livingart Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 The great ocean garbage dump Scientists find hundredfold increase in plastic trash in Pacific Ocean since 1970s - San Jose Mercury News Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinkles Posted May 10, 2012 Report Share Posted May 10, 2012 we are I would have expected there to be a hundredfold or so increase, since at the start of the 70s plastic wasn't used much and must take a while to get from salepoint to floating garbage patch. And if we stopped using plastic tomorrow it'd probably still increase for a while as it caught up. But it's very sad that we're nowhere near thinking about it and probably wont stop the plastic littering until we run out of plastic I love the potato fibre stuff they use to make plates and cups and now meat trays out of, we ought to be demanding that everything possible is made out of it or similar products. Save the planet, and save paying to get rid of rubbish if you can just put the packaging into the compost :happy2: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Posted May 11, 2012 Report Share Posted May 11, 2012 Humans disgust me :an!gry Most horrible species to have ever lived. I hope that everyone realises what they're doing sometime soon, or there isn't going to be a future left for anything on this planet. I don't understand why we have to package things up in horrible plastic stuff :dunno: I would just as happily buy food in paper bags Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hovmoller Posted May 11, 2012 Report Share Posted May 11, 2012 horrible plastic stuff It's not plastics fault... and it is not horrible... Plastic is a great material and there are lots of nice plastics around that are biodegradable and plastics are really good at sealing stuff so we can keep it longer. Where would you and your fish tank be if you could not use plastic? It's the handling that is the problem.. yes it's terrible now but I think one day we'll get it mostly right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheepsnana Posted May 11, 2012 Report Share Posted May 11, 2012 there are lots of nice plastics around that are biodegradable I actually saw a doco on this a few nights ago. They're biodegradable with access to oxygen. They won't degrade if they're buried in a landfill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueether Posted May 11, 2012 Report Share Posted May 11, 2012 They won't degrade if they're buried in a landfillnor will newspaper :digH: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrienne Posted May 11, 2012 Report Share Posted May 11, 2012 I am currently in Rwanda and plastic bags are an illegal item. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamH Posted May 11, 2012 Report Share Posted May 11, 2012 I am currently in Rwanda and plastic bags are an illegal item. I saw the doco on that, amazing work they've done over the last few years. Apparently up to 1/3 of all sand on any given beach is plastic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cricketman Posted May 12, 2012 Report Share Posted May 12, 2012 Apparently up to 1/3 of all sand on any given beach is plastic and 69.75624% of statistics are made up... :slfg: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smidey Posted May 12, 2012 Report Share Posted May 12, 2012 what's the saying? there are three types of lies, lies, damned lies and statistics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
#!CrunchBang Posted May 12, 2012 Report Share Posted May 12, 2012 Apparently up to 1/3 of all sand on any given beach is plastic The others may think that's made up, but it is true. After the Rena's last dump of containers they were having to clean up bags of raw plastic bits before they spread. A first year paper I did had a beach clean up as an assignment, the class collected over 50,000 pieces of rubbish from about 20 beaches. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trilobite Posted May 12, 2012 Report Share Posted May 12, 2012 http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/30/plastic-eating-bacteria-found-in-ocean-desert-scientist-says/ A plastic eating bacteria may be a solution :thup: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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