Plastic Rubbish

[PRTVR]

coanda said:

jet_noise said:

PRTVR said:

coanda said:

A 'not my problem' approach to this kind of situation isn't helpful. The fact is, it's a problem everyone alive today is contributing to (even new borns generate rubbish from day 1) and will continue to contribute to.

But how much can we change the problem realistically ? If you see beaches in Asia that are totally covered in plastic what real difference can we make when most of us recycle anyway?

PRTVR gets it

Nope, he doesn't, and neither do you.

You do understand the point of forums and this type of thread don't you ?
It's about discussion, not just you are wrong I am right, if you want people to understand, put forward a convincing argument , if you have one.

[herewego]

CardinalFang said:

jet_noise said:

Thanks (and StevieBee).

That's the video. I can't see any connection to McDonalds, however.
Not is there any suggestion whatsoever that the straw came from the UK.

Jet_noise, here's an interesting piece mentioning straws & coffee cups, amongst others:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysi...

Simon Mountain is well known in the industry for a couple of things: 1) being one of the largest exporters of refuse derived fuels & 2) as you can see, speaking his mind.

He makes some valid & direct points.

This walking to work with a coffee cup in your hand is a relatively new phenomenon born in and promoted by american films and TV shows presumably paid for by and for the benefit of american business interests such as Starbucks. Once people learn that they can avoid the idiotic look by feigning or actually having interest in the planet then we may return to normal. It's not as if we can't just have a drink before we leave home and/or when we arrive at work.

[StevieBee]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Huge problem. Domestically, it's a bigger issue than plastic.

It's not just the volume but the fact that untreated human waste is being transported and dumped using means that are not suited for it.

It's so simple to solve too; ban disposable nappies. Why this isn't higher up agendas remains a mystery.

[herewego]

StevieBee said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Huge problem. Domestically, it's a bigger issue than plastic.

It's not just the volume but the fact that untreated human waste is being transported and dumped using means that are not suited for it.

It's so simple to solve too; ban disposable nappies. Why this isn't higher up agendas remains a mystery.

Careful now there are a few women here and they'll be jumping and down claiming that you're trying to keep them at home washing nappies. Afterall it would need an extra couple of wash loads a week which would destroy their life chances. When I had kids I did just as much nappy changing and washing as she did so I know it's nonsense.

[CardinalFang]

Bit of light reading to start the week on this topic....

Today's industry news - hopefully this will help to illustrate some of the bodies involved in the issue:

https://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/wrap-...

An action group currently focusing on the issue of "single use" plastic packaging

1) https://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/envir...

some info on the governments 25 year plan to improve the environment.

2) https://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/quali...

quality & contamination. "National Sword" is the Chinese Government's programme to ban & reduce certain products. Further info here:

3) http://www.therecyclingassociation.com/latest-news...

[DapperDanMan]

Maybe the start of a trend? I hope so.

Iceland (the store not the country ) is to eliminate plastic on all own brand goods

[Digga]

StevieBee said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Huge problem. Domestically, it's a bigger issue than plastic.

It's not just the volume but the fact that untreated human waste is being transported and dumped using means that are not suited for it.

It's so simple to solve too; ban disposable nappies. Why this isn't higher up agendas remains a mystery.

No just the human waste that's an issue, but the chemicals in the nappies are pretty nasty too. A very long time ago, I had to go an look at one of our bits of equipment being installed on a machine in a waste transfer station. amongst other things arriving by the bulk tipper load, where piles of a dry sawdust like substance which I was advised was the absorbent stuff from nappies. "Don't let it blow into your eyes was the only HSE advice". Nice.

The stuff bloats up from being dry flakes/powder on contact with - and by absorbing - water, into a sort of aspic jelly consistency. It's an irritant.

In case you are wondering, I'm pretty sure that waste site is part of what's now called Bluewater Shopping Centre. (I'm not sure in which incarnation I'd least like to spend time there.)

[Jonesy23]

DapperDanMan said:

Maybe the start of a trend? I hope so.

Iceland (the store not the country ) is to eliminate plastic on all own brand goods

Except what they don't mention is that by skipping the plastic and going for card/pulp based packaging, quite apart from the extra weight and energy involved in making and shipping the new style package the buyers will be stuck with a load of coated and contaminated waste where the only 'recycling' option is to burn it.

Which you can already do with the plastic.

This is assuming they can work out a way of safely packaging some of the frozen meat products without the existing minimal plastic wrapper.

Plastic is sometimes the better option, and cardboard is not automatically friendly or more recyclable.

[kev1974]

DapperDanMan said:

Maybe the start of a trend? I hope so.

Iceland (the store not the country ) is to eliminate plastic on all own brand goods

Guess they're gonna stop selling milk and fizzy drinks then? Or are they bringing back glass bottles for these?

I can't see how "paper" and "card" are going to be good enough on their own for packaging ready meals. As surely they will need some sort of plastic or wax coating on the food side, to stop things leaking through. And those coatings are what Glastonbury Festivals claimed were the reason their beer cups weren't very recyclable and why they looked at the metal beer mugs and plastic cups with deposits and so on.

Pressure has been building on plastic drinking straws for a while:
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/its-the-last-st...
The paper straws I've had in places have been rubbish, they start to bend or collapse within a few sips. I'm just wondering why straws aren't treated like "cutlery", i.e. made of metal, or something else that can get washed and reused over and over in the same place.

There's so much in this when you start properly thinking about plastics waste. What is the airline industry doing about plastic plates and cutlery on planes? Can we have metal cutlery and glass glasses back yet? Or does security theatre override plastic concern.

Storms are brewing about coffee cups, and Teresa is knee-jerk threatening to put a 5p charge on those now. But nothing being said about the almost identical composition, but bigger, cups and bowls that places like Wasabi and Eat and Pret all serve food in, soup or rice bowls and stuff like that. All these containers are plastic coated thick card with substantial plastic-lined or fully plastic lids. But there seems no plans to tax those. It's totally disjoined, as usual with enviromental ranting. Pret and Starbucks let you take your own reusable coffee cup in now. When will we be able to take our own reusable food bowl in?

Or will all these places start to use pressed steel/aluminium containers in place of the coated card. After all, 50p soft drinks come in metal cans, so they can't cost much monetarily. Just an environmental concern wherever they're generating the electricity to smelt/refine/press the metal. But that will be two counties away or even in a different country so we can pretend it's not happening.

[Halb]

When the headline popped up on my newsfeed, I did think it was the country, and I thought that was prety darn good. Then when I saw the bloke on the morning news programme I realised it was the frozen food place, still good though. It's a start

[pequod]

If all the plastic currently produced could be recycled into building blocks (or something equally useful) would we see a reduction in plastic litter? I guess not!

If the Government persuaded manufacturers to provide packaging that is more 'bio-degradable', such as cans/glass bottles/paper cups containing all the 'Spring Water', etc., would this stop people just throwing the container away in the nearest hedge? No!

Would a £1 deposit on all packaging whatever they contain, curtail the litter problem? Probably yes!

Maybe a bit 'left field', I don't know, but something needs to change and it's not just making the container from different materials.

[wc98]

PRTVR said:

You do understand the point of forums and this type of thread don't you ?
It's about discussion, not just you are wrong I am right, if you want people to understand, put forward a convincing argument , if you have one.

i spend a shedload of time on our coast line , about 70 hours in the last 7 days for example. plastic waste is a big problem in the uk . commercial fishermen have a fishing for litter scheme for picking up and disposing of stuff from the open sea but some of our more remote coastlines are littered with plastic bottles, clear plastic and sweet wrappers (particularly bad as many sea birds mistake them for small fish ) along with industrial waste.

various angling groups have beach cleans and the like and the amount of plastic gathered has to be seen to be believed. for me increased taxes are skirting around the issue. ban it outright foir packaging and a solution won't be long in appearing. necessity is the mother of all invention after all .

i see above someone mentioned human waste from nappies. the biomass in the intertidal zone since the closure of the majority of short fall sewage outlet pipes has decreased dramatically . worms,crabs, shrimps etc thrive on the nutrients from the waste and in the odd place raw sewage still leaks onto the coast this can be evidenced by the greater density of the above mentioned creatures and better fishing opportunities for sea anglers . some people can't seem to understand that the waste from every other living animal on the planet ends up in the sea at some point through the river systems and seem to think that people are not part of nature. strange people indeed.

i know not many would like to be swimming with turds during their morning swim in the sea ,but the anoxic crap that is treated waste is not the best answer either, imo.

[Mexman]

Everything else that is being put forward, glass, paper, waxed paper, cardboard is all either recyclable or will sooner or later biodegrade into nothing, PLASTIC WILL NOT.
This is the point of the problem that you are missing.
Burying plastic in even bigger landfills is not the answer, it will still be there in a thousand, 10 thousand, 50 thousand years time, I can assure you that a piece of waxed cardboard will not be.
Collecting plastic waste from a beach for example is very honourable, BUT, where does this plastic rubbish picked up from the beach go?
It will just be put back into the domestic rubbish system and STILL be present in one form or another on planet earth.
This stuff just cannot go away, if you burn it, it releases toxic chemicals, if you bury it, guess what, it's still there, if you recycle it, it's still there, still present, never to biodegrade or disappear.
All of this plastic on this planet that we, human beings have pretty much destroyed, is unsightly, dangerous for other life forms, polluting, wasteful to produce and virtually indistructable.
We should not be producing such a horrible, toxic, expensive, wasteful, product for single use items.
It's disgraceful that one plastic bottle, that satisfied our thirst for 30 seconds (when we really didn't need that drink anyway), now will leave an indelible mark on this planet for the next god knows how many thousands of years.
If only there was a way we could use an active volcano to dispose of all of our rubbish that is not easily recycled, if it can generate enough heat to turn rock into a molten mess, then we could dispose of all of the detritus that cannot be easily disposed of.

Edited by Mexman on Tuesday 16th January 20:18

[Dindoit]

Glass will biodegrade into nothing? Cool, cool.

The rest of your post has similar sense too. Plastic is recyclable. We don’t have to bury or burn it.

[StevieBee]

Mexman said:

Everything else that is being put forward, glass, paper, waxed paper, cardboard is all either recyclable or will sooner or later biodegrade into nothing, PLASTIC WILL NOT.
This is the point of the problem that you are missing.
Burying plastic in even bigger landfills is not the answer, it will still be there in a thousand, 10 thousand, 50 thousand years time, I can assure you that a piece of waxed cardboard will not be.
Collecting plastic waste from a beach for example is very honourable, BUT, where does this plastic rubbish picked up from the beach go?
It will just be put back into the domestic rubbish system and STILL be present in one form or another on planet earth.
This stuff just cannot go away, if you burn it, it releases toxic chemicals, if you bury it, guess what, it's still there, if you recycle it, it's still there, still present, never to biodegrade or disappear.
All of this plastic on this planet that we, human beings have pretty much destroyed, is unsightly, dangerous for other life forms, polluting, wasteful to produce and virtually indistructable.
We should not be producing such a horrible, toxic, expensive, wasteful, product for single use items.
It's disgraceful that one plastic bottle, that satisfied our thirst for 30 seconds (when we really didn't need that drink anyway), now will leave an indelible mark on this planet for the next god knows how many thousands of years.
If only there was a way we could use an active volcano to dispose of all of our rubbish that is not easily recycled, if it can generate enough heat to turn rock into a molten mess, then we could dispose of all of the detritus that cannot be easily disposed of.

Edited by Mexman on Tuesday 16th January 20:18

Oooh. Now then. Loving the passion there Mexman but lets apply a little reality and logic to the debate.

Firstly, glass doesn't biodegrade. Ever. The earth is abundant with volcanic glass from the time when the earth was formed.

Organised beach cleans...well, the ones I organise the materials are sent to recyclers and most others do the same.

We can't uninvent plastic and until we have a suitable alternative, it's not going to go away. But, it can be recycled indefinitely. Your great grandchildren could be supping from a bottle made from plastic that you first used.

The plastics that can't easily be recycled can be used as fuel. The toxins they emit are not released but captured in lime scrubbers. When these get full, they are taken to a disused salt mine in Cheshire and at some point in the future, some bright spark will work out what to do with them.

We need to reduce our dependancy on plastic - but will never eradicate it from our lives, at least anytime soon. In the meantime, the effort has to be on proper containment and proper treatment.

[Mexman]

Dindoit said:

Glass will biodegrade into nothing? Cool, cool.

The rest of your post has similar sense too. Plastic is recyclable. We don’t have to bury or burn it.

Glass is silica, it will break down, a glass bottle in the ocean will be eroded and worn away by sand and wave action into nothing more than silica dust.
I agree, plastic is recyclable, but you are missing the point, once it has been manufactured, its there, its present, forever in one form or another.
Add this plastic that's in circulation to all of the other plastic being manufactured on a ongoing daily basis, and the plastic problem is still getting larger by the day.

[Mexman]

What happens to all of the plastic stuff made like kids toys, little tikes cars, the billions of Lego bricks?
I'm talking about all of the 'hard' plastics that are dumped every year that must be difficult to recycle?
What about the black plastic food trays and multi coloured plastic bottles that I understand make normal PET recycling a nightmare?
A trip to your local top on a Sunday afternoon is an eye opener, looking into the 'non recyclable' dumpster skips, are normally full of plastic rubbish that must be impossible to efficiently recycle.

[herewego]

Mexman said:

What happens to all of the plastic stuff made like kids toys, little tikes cars, the billions of Lego bricks?
I'm talking about all of the 'hard' plastics that are dumped every year that must be difficult to recycle?
What about the black plastic food trays and multi coloured plastic bottles that I understand make normal PET recycling a nightmare?
A trip to your local top on a Sunday afternoon is an eye opener, looking into the 'non recyclable' dumpster skips, are normally full of plastic rubbish that must be impossible to efficiently recycle.

I'm sure the non-recyclable skip is destined for landfill. Our tip/recycling centre has a skip for hard plastics so broken plastic toys can go in there. If they're not broken obviously everyone takes them to the charity shop.

[Jinx]

Mexman said:

once it has been manufactured, its there, its present, forever in one form or another.

Bit of a myth that one. Yes it is long lasting but most plastics are photodegradable and given we have discovered plastic eating bacteria (https://phys.org/news/2016-03-newly-bacteria-plastic-bottles.html) I suspect it is hubris to assume plastic will last forever.

[rxe]

Reading through this, isn’t the answer to make absolutely everything out of aluminium? It’s light, doesn’t corrode, and can easily be recycled in the U.K. It can be crushed by standing on it and it has real value (I.e there mileage in picking it up and handing it in).

Or is it not possible to make one litre bottles out of ally?