And hot orange air.
plastic: a global environmental calamity
- Thread starter anatta
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And hot orange air.
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Six pack holders a catastrophe everywhere.
countryboy
Verified User
Every human on Earth is ingesting nearly 2,000 particles of plastic a week. These tiny pieces enter our unwitting bodies from tap water, food, and even the air, according to an alarming academic study sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature, dosing us with five grams of plastics, many cut with chemicals linked to cancers, hormone disruption, and developmental delays. Since the paper’s publication last year, Sen. Tom Udall, a plain-spoken New Mexico Democrat with a fondness for white cowboy hats and turquoise bolo ties, has been trumpeting the risk: “We are consuming a credit card’s worth of plastic each week,” Udall says. At events with constituents, he will brandish a Visa from his wallet and declare, “You’re eating this, folks!
Over the past 70 years, we’ve gotten hooked on disposable goods and packaging — as plastics became the lifeblood of an American culture of speed, convenience, and disposability that’s conquered the globe. Plastic contains our hot coffee and frozen dinners. It is the material of childhood, from Pampers to Playmobil to PlayStation 4. It cloaks our e-commerce purchases and is woven into our sneakers, fast fashion, and business fleece. Humans are now using a million plastic bottles a minute, and 500 billion plastic bags a year — including those we use to bag up our plastic-laden trash.
But the world’s plastic waste is not so easily contained. Massive quantities of this forever material are spilling into the oceans — the equivalent of a dump-truck load every minute. Plastic is also fouling our mountains, our farmland, and spiraling into an unmitigatable environmental disaster. John Hocevar is a marine biologist who leads the Oceans Campaign for Greenpeace, and spearheaded the group’s response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf. Increasingly, his work has centered on plastics. “This is a much bigger problem than ‘just’ an ocean issue, or even a pollution issue,” he says.
More than half the plastic now on Earth has been created since 2002, and plastic pollution is on pace to double by 2030.
Since 1950, the world has created 6.3 trillion kilograms of plastic waste — and 91 percent has never been recycled even once, according to a landmark 2017 study published in the journal Science Advances. Unlike aluminum, which can be recycled again and again, plastic degrades in reprocessing, and is almost never recycled more than once. A plastic soda bottle, for example, might get downcycled into a carpet. Modern technology has hardly improved things: Of the 78 billion kilograms of plastic packaging materials produced in 2013, only 14 percent were even collected for recycling, and just two percent were effectively recycled to compete with virgin plastic. “Recycling delays, rather than avoids, final disposal,” the Science authors write. And most plastics persist for centuries.
As the globalized economy boomed, the toxic reality was hidden overseas. Plastics tossed out here were picked over at domestic recycling facilities, which targeted easier-to-sort-and-reprocess clear plastic bottles, milk jugs, and detergent containers. The leftovers were tied up in dirty bales and shipped to Asia. “China took them because there was some high value of material in there,” a former Waste Management executive tells Rolling Stone. Oftentimes, he says, Chinese recyclers “would dump those bales into the river to separate the materials and pick the better stuff out. And then they simply let the rest just go downstream.” The target plastics weren’t recycled in state-of-the-art facilities, rather shredded and melted down in rudimentary factories — often staffed by whole families, children included — eking out a toxic living amid mountains of imported trash.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/plastic-problem-recycling-myth-big-oil-950957/
much more @ link
I would take anything funded by the WWF with an enormous grain of salt.
countryboy
Verified User
What did Obama and the Democrats do to address this problem? Did plastic pollution only just begin when President Trump took office? What is the current Democrat controlled House doing to address this problem? This is why libs cannot be taken seriously about this shit.
cut the rings, but yes!
BTW, nearly all (90%) of the plastic waste in the oceans has been traced back to ten rivers in Asia and Africa. Another study, by the University of Georgia, found that mismanaged plastic waste — the sort likely to land in oceans — would barely decrease if Europe and North America cut out all plastic.
I haven't seen a single DEMOCRAT eschew plastics. Many of the "environmentalists" drive cars laden with the stuff, jabber on phones constructed largely of plastics, consume mass quantities of consumer goods made of plastics, and wear plastic clothing.
Greta Thunberg's most famous publicity stunt was accomplished by sailing a plastic boat across the Atlantic.
if you read the article the plastic we export to say China/Indonesia is dumped in rivers to separate out the recycles
BTW, nearly all (90%) of the plastic waste in the oceans has been traced back to ten rivers in Asia and Africa. Another study, by the University of Georgia, found that mismanaged plastic waste — the sort likely to land in oceans — would barely decrease if Europe and North America cut out all plastic.
( think I got that right)
So us exporting the plastic is still our concerns .I am loathe to regulate markets ( usually leads to ineffective or over-regs) but clearly even the additives to plastic change the recyleblity.
There needs to be some kind of international treaty, or standards and ban the worst.
so called 'latte liberals'I haven't seen a single DEMOCRAT eschew plastics. Many of the "environmentalists" drive cars laden with the stuff, jabber on phones constructed largely of plastics, consume mass quantities of consumer goods made of plastics, and wear plastic clothing.
Greta Thunberg's most famous publicity stunt was accomplished by sailing a plastic boat across the Atlantic.
Yeah, the Paris Accords worked so well. /s
BTW, most plastics are now made in ... wait for it... China - which is excused from meeting the standards imposed by many environmental treaties because it's an "emerging economy".
Wielding plasticized Starbucks cups with plastic lids.
just like Paris accord..shit has got to stopYeah, the Paris Accords worked so well. /s
BTW, most plastics are now made in ... wait for it... China - which is excused from meeting the standards imposed by many environmental treaties because it's an "emerging economy".
BTW, so-called "bags for life" use so much more plastic than a regular bag, it's been estimated that you'd have to use the same bag for 50 years in order to justify the environmental impact of manufacturing and recycling it.
I always ask for paper bags when I shop, or I bring a string bag.
I always ask for paper bags when I shop, or I bring a string bag.
Bigdog
Harris - make America a 3rd world shithole
Well, the NIMBY theme is very common among sanctimonious white libs.
We can't even get an international treaty to stop shark finning.
Into the Night
Contributor
It did. It also IS a related topic, since you made your usual attacks on the 'evils' of Big Oil.
Into the Night
Contributor
There isn't one. This is a manufactured crisis.
Into the Night
Contributor
So they counted and weighed it?
There is no 'Pacific Garbage Patch'. This comment ranks right up there with aliens stored at Area 51. Of course he has to produce large random numbers to show how horrible this imagined thing is.
Into the Night
Contributor
I don't believe you.