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It's not just the carbon though, many plastics give off toxic fumes when burned. A proper incinerator that also decomposes the toxic gases down to the basics avoids the problem, but that's a bit more than just burning.

True, llondel . Plastics do need proper incineration, but I agree there is a lot of energy to be realized from waste plastic.

My take is that it has to be done industrially, not just tossing the water bottle into the fireplace. I tend to think advanced waste-gathering companies like Waste Management in the US and others around the world who have made a science from the detritus our consumer societies generate are best equipped to come up with the solutions. My hunch is that there is profit for the environment and the economy in gathering the plastics spewing mostly from Asia and finding their way into the ecosphere.

As I see it the problem to be solved is to gather it and burn it in an economical and environmentally sound way.

Yet another stunning Government success story

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46900918

Now this is a very good idea; https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech ... rever.html

I found this an interesting read from the Beeb; http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2019012 ... ce-plastic

The conclusion at the end of the article is very pertinent I feel.

The world is having to confront the toxic results of our love affair with plastic.

Never had a love affair with plastic. Rubber and latex maybe, but not plastic.

Widen yer horizons, Slash.

Apologies - I think this has been posted before ? but worth reminding ?


Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags, because plastic bags are not good for the environment.

The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days."

The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

The older lady said our generation didn't have the "green thing" in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable besides household garbage bags was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags.

We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.

Back then we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts. Wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

Back then we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana . In the kitchen we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blade in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's
$45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the"green thing." We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smartass young person.

We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off... Especially from a tattooed, multiple pierced dumb ass who can't make change without the cash register telling them how much.

ExSp33d. Brilliant!

or the McD. counter staff who inevitably respond to my " Coffee,black, no sugar please" with ... " is that with cream ?" and adding a few coins to balance the change to the nearest whole dollar bill floors them everytime. ( but one occasionally wins - and keeps one's mouth shut ! )

I'm still scratching my head on this one.

How will airliners fly, 12 years from now ,if the burning of fossil fuels is totally banned?

Ahhhh! The days of four dirty great black plumes of smoke following the Boeing 707 after take-off.

I recently got back from our annual month-long Christmas trip to see our Australian relatives in Adelaide. I was struck that among their households, even though prosperous, have no dishwashers or clothes dryers. They hand wash their dishes and hang their laundry out to dry in the warm and arid South Australia outside.You'd have a hard time finding such a regime in American households, and I'm not so sure ours in America is a better way in terms of cost and environmental considerations. Part of that may be due to the fact that South Australians pay about three times what we do for kilowatts and BTUs.

I had a discussion with my wife that maybe we should set up a clothesline and dry naturally. She wouldn't have a bar of it.

I also like the idea of slinging a canteen over your shoulder for portable, potable drinking water, replenished with tap water, almost universally pure everywhere in the US. Tests have demonstrated tap water to be of equivalent or better than bottled water, which generates billions of waste plastic bottles, and comes at significant cost.

Part of that may be due to the fact that South Australians pay about three times what we do for kilowatts and BTUs.

Adelaide and the rest of South Oz have always been expensive for lecky Ben.

True. They don't use the uranium at their disposal.

BenThere wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 02, 2019 12:57 pm

I was struck that among their households, even though prosperous, have no dishwashers or clothes dryers. They hand wash their dishes and hang their laundry out to dry in the warm and arid South Australia outside.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Hand washing dishes saves a far more important commodity than power. it saves water. Lived in one place a few years back that came with a dish washer. Considered having dishes hanging around unwashed until machine was "full" unhygienic, and they attracted flies.

Over the years have had clothes dryers, rarely used, sun-dried sheets and towels were far preferable to those out of the dryer. They have a crispness to them. Plus clothes dried in a machine have a dank smell to them.

Alison

This is interesting; https://www.independent.co.uk/news/scie ... 61381.html

Now that the boffins seem to have found out why plastic is clumping together in the oceans, maybe it could lead to finding ways of unclumping it or even preventing it clumping in the first place.

At least this research seems to explain why fish are eating plastic instead of their normal food.

We have a dryer - rarely used - as we agree that laundry dried in fresh air smells nicer. Dishwasher gets used, though.

Alisoncc wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 02, 2019 6:04 pm

Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Hand washing dishes saves a far more important commodity than power. it saves water. Lived in one place a few years back that came with a dish washer. Considered having dishes hanging around unwashed until machine was "full" unhygienic, and they attracted flies.

Over the years have had clothes dryers, rarely used, sun-dried sheets and towels were far preferable to those out of the dryer. They have a crispness to them. Plus clothes dried in a machine have a dank smell to them.

Alison

I thought that a good dishwasher used less water than hand washing, because it filtered and recycled the water better. Obviously that does also depend on how much you're washing, as a single person I could never have justified one.

I tend to use a clothes dryer because I find that hanging stuff out on a line means it collects more pollen and other stuff that irritates my nose. No doubt this problem is going to vary by location.

Elephant in the room..........Capitalism