles tofor water ,but those things are everywhere by the billions.


I have also abandoned plastic bottles. I've been collecting glass containers slowly to replace my plastic stuff in the kitchen too. Plastic zip bags are difficult to give up, I don't yet have a good solution.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

SpaceBus said:


> I have also abandoned plastic bottles. I've been collecting glass containers slowly to replace my plastic stuff in the kitchen too. Plastic zip bags are difficult to give up, I don't yet have a good solution.


I use a lot of tupperware type containers to freeze things in ,still plastic but very reusable. Plus were using more glass bottom  leftover containers for food because no way do you want to reheat food in plastic containers.


----------



## Ashful

SpaceBus said:


> Plastic zip bags are difficult to give up, I don't yet have a good solution.


My grandma used to wash and re-use them, 35 - 40 years ago.  We used to tease her for being so frugal, but she was just ahead of her time!


----------



## begreen

Ashful said:


> My grandma used to wash and re-use them, 35 - 40 years ago.  We used to tease her for being so frugal, but she was just ahead of her time!


Good for her. My wife has always done that.


----------



## Jan Pijpelink

Seasoned Oak said:


> If these places were really serious about cleaning up the mess they would pay a bounty per pound of waste plactic same as they do for invasive species, or deposit on bottles and cans. Those kids on the beach would be more than happy to clean up that beach so they could buy lunch. The producers or importers of these products would have to pick up the tab for that. Everyone must be responsible for their own garbage disposal.  "Free"  disposal in streams and rivers is not working out so well.


Indonesia is one of the most plastic polluted countries. The current president has vowed to make changes for the better. There are now true plastic recycling plants all over the country and in the big cities, people can now pay public transportation tickets with plastic bottles, so they will be collected and recycled. It is not much, but you have to start somewhere.
In India, they are now using shredded plastic bottles to pave roads. Not sure if that is a good idea.


----------



## Ashful

Jan Pijpelink said:


> In India, they are now using shredded plastic bottles to pave roads. Not sure if that is a good idea.


I hope that’s not in their more snowy regions.   I can’t imagine the sheer volume of microplastic particles generated from plowing snow off roads paved with shredded plastic, after a few years of them baking in the sun.  Heck, our plows here routinely wear thru asphalt, or peel up large swaths of it when the road is lumpy.


----------



## begreen

Ashful said:


> I hope that’s not in their more snowy regions.   I can’t imagine the sheer volume of microplastic particles generated from plowing snow off roads paved with shredded plastic, after a few years of them baking in the sun.  Heck, our plows here routinely wear thru asphalt, or peel up large swaths of it when the road is lumpy.


It's a bad idea. Roads wear. Rains washes off the wear into streams, then rivers. Plastics should either be recycled into new plastics, downcycled into other products, or burned cleanly for fuel and energy.


----------



## SpaceBus

begreen said:


> It's a bad idea. Roads wear. Rains washes off the wear into streams, then rivers. Plastics should either be recycled into new plastics, downcycled into other products, or burned cleanly for fuel and energy.


I feel like bituminous tar and rubber being washed off the roads is also a bad idea.


----------



## begreen

SpaceBus said:


> I feel like bituminous tar and rubber being washed off the roads is also a bad idea.


It is, but it tends to stabilize. This change won't happen in my lifetime, the Jetson's being portrayed in the year 2062, but what transportation needs is anti-gravity which would eliminate the need for most roads and tires.


----------



## Ashful

begreen said:


> ...what transportation needs is anti-gravity which would eliminate the need for most roads and tires.


Well, if we’re going to follow that tangent, I had always thought we’d be flying around in mag-lev tubes, like large modernized and computer-managed 1950’s tube mail systems, in my lifetime.  People argue about infrastructure, but I suspect it’s a heck of a lot less impact than roads and bridges capable of carrying tri-axle dump trucks and our current traffic volume.


----------



## WiscWoody

begreen said:


> *"The amount of plastic produced in a year is roughly the same as the entire weight of humanity." *
> This is a must fix situation. The plastic bottle blitz started in the 1990's. Now CocaCola alone produces 100 BILLION bottles a year!! They won't use recycled plastics because they think their customers won't like it. Time to make these bottlers assume cradle to grave responsibility for this blight on the planet. In the time it takes to read this thread about a million single-use plastic bottles have been produced. It's time we required these manufacturers to assume cradle to grave responsibility for their products.
> https://www.theguardian.com/environ...c-bottle-binge-as-dangerous-as-climate-change


I think the plastic bottle blitz started more like in 1984 or so when they first perfected a cheap clear plastic bottle mainly for pop (or soda if that’s what you call it). I worked at a Brockway Glass Co. bottle plant at the time and we knew it wasn’t good for the strugglimg glass bottle industry at the time and it wasn’t a year later and our plant was shut down and 500 of us high paid workers were on the street looking for work in a depressed economy.


----------



## begreen

WiscWoody said:


> I think the plastic bottle blitz started more like in 1984 or so when they first perfected a cheap clear plastic bottle mainly for pop (or soda if that’s what you call it). I worked at a Brockway Glass Co. bottle plant at the time and we knew it wasn’t good for the strugglimg glass bottle industry at the time and it wasn’t a year later and our plant was shut down and 500 of us high paid workers were on the street looking for work in a depressed economy.


You're probably right from a US perspective. It started here and became a global phenomenon by the early 1990s.


----------



## RandyBoBandy

begreen said:


> Here is one interesting solution coming from the UK. They take plastics from recycling (including bags), pelletize them and blend them into asphalt for roads. The roads made from this product are supposed to be less expensive, tougher and more resistant to potholing. The claim is this product will outlast regular asphalt roads by 60%.
> http://www.macrebur.com/


I know this is a few years old but I just stumbled onto this thread. What about the breakdown of these roads?  The micro plastics being washed into the gutter by rain and then off to wherever they drain the roads to. Water treatment plants, ponds, lakes, ocean??


----------



## jatoxico

Ashful said:


> My grandma used to wash and re-use them, 35 - 40 years ago.  We used to tease her for being so frugal, but she was just ahead of her time!



Around my house, all things that can reasonably be used more than once, are. In comparison to my neighbors we throw out very little. So while I'm pleased that we could easily live with one garbage pick up a week (maybe less) its still  a drop in the bucket and lots of plastic and paper that probably should never have existed in the first place ends up in my trash.

My understanding is that many countries have adopted the position that if you made it, your responsible for it. But the user has to be willing to properly return it and the manufacturer has to accept it. That adds cost and worse yet, inconvenience. On the whole we hate that.


----------



## begreen

jatoxico said:


> But the user has to be willing to properly return it and the manufacturer has to accept it. That adds cost and worse yet, inconvenience. On the whole we hate that.


In urban areas a nudge may be a necessity. One solution is to raise the price of landfilled trash, while making recycling cheap or free. Seattle goes further and also collects organics separately. There is a fine for dumping organics in with the garbage.

Making it easier helps. Laws, education and some social engineering also work. In Germany , they take recycling quite seriously. Landfills are few and costly. Still, people are still people and some people will still litter or dump everything in the garbage can. 








						Waste Separation and Recycling
					

How can I sort my waste properly? What regulations should I consider regarding recycling? What does “Pfand” or deposit mean?




					handbookgermany.de
				











						Guide to separating trash in Germany | DW | 07.06.2017
					

Colorful bins in their backyards are there to collect different types of trash: Germans are said to take their waste separation very seriously. Here's what you need to know about it.




					www.dw.com


----------



## Ashful

begreen said:


> In urban areas a nudge may be a necessity. One solution is to raise the price of landfilled trash, while making recycling cheap or free. Seattle goes further and also collects organics separately. There is a fine for dumping organics in with the garbage.
> 
> Making it easier helps. Laws, education and some social engineering also work. In Germany , they take recycling quite seriously. Landfills are few and costly. Still, people are still people and some people will still litter or dump everything in the garbage can.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Waste Separation and Recycling
> 
> 
> How can I sort my waste properly? What regulations should I consider regarding recycling? What does “Pfand” or deposit mean?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> handbookgermany.de
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Guide to separating trash in Germany | DW | 07.06.2017
> 
> 
> Colorful bins in their backyards are there to collect different types of trash: Germans are said to take their waste separation very seriously. Here's what you need to know about it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.dw.com


I was living and working in Germany part time in the 1990’s, as a this was becoming an issue, and remember the havoc and debate caused by the laws they were just passing at that time forcing manufacturers to be able to take back, disassemble, and recycle most of the product they manufactured.  I’ve only been back once in the last few years, and it seems like they’re making it work, after some pains growing into their current system.

On a related note, I had the family of one of my German former coworkers stay with us a bit this summer.  He is used to living around and dealing with Americans, but I think his wife and child had to adjust to how many Americans view things like waste, fuel mileage, and travel.  Of course, I’m not the most progressive example for them to view, they’d have probably done better to stay with you, begreen!


----------



## SpaceBus

Ashful said:


> I was living and working in Germany part time in the 1990’s, as a this was becoming an issue, and remember the havoc and debate caused by the laws they were just passing at that time forcing manufacturers to be able to take back, disassemble, and recycle most of the product they manufactured.  I’ve only been back once in the last few years, and it seems like they’re making it work, after some pains growing into their current system.
> 
> On a related note, I had the family of one of my German former coworkers stay with us a bit this summer.  He is used to living around and dealing with Americans, but I think his wife and child had to adjust to how many Americans view things like waste, fuel mileage, and travel.  Of course, I’m not the most progressive example for them to view, they’d have probably done better to stay with you, begreen!


I was in Bavaria for five weeks back in  spring 2012 and the glass bottle return system was seamless. You pay a deposit up front for the glass bottles and get it back when you return the bottles, which you will if you like beer and shop at the same place every week.


----------



## jatoxico

A friend just visited Germany and a lot of unnecessary packaging is left at the point of purchase. So it never goes home and is right there for the wholesaler/producer to pickup which they must take back.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

jatoxico said:


> A friend just visited Germany and a lot of unnecessary packaging is left at the point of purchase. So it never goes home and is right there for the wholesaler/producer to pickup which they must take back.


Ill bet they find ways to reduce that unnecessary packaging, fast!


----------



## begreen

We need to keep moving forward as a society. Once you have made a lifestyle commitment to this and your children, it's hard to go backward.


----------



## peakbagger

I would guess the packaged meal kit business either does not exist or has far different look to it in Germany. Its shocking to see the pile of trash associated with one meal.


----------



## SpaceBus

Nowadays the only plastic packaging I come across is found on my meat. Now that I buy produce from the Coop and meat from Maine butchers I have way less packaging than when I shop at the supermarket.


----------



## jebatty

When we eat out, my wife and I bring glass container "doggy bags" to take the leftovers home. No bag, foam or throw-away doggy bags at all.


----------



## SpaceBus

jebatty said:


> When we eat out, my wife and I bring glass container "doggy bags" to take the leftovers home. No bag, foam or throw-away doggy bags at all.


I've begun using mason jars for leftovers, pretty soon I'll need some more. If we ever ate out perhaps I could bring some in the car.


----------



## jatoxico

Seasoned Oak said:


> Ill bet they find ways to reduce that unnecessary packaging, fast!



I think that's exactly one of the points. With cradle to grave responsibility it makes sense to spend up front on better delivery alternatives that either have a recycle market or employ less one-use materials in the first place.

Also incentivizes the processing of recycling materials since there is no "landfill" option though I think they were also sending a lot to China and that market has dried up.


----------



## semipro

jebatty said:


> When we eat out, my wife and I bring glass container "doggy bags" to take the leftovers home. No bag, foam or throw-away doggy bags at all.


We do this as well.  We also now have reusable plastic "sporks" and straws that we carry for use with fast food.  
The plastic lids on disposable paper cups have been a challenge though.  Many aren't even marked for recycling.


----------



## tadmaz

I bring my lunch to work in a 7 cup round pyrex.  Bringing something like that for a doggy bag is a good idea, noted!


----------



## Seasoned Oak

SpaceBus said:


> Nowadays the only plastic packaging I come across is found on my meat. Now that I buy produce from the Coop and meat from Maine butchers I have way less packaging than when I shop at the supermarket.


I remember when meat was wrapped in white paper, and the butcher was a local farmer that came to your house in a truck with a display case inside.


----------



## peakbagger

The local chain supermarket puts the fish in a plastic bag and then wraps it up in butcher paper.


----------



## semipro

Nestlé is spending billions to create a market for recycled plastics
					

Food companies trying to reduce their consumption of plastic have a big problem — it's hard to find suitable recycled material. Nestlé says it's willing to spend more than $2 billion to try and fix that.




					www.cnn.com


----------



## Sodbuster

tadmaz said:


> I bring my lunch to work in a 7 cup round pyrex.  Bringing something like that for a doggy bag is a good idea, noted!



That's exactly what my wife does, Pyrex bowls with the plastic snap on lids. We put the the Pyrex in the dishwasher, but she hand washes the plastic tops. they'll virtually last forever.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

I drink mostly bottled beer so im doing my part and recycling the bottles.
.


----------



## Sodbuster

Seasoned Oak said:


> I drink mostly bottled beer so im doing my part and recycling the bottles.
> .



Walked past the Boy Scouts of America selling bottled water as we exiting the grocery store today. FSS is it really that hard to fill a glass?


----------



## SpaceBus

Sodbuster said:


> That's exactly what my wife does, Pyrex bowls with the plastic snap on lids. We put the the Pyrex in the dishwasher, but she hand washes the plastic tops. they'll virtually last forever.


I need more of these. I have a small one but it's constantly in use.


----------



## AlbergSteve

begreen said:


> One solution is to raise the price of landfilled trash


The problem with raising tipping fees is people are less inclined pay the increased cost and end up dumping illegally. I've seen "tarped" truck loads in the bush -this is where they put a tarp in the bed of a truck, load it with drywall and head out to the bush.  A rope is tied to the tarp and a nearby tree, then simply drive away. It's getting so bad some municipalities are *installing game cams* in the worst affected areas.


----------



## begreen

AlbergSteve said:


> The problem with raising tipping fees is people are less inclined pay the increased cost and end up dumping illegally.


Agreed the problem is with people. There are too many that only think of themselves.


----------



## peakbagger

On the news this weekend is that China is in theory getting serious about single use plastics. They apparently produce 1/4 of the plastic in the world. They are banning some classes of single use plastics. https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevor...-to-ban-all-single-use-plastics/#755a91cb7293 The devil is in the details as typically the central government passes the laws but its up to regional authorities to enforce them.  This has been a problem in the past where the regional authorities on occasion are willing to accepts bribes to look the other way. Nevertheless at least the central government admits publicly its a problem.  and has a plan.

Maybe a future US government will at least match the proposal.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

begreen said:


> Agreed the problem is with people. There are too many that only think of themselves.


Which is why it should be handled at the point of purchase. That would also incentivize Mfgs to produce packaging with less waste.


----------



## Sodbuster

We stopped buying bottled water years ago, it comes from a well just like we have. It's a contentious issue here in Michigan where Nestle is pulling millions of gallons out of the ground to bottle as sell to consumers.


----------



## Ashful

Seasoned Oak said:


> Which is why it should be handled at the point of purchase. That would also incentivize Mfgs to produce packaging with less waste.


I suspect that, like nearly all complex problems, there is no single solution.  But I would agree this has to be one very big part of it.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Sodbuster said:


> We stopped buying bottled water years ago, it comes from a well just like we have. It's a contentious issue here in Michigan where Nestle is pulling millions of gallons out of the ground to bottle as sell to consumers.


The local walmart sells coke for 50c a can in their vending machines but the water is $1 or more. As if the coke does not also contain purified water among other things. I guess corn sweetener is cheaper to produce than water.


----------



## begreen

Seasoned Oak said:


> The local walmart sells coke for 50c a can in their vending machines but the water is $1 or more. As if the coke does not also contain purified water among other things. I guess corn sweetener is cheaper to produce than water.


Better by the can than Coke in a plastic bottle.


----------



## begreen

The fossil fuel industry is banking on a dramatic increase in plastics production to balance out a decline in transportation fuel consumption. There is now so much plastic in the air, water and food that the average person is consuming about a credit card's worth every week. We need to stop subsidizing this sociopathy.

"More than half the plastic now on Earth has been created since 2002, and plastic pollution is on pace to double by 2030. At its root, the global plastics crisis is a product of our addiction to fossil fuels. The private profit and public harm of the oil industry is well understood: Oil is refined and distributed to consumers, who benefit from gasoline’s short, useful lifespan in a combustion engine, leaving behind atmospheric pollution for generations. But this same pattern — and this same tragedy of the commons — is playing out with another gift of the oil-and-gas giants, whose drilling draws up the petroleum precursors for plastics. These are refined in industrial complexes and manufactured into bottles, bags, containers, textiles, and toys for consumers who benefit from their transient use — before throwing them away."








						Planet Plastic
					

How Big Oil and Big Soda kept a global environmental calamity a secret for decades



					www.rollingstone.com


----------



## Sodbuster

If you want to live back in the stone age be my guest, but don't be a hypocrite about fossil fuels. Make sure their is nothing in your house that is made from or delivered by fossil fuels. Your electric car should only be charge with wind and solar power. Actually you shouldn't live in a house because it would be impossible for it to be built without fossil fuels. With the exception of plastic bottles and bags, I do not believe that we as a country are not doing our part to reduce fossil fuel usage. Car mileage is going up every year, if our gov't would allow reasonable clean diesel we could reduce that even further, but as it stands now, by the time you pay the premium for a diesel engine, the blue def to put in it, and the mileage toll all the emission control has, you are better off buying a gas engine.


----------



## Seasoned Oak

Big push to ban plastic bags at the grocery but ck your groceries next time and at least 90+% of it is contained in plastic. Even fresh vegetables. A few cardboard containers yet but plastic bags inside containing the actual food,like cereal and saltine crackers,even potato chips bags.   Most  containers that were once glass are now plastic.


----------



## Sodbuster

Seasoned Oak said:


> Big push to ban plastic bags at the grocery but ck your groceries next time and at least 90+% of it is contained in plastic. Even fresh vegetables. A few cardboard containers yet but plastic bags inside containing the actual food,like cereal and saltine crackers,even potato chips bags.   Most  containers that were once glass are now plastic.



We use plastic bags for all out groceries, but only because our grocery store has a recycle bin in place. when we get a bag stuffed full, we bring all but one back and start over.


----------



## peakbagger

There used to be local group that promoted small forest product industries in the region, they had bumper sticker "If you object to paper try using plastic toilet paper". Plastic toilet paper has sort of come true as some of the so called wet flushable wipes are made with treated plastic fiber. Reportedly with the plastic bag bans, the few companies making paper grocery bags are running 24/7. Hard to replace a ziplock bag with reusable bowl for everything but in the case of plastic versus paper bags I will take paper anytime.

A Chinese firm has recently bought two papermill in Maine and are spending a bundle on them as they cant get good enough fiber in China. Paper can only be recycled so many times before its not strong enough. They were getting fiber from the trash that was being shipped to China labeled as recycled but now that the Chinese government put a stop to it, the need to get their fiber at its source so they can blend it in with the recycled stuff they can still get.


----------



## Ashful

Sodbuster said:


> If you want to live back in the stone age be my guest, but don't be a hypocrite about fossil fuels. Make sure their is nothing in your house that is made from or delivered by fossil fuels. Your electric car should only be charge with wind and solar power. Actually you shouldn't live in a house because it would be impossible for it to be built without fossil fuels. With the exception of plastic bottles and bags, I do not believe that we as a country are not doing our part to reduce fossil fuel usage. Car mileage is going up every year, if our gov't would allow reasonable clean diesel we could reduce that even further, but as it stands now, by the time you pay the premium for a diesel engine, the blue def to put in it, and the mileage toll all the emission control has, you are better off buying a gas engine.


Our beloved tree huggers are not hypocritical for endeavoring  to improve what they can, just because they’re constrained by the practical limitations of living a reasonable life in today’s society.  Sometimes it’s time to just shut up and learn how we can all make some improvements in our daily and long-term behaviors and buying habits, even when it disagrees with the party line you’ve been conditioned to tow.

I know I’ve learned things from guys like begreen that have changed my habits for the better.  There are inconveniences that he or jebatty are willing to endure, which I have chosen against, but many other areas where the changes are more agreeable to me.  Do what you can do, to contribute to the global good, on whatever level suits your dedication.   But I don’t see much point in calling out a vegan as a hypocrite, just because they may have accidentally stepped on a worm while walking to work this morning.


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## begreen

Sodbuster said:


> If you want to live back in the stone age be my guest, but don't be a hypocrite about fossil fuels. Make sure their is nothing in your house that is made from or delivered by fossil fuels. Your electric car should only be charge with wind and solar power. Actually you shouldn't live in a house because it would be impossible for it to be built without fossil fuels. With the exception of plastic bottles and bags, I do not believe that we as a country are not doing our part to reduce fossil fuel usage. Car mileage is going up every year, if our gov't would allow reasonable clean diesel we could reduce that even further, but as it stands now, by the time you pay the premium for a diesel engine, the blue def to put in it, and the mileage toll all the emission control has, you are better off buying a gas engine.


For sure we will still need fossil fuels for a while where appropriate. That was neither the focus or point of the article, nor does our need give liberty to chit on the planet. Taxpayers should not be paying for subsidizing this largess. The article is about the plastics industry and the overwhelming impact of too much plastic on the planet. This is irresponsible and is having very long term consequences. That needs to stop. We don't need fossil fuels to make new plastics. There is enough plastic existing to make new plastics and oil for at least a century. (estim. 83 Billion Metric Tons) 91% of this plastic is not reused or recycled. That is how bad the situation is. Our survival depends on doing much better.

FWIW, People built and lived in nice houses before fossil fuels played a role.

PS: It doesn't have to be this way. Norway's recycling rate of plastics is 97%. Their plastics waste stream is so clean that soda bottle plastic can be recycled up to 50 times!


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## Sodbuster

I don't need to be told to shut up because my observations are different than yours. I have no party line to tow. The previous Administration was  working very hard to follow the European model, where they have diesel vehicles that get over 50mpg. But they are not allowed here due to the EPA, and neither the current Administration or the previous one did anything to relax those rules, even though Europe is known for it conservation efforts. I never mentioned Vegan, so I'm not sure where that's coming from, but my sister is Vegan, but still will happily wear leather boots.


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## Ashful

Sodbuster said:


> I don't need to be told to shut up because my observations are different than yours.


You don’t need to shut up, you’re free to post all the lectures you want, poking silly little holes in the life choices of anyone who is trying to do some good, if that’s what makes you feel better about your own.

But let’s be clear, the post I quoted was a _lecture_, not an observation.  In case you forgot your own words:


Sodbuster said:


> ...don't be a hypocrite about fossil fuels. Make sure their is nothing in your house that is made from or delivered by fossil fuels. Your electric car should only be charge with wind and solar power. Actually you shouldn't live in a house because it would be impossible for it to be built without fossil fuels.



The vegan statement was an analogy to the absurdity of your lecture about not living in a house if you have any desire to reduce fossil fuel usage.   Sorry if you didn’t get it, I thought it was amusing.  Maybe it’s better in person.


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## SpaceBus

Ashful said:


> Our beloved tree huggers are not hypocritical for endeavoring  to improve what they can, just because they’re constrained by the practical limitations of living a reasonable life in today’s society.  Sometimes it’s time to just shut up and learn how we can all make some improvements in our daily and long-term behaviors and buying habits, even when it disagrees with the party line you’ve been conditioned to tow.
> 
> I know I’ve learned things from guys like begreen that have changed my habits for the better.  There are inconveniences that he or jebatty are willing to endure, which I have chosen against, but many other areas where the changes are more agreeable to me.  Do what you can do, to contribute to the global good, on whatever level suits your dedication.   But I don’t see much point in calling out a vegan as a hypocrite, just because they may have accidentally stepped on a worm while walking to work this morning.


There used to be a time when I didn't care at all for the environment and saw it as something for me to use. Then I went to Afghanistan and saw what a polluted earth really looked like. Some parts were near pristine, but decades, nay centuries, of War have left no stone unturned. It hurts to give up on the high strung ICE in its many forms, but I love the earth a little bit more than I love racecars and motorcycles. I have a fantasy that scientists will make liquid hydrogen technology cheap and efficient and driven by solar power, then the carbon captured from the atmosphere can be added to the hydrogen to make a clean hydrocarbon fuel for our existing "legacy" ICE infrastructure. Obviously EVs with batteries or hydrogen fuel cells or whatever are the future, but perhaps we can have our cake and eat it too.


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## begreen

Sodbuster said:


> We use plastic bags for all out groceries, but only because our grocery store has a recycle bin in place. when we get a bag stuffed full, we bring all but one back and start over.


Thanks. If we each do 5 things like this to reduce waste and our impact on the planet, it would help a lot. It's a start.


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## CaptSpiff

Not sure this has been asked in this thread: Could we collect plastic, not for recycling but for sequestering, and call it carbon capture?

I'm thinking, if plastic is not economically reusable, then collect it anyway and melt it into one cubic yard blocks. Then use those blocks as fill for levy bases, beach dune replacement, retaining walls or jersey barriers (anywhere concrete and sandbags are now used). If it needs to be heavier, mix it with broken glass bottles (which also are now on the non-recycle list).

Then if it ever becomes economical to restart recycling, the collection process is already in place.


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## Ashful

CaptSpiff said:


> Not sure this has been asked in this thread: Could we collect plastic, not for recycling but for sequestering, and call it carbon capture?
> 
> I'm thinking, if plastic is not economically reusable, then collect it anyway and melt it into one cubic yard blocks. Then use those blocks as fill for levy bases, beach dune replacement, retaining walls or jersey barriers (anywhere concrete and sandbags are now used). If it needs to be heavier, mix it with broken glass bottles (which also are now on the non-recycle list).
> 
> Then if it ever becomes economical to restart recycling, the collection process is already in place.


I like the unconventional thinking, but wouldn't that plastic, even if in large blocks, contribute to the microplastics problem, due to mechanical abrasion (surf) and UV break-down?


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## SpaceBus

Ashful said:


> I like the unconventional thinking, but wouldn't that plastic, even if in large blocks, contribute to the microplastics problem, due to mechanical abrasion (surf) and UV break-down?


Yes, the plastic would have to be sequestered in a non reactive environment.


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## Sodbuster

How about, (and I'm not kidding) burning plastics as a way to generate electricity, provided they could use or come up with the right scrubbers so as not to put pollution into the air. At least there would be an upside vs burying them forever. I used to recycle, we had a 90 gallon cart for waste and for recyclables. There were many weeks that we didn't even need to pull the trash bin to the road but the recycle cart was almost always full. Then I learned that they just charged extra for the recycling, but it all went to the landfill, just another way to make a buck out of those trying to do the right thing.


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## semipro

Sodbuster said:


> How about, (and I'm not kidding) burning plastics as a way to generate electricity, provided they could use or come up with the right scrubbers so as not to put pollution into the air. At least there would be an upside vs burying them forever. I used to recycle, we had a 90 gallon cart for waste and for recyclables. There were many weeks that we didn't even need to pull the trash bin to the road but the recycle cart was almost always full. Then I learned that they just charged extra for the recycling, but it all went to the landfill, just another way to make a buck out of those trying to do the right thing.


Check this thread. https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/waste-to-energy.179400/


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## Ashful

semipro said:


> Check this thread. https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/waste-to-energy.179400/


In a bit of irony, it was another post from Sodbuster that generated that thread!


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## begreen

All good thoughts and suggestions. We can be smarter about this.


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## semipro

A piece about laundry impacts on plastics in oceans. 








						How laundry is spilling plastics into the ocean
					

World Oceans Day shines a light on how plastic waste affects larger sea animals. But the millions of microfibers released every time we do our laundry may be having a more disruptive impact on marine eco-systems.




					www.cnn.com


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## begreen

Folks in England were stunned and dismayed when they found out that testing of local river waters had much higher concentrations of microplastics than the previous hot spot, South Korean beaches. Textiles were the suspected cause.


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## axisx

is there any other cheap replacement for plastic ?


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## SpaceBus

axisx said:


> is there any other cheap replacement for plastic ?


Depends, plastic has a wide range of applications. In most cases it is used due to cost. If all of the plastics were replaced in textiles I would imagine clothing to cost four times as much, or even more.


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## peakbagger

axisx said:


> is there any other cheap replacement for plastic ?


There are bioplastics made out of wood pulp derivatives, they tend to break down in the environment easier.  Hard to beat the price of fossil based plastics. Oil companies realize that the markets for fossil fuels could decline so they are investing in making more plastics. BTW plastics can be readly converted back to transportation fuels it just cost more than drilling a hole in the ground. Throw in carbon taxes and the plastics issues changes radically.


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## begreen

There's a firm in Portland OR that is turning plastics into fuel right now. Their preference is to turn it back into plastics, but as peak noted, the price of raw plastic has to go up a bit. Actually, I've read that it would not need to go up a whole lot for re-refined plastics to be competitive. The other part of that puzzle is that it could help greatly if there were several more regional plastics pre-processing centers that would gather plastics from the smaller municipalities in the region and prep them for shipment to the major chemical refineries equipped to refine the recycled plastics. WA state is working on the piece of the problem.


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## PaulOinMA

Here's a very interesting discussion about recycling I read yesterday. 









						Can We Make Recycling Work?
					

The ubiquitous blue bin for single-stream recycling obscures a set of tradeoffs and challenges, including contamination that complicates processing and lowers the value of recyclable materials.




					insights.som.yale.edu


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## peakbagger

The small town next to me has recycling wardens. New comers no doubt will be accompanied to the bins at the transfer station by one of the "wardens" to ensure the new comer is following the rules. Eventually the wardens learn to trust the repeat visitors. They also have pay per bag so the temptation by some is to try to recycle too much. Most of the towns nearby do pickup and across the board renters and apartments are the biggest problem, seems to be the lower the economic status of the tenants the worst their recycling habits are.


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## gggvan

Wait...does any country take recyclables anymore? I heard China cut us off for being messy. I don't think we're paying folks in this country to clean food and other muck off recyclables.


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## begreen

gggvan said:


> Wait...does any country take recyclables anymore? I heard China cut us off for being messy. I don't think we're paying folks in this country to clean food and other muck off recyclables.


It's a changing scenario. #1&2 plastics are quite recyclable (or downcyclable) and therefor have value and processors in the US and Canada. #6 is also pretty recyclable. The others now are mostly landfilled or incinerated if they are not turned into fuel. Quantities are still being shipped to third world countries, but that is a messy process that is being curtailed in many countries because of the rampant pollution created.

This is a powerful movie on The Story of Plastics. Worth a watch to understand the issues. This is an introductory trailer:











						The Story of Plastic (documentary film) - Story of Stuff
					

About this film Our first feature-length documentary, The Story of Plastic is a searing exposé revealing the ugly truth behind plastic pollution and the false solution of plastic recycling. Different from every other plastic documentary you’ve seen, The Story of Plastic presents a cohesive...




					www.storyofplastic.org


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## begreen

axisx said:


> is there any other cheap replacement for plastic ?


That is a somewhat fallacious question. Plastics are cheap to make, and often offer cheap packaging solutions, but the actual costs of plastics to the taxpayer, the environment, and life itself are now becoming huge. Remember that the ubiquity of plastics in packaging is a new problem, only gaining steam for the past 30 yrs. But the results are now ever-present in the environment and the tolls are getting high.  We are all breathing, eating and drinking plastics as they break down into micro and nanoparticles.


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## begreen

Very sad news today. A new report says that there is 10 times the volume of plastics in the Atlantic than previously thought. And this is based on collection 4 yrs ago. This is madness. It will continue until there is a cost to the producers for the cleanup and recycling.









						There is at least 10 times more plastic in the Atlantic than previously thought
					

The mass of 'invisible' microplastics found in the upper waters of the Atlantic Ocean is approximately 12- 21 million tons, according to research published in the journal Nature Communications today.




					phys.org


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## semipro

Great white sharks are eating plastic. And their poop really concerns scientists
					

How do you find out if a shark is eating plastic? You look at their poop.




					news.yahoo.com


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## semipro

Biodegradable plastic production in China outpacing ability to break down waste, says Greenpeace
					

China has begun producing biodegradable plastic at such a rate that it can no longer break down the material at the same pace, according to a new report from Greenpeace. According to the report, companies in China have ramped up production of biodegradable plastic to a capacity of 4.4 million...




					news.yahoo.com


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## vinny11950

This looks good if it works and can be deployed:

Reuters on Twitter: "A boat that can clean world’s oceans: ‘Manta’ is designed by French ocean adventurer Yvan Bourgnon and his team https://t.co/ozRHY4Vvf4 https://t.co/hA8anQDulq" / Twitter


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## Sawset

vinny11950 said:


> This looks good if it works and can be deployed:
> 
> Reuters on Twitter: "A boat that can clean world’s oceans: ‘Manta’ is designed by French ocean adventurer Yvan Bourgnon and his team https://t.co/ozRHY4Vvf4 https://t.co/hA8anQDulq" / Twitter


But how many barges per minute to support it?
Out of 1350 world rivers, 10 supply 95% of the ocean waste, 8 of which are in Asia.









						10 rivers responsible for 95% of total river-borne plastic pollution in oceans
					

As much as 95 percent of the plastic waste transported by rivers into oceans comes from just ten rivers, a study has shown. Eight of those rivers are in Asia, with the remaining two — the Nil…




					nypost.com


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## paulnlee

John Kerry(who served in Vietnam) will solve this


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## Seasoned Oak

Iv noticed that single use plactic makes up an ever larger share of my waste stream. It seems to be at about 80% of it.  Every delivered package has a boatload of plactic packing material. Mostly those air filled bubble trains.  Some incentive needs to be created to incentivized companies to develop bio degradable packaging.  Gathering up all this stuff after its already floating in the ocean or wrapped around a seals neck or filling up a whales stomach is just NOT practical.


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## peakbagger

There are many alternatives out there, they just cost more. The starch based packing peanuts are an example, they work just as well as foam if kept dry but they cost more. Throw them in a bucket of water and they dissolve into a very biodegradable liquid. Cellophane is made of highly processed wood fiber, it biodegrades like toilet paper.  IMO it comes down to unless some industry is required to deal with its ultimate disposal, then they go with cheapest stuff they can get and that is usually made with petroleum. University of Maine has been developing replacements for plastic precursors for many years. Its not question of if its economics, bio based products usually cost more than virgin products made with cheap fossil. Add a carbon tax and the rules change. 

I have seen several studies that show that a vast majority of plastic entering the oceans comes from third world countries that basically dump their trash in major river systems. There is no attempt or interest in treatment. Ocean plastics is predominantly third world driven issue. 

When I worked for a papermill we had a wastewater treatment plant. We used a lot of clays and fillers to make our paper. it ended up in our treatment plant and would be hauled to landfill. We had to mine gravel to mix with it so that it was stable enough to pile. Our corporate research group got some samples and discovered that kitty litter was made with clays and fillers. They could easily use our sludge for making kitty litter and there was obviously a ready market. It looked great but our corporate lawyers would not sign off it in case of future liability for the kitty litter  in case there might be something in the sludge that was deemed hazardous in the future.


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## SpaceBus

peakbagger said:


> There are many alternatives out there, they just cost more. The starch based packing peanuts are an example, they work just as well as foam if kept dry but they cost more. Throw them in a bucket of water and they dissolve into a very biodegradable liquid. Cellophane is made of highly processed wood fiber, it biodegrades like toilet paper.  IMO it comes down to unless some industry is required to deal with its ultimate disposal, then they go with cheapest stuff they can get and that is usually made with petroleum. University of Maine has been developing replacements for plastic precursors for many years. Its not question of if its economics, bio based products usually cost more than virgin products made with cheap fossil. Add a carbon tax and the rules change.
> 
> I have seen several studies that show that a vast majority of plastic entering the oceans comes from third world countries that basically dump their trash in major river systems. There is no attempt or interest in treatment. Ocean plastics is predominantly third world driven issue.
> 
> When I worked for a papermill we had a wastewater treatment plant. We used a lot of clays and fillers to make our paper. it ended up in our treatment plant and would be hauled to landfill. We had to mine gravel to mix with it so that it was stable enough to pile. Our corporate research group got some samples and discovered that kitty litter was made with clays and fillers. They could easily use our sludge for making kitty litter and there was obviously a ready market. It looked great but our corporate lawyers would not sign off it in case of future liability for the kitty litter  in case there might be something in the sludge that was deemed hazardous in the future.


I didn't know about the packing peanuts and cellophane coming from environmentally friendly base stock. A few years ago I worked in a shipping and receiving department and did notice the packing peanuts dissolve in water, but didn't know why. Most are now using the foam S shaped packing material instead of the "peanut" type, and they are a mess.


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## EatenByLimestone

Eh, I just throw it all in the Outdoor Wood Burner.  Problem solved!


(I really don't,  and I dont have an OWB, but it was really fun to write that sentence!)


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## Seasoned Oak

EatenByLimestone said:


> Eh, I just throw it all in the Outdoor Wood Burner.  Problem solved!
> (I really don't,  and I dont have an OWB, but it was really fun to write that sentence!)


 The sad part is im sure there are too many that do. While traveling through some third world countries i noticed they burn everything, including a huge amount of plastic the majority being single use water bottles.  Much of the rest ends up in the canals to be flushed out into the ocean with the next rain.  Its a huge problem for the air the land and the sea.
.


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## EatenByLimestone

I honestly see gasification and incineration to be the only long term solution to the stuff we can't reuse or recycle.   Then there's the closed town landfills full of metals and other useful materials.   Itll be mined someday, but the foods and papers... itll need to be burned.


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## woodgeek

A solid article about 'Peak Plastic' by David Roberts:









						Big Oil’s hopes are pinned on plastics. It won’t end well.
					

The industry’s only real source of growth probably won’t grow much.




					www.vox.com
				




Bottom line: Oil majors are assuming 4% growth in plastics as far as the eye can see, and still plan on building production.  This is a desperate move on their part to find some growing market for their product.  The more likely scenario (for climate reasons) is a peak and slow decline, with reduced demand, substitution with paper products and modestly increased recycling.


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## PaulOinMA

Wood by-products to bioplastics.

Turning Wood Into Plastic (yale.edu)


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## begreen

I'd feel better if they can develop cellulosic plastics derived from plant waste like rice straw, cane stalks, miscanthus, or hemp. The forests are already under a lot of pressure to use wood for more construction, biomass fuel, packing, etc.


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## ABMax24

I'm a big believer in PLA. I think it could be a very versatile plastic, with the ability to be recycled and is compostable. PLA is derived from lactic acid, which can be derived from plant starches, making feedstocks readily available.

We were supposed to have a $4.5 billion plastics and petrochemical facility built 5 hours from here, but it has been permanently suspended. It's primary product would have been polypropylene. Canada's incoming single use plastic ban is believed to be a factor in cancelling of this project.


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## semipro

I always wondered where worn tire material ended up. 
(somewhat ironically from someone (me) who has done more than their fair share of contributing tire dust to the environment.)









						Tires: The plastic polluter you never thought about
					

Because tires are made of natural rubber and plastic, it’s easy to miss just how much they contribute to pollution in our oceans.




					www.nationalgeographic.com


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## SpaceBus

ABMax24 said:


> I'm a big believer in PLA. I think it could be a very versatile plastic, with the ability to be recycled and is compostable. PLA is derived from lactic acid, which can be derived from plant starches, making feedstocks readily available.
> 
> We were supposed to have a $4.5 billion plastics and petrochemical facility built 5 hours from here, but it has been permanently suspended. It's primary product would have been polypropylene. Canada's incoming single use plastic ban is believed to be a factor in cancelling of this project.


Don't 3D printers typically use PLA?


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## begreen

semipro said:


> I always wondered where worn tire material ended up.
> (somewhat ironically from someone (me) who has done more than their fair share of contributing tire dust to the environment.)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Tires: The plastic polluter you never thought about
> 
> 
> Because tires are made of natural rubber and plastic, it’s easy to miss just how much they contribute to pollution in our oceans.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.nationalgeographic.com


Tire wear is a huge contributor to air and water borne pollution. It's a serious issue. Locally it has been found that an additive in the plastics designed to enhance the tire's characteristics is what is responsible for killing the salmon population. The Nov 2020 study by the Univ of Washington has become a hot topic in the area.








						Chemical derived from car tires turns streams toxic, kills coho salmon
					

For Pacific Northwest coho salmon, returning to spawn in the streams and creeks near urban areas can be a death sentence, thanks to a ubiquitous additive in vehicle tires, a new study reveals.



					www.eurekalert.org


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## SpaceBus

begreen said:


> Tire wear is a huge contributor to air and water borne pollution. It's a serious issue. Locally it has been found that an additive in the plastics designed to enhance the tire's characteristics is what is responsible for killing the salmon population. The Nov 2020 study by the Univ of Washington has become a hot topic in the area.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Chemical derived from car tires turns streams toxic, kills coho salmon
> 
> 
> For Pacific Northwest coho salmon, returning to spawn in the streams and creeks near urban areas can be a death sentence, thanks to a ubiquitous additive in vehicle tires, a new study reveals.
> 
> 
> 
> www.eurekalert.org


Something really needs to be done, and I love giant sticky summer tires. I wish that my main hobby for my life as a young adult did not turn out to be so dangerous to the environment.


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## ABMax24

SpaceBus said:


> Don't 3D printers typically use PLA?



Yes


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## begreen

SpaceBus said:


> Something really needs to be done, and I love giant sticky summer tires. I wish that my main hobby for my life as a young adult did not turn out to be so dangerous to the environment.


Anti-gravity will help.


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## SpaceBus

begreen said:


> Anti-gravity will help.



Certainly more exciting than the electric car racing we have now. I think some of the most entertaining racing will probably come when EV's start being cheap/old enough for Chump Car and 24 hrs of Lemons, especially with swappable batteries. Formula E is incredibly boring compared to ICE racing, but Formula One is boring compared to most other racing as well.


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