Should we be more worried about plastic than global warming?

[Mrs Ex-Ascot]

Here's some natural justice.
Bottled water worldwide found to be contaminated with microplastics...from discarded water bottles

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/bottl ... -1.4575045

Unfortunately the study did not test the water before it was bottled. So, did the microplastics come from the bottles or the water? If from the bottle, then encourage going back to glass recyclable bottles. If from the water. .....then we are DOOMED!

I suspect that our borehole water laden with iron is healthier! ;)

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I think the article points out that tap water has about half or less the particulates of bottled water, which is another clue but doesn't directly answer your point.
I also have a well laden with iron. In fact it's so good that the previous owner of the house pops in when he's passing just for a glass of it!

[Slasher]

It's a bugger that we've been reduced to having to use water in bloody bottles when my ankle-biting years were spent happily guzzling dihydrogen monoxide from the Adelaide tap, fluoride notwithstanding.

At home we have a filter outside at the water mains entry and an osmosis thingy in the kitch for drinking, though the water in North Thailand is reasonably clean.

Here in the Gulf it's desalinated sh!t. Probably ok from the tap but I've never bothered to check. Drinking water I get it from... plastic bottles!

[Mrs Ex-Ascot]

Despite this being from the DM, it is an interesting article about airborne micro-plastics.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ample.html

[BenThere]

I'm getting on board with the idea that plastic pollution is indeed a threat to the environment. I think it's achievable to mandate materials be biodegradable to their elements within a period of a year or two. That makes sense, as we know the materials we use for packaging and such find their way to the sea and our food chain.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... scientists

It would be nice if we diverted the funds from the climate change scam and seriously tackled this real issue.

[Stoneboat]

It would be nice if we diverted the funds from the climate change scam and seriously tackled this real issue.

Agreed, but tell that to the AlGore and that tw@t with a name like a motorcycle. Here's another little reminder that if climate and plastic don't get ya, there's always Geomagnetic Reversal. That'll really screw up your agenda.
The South Atlantic Anomaly.

[BenThere]

One of my heroes is a guy I worked with in the 1980's selling data processing, computers, and software to the then-budding US cable television industry. Our company got bought by EDS (Ross Perot's company) in 1990 and most of us got a windfall profit from our employee stock ownership plan. I took mine and chased my airline career. Bob, my friend, took his and bought 80 acres of wood and farmland and a log house outside Knoxville, Tennessee, after a few years living in the Okanagan area of Washington state, doing odd jobs like painting houses, orchard management - scraping by. We've kept in loose contact over the years and he is a life-long friend.

Turns out that he's built on his land an establishment of hundreds of raised bed boxes on which he grows herbs, organic endives, mushrooms and such, and has become a key supplier of premium produce to a network of Knoxville restaurants and groceries. He also has a thriving mail-order business selling composting worms on the internet, which breed in his worm boxes. He's off the grid, powered by solar and power generated by a river that runs through his property. He raises and husbands chickens, sheep and goats and a couple of dairy cows. I think he's doing better economically that he ever did, and he's as self-sufficient as anyone I know. He can and does hunt deer and wild boar on his property and heats his house with firewood grown there. I can only marvel at his ingenuity, resourcefulness, and his willingness to take the risks and make the commitments necessary to live life on his terms. I think he works hard at all this, but he absolutely loves his life and what he is doing.

To relate all this to the thread, Bob is a non-polluting contributor to the economy, the wellness of his family, and is immune to the vulnerabilities of the grid, the economy, and the plastics swirling in the ocean.

[Mrs Ex-Ascot]

I've just read this in Sky news; https://news.sky.com/story/tourists-vis ... e-11398110

Good to see that some people are involved in practical solutions which hopefully will have positive results in the long term.

[Capetonian]

Has anyone in power thought of imposing such large tax penalties on producers and sellers of plastic that the production and sale of it becomes uneconomic? I am staying with friends who have two young children. The house is full of toys, of which 99% are made of plastic. When I were a lad ..... most of our toys were made of wood or metal (or dinosaur bone!)

[BenThere]

I think it's clear we need to get a grip on the detritus of plastic pollution. My sense is that plastics, properly retrieved and scrubbed, contain economically viable sources of energy. Allowing them to swirl in the world's waters, killing our sea creatures, is immoral.

It's important to note, however, who is doing the polluting and who is endeavoring to mitigate it, and respond to that accordingly in terms of the sanctions available.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Single use plastic bags to be banned here, fully in force by 2020. Even paper bags will have to be bought.
A good move, considering we have 100 tonnes of plastic awaiting recycling now, as the Chinese have stopped importing it.

http://www.journalpioneer.com/news/loca ... ei-216854/

I expect there will be a swift round of supermarkets practically giving away reusable bags.

[om15]

In 1978 we spent 6 months in San Fernando Valley, one of the things that sticks in the memory is that missus om was pleased to have all supermarket items put in brown paper bags, quite big ones, these were useful for other purposes when the shopping was put away.
40 years later we use plastic, with all the problems that has brought.

[ExSp33db1rd]

Weren't paper bags condemned as depleting the forests ?

Some USA supermarkets used to ask "paper or plastic?" so that one had the choice of contributing to the plastic menace, or deforestation. Santa Monica CA has now banned single use plastic bags, and the local supermarket that we use charges for paper bags albeit large ones, with handles that tear off halfway home, or one could use it again - deliberate policy ? Our NZ supermarket doesn't use paper, and gives a 5c credit for ones' own container, and has declared that they will give up plastic totally by the end of this year.

Thinks ... Our local council refuse /recyclable collection is by dustbin sized, one use only, large plastic bags, and we use one of each a week. We can pay an annual fee for a "wheely" bin, but "they" won't travel the 1/2 km from the end of the sealed road to our place, so if they remove the plastic dustbin bags, and insist on a "wheely" bin, how is an 83 yr. old supposed to drag it up and down ( yes, it's hilly ) 1/2 km of unmade, gravel, road to the collection point ? I guess I'd have to load it on to the back of my car trailer, and use fossil fuel to drive it ? No, I don't envisage having to buy a new car in the near future, probably bought my last, so don't mention "electric" ( generated by fossil fuel here )

We can use a free recyclable, but not free rubbish, dump, but it is a 100 km round trip away.

Not disagreeing with the concept, but you have to be careful what you wish for.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I have got my waste generation down to the level where I don't really need collection during the winter. I contacted the refuse people and asked if I could switch to cottage collection months.
No.
Councils are only interested in ticking 'green' boxes if it preserves their jobs. If it will lose them taxes, forget it.
Bear in mind the government will probably get more in death duties when you have a stroke dragging said wheely bin than they will by being sensible.

[John Hill]

No, I don't envisage having to buy a new car in the near future, probably bought my last, so don't mention "electric" ( generated by fossil fuel here )

I believe 20% or less of NZ electricity comes from burning fossil fuels.

[ExSp33db1rd]

I believe 20% or less of NZ electricity comes from burning fossil fuels.

Maybe, but there ain't no wind farms, hydro-electric plants, massive solar energy displays around here, not sure where it comes from down t'South.

[John Hill]

You turn on your light in the outhouse and just a little bit more water flows out of lake Manapouri, it is called the National Grid .

[Fliegenmong]

Supermarkets here are set to stop offering plastic bags, July 1 I think...they (plastic bags) get called 'single use' here....they bloody well are NOT single use!!...lunches get taken to work in them...multiple times...vegetable scraps are collected in them...household rubbish etc etc....so when the plastic bags go from the checkout...what then???....Yep, you guessed it...BUY the same plastic bags instead!! ....it's a rort by the big companies that do nothing about the 'true' single use plastic!...All their plastic packaging!!

And don't start me on self serve checkouts!

[ExSp33db1rd]

And don't start me on self serve checkouts!

You mean you don't like being nagged to... "Place your goods in the bag, choose method of payment, swipe your Air Points card, enter your PiN, take your goods ? Over and over again ?

I'm bloody well DOING it- shut up !!

Just bought a dozen chocolate biscuits. They came in a hard plastic shell at least twice the size necessary and impossible to open without resource to a hammer and chisel. What was wrong with the old paper packet ?

No suggestion to stop doing this of course.

[Fliegenmong]

AND no discount for being forced to do the job of someone the supermarket previously had to employ!!!....It always amazes me how a new supermarket always has something like 8 checkout lanes, only two staffed and a dozen hanging around the self serve part!!!!!!!!

I always intentionally f&$k it up now so they have to come and assist.....AND I take way more plastic bags than I need.......'cos to prove the point they are not 'single' use, I shall endeavour to use them well into the time people have to purchase their plastic bags.....there is no reduction in plastic....just now you are forced to purchase it...