Why are we not taking our ecological responsibilities more seriously?

CaptainRAVE · 26 Jun 2018 at 07:42

I get that we can limit plastic use. What I don't get is why we are getting blamed for all of this in the ocean. Surely it either ends up in landfill or is 'recycled'. Most of the plastic in the ocean seems to be near countries who have no waste management.

Then we have the war/obsession on cotton buds and plastic cups. Yup, these are the problem, right here.

I honestly think it is too late. I can see a time when there are just a handful of species left on Earth, either those who serve us for food or those such as rats who thrive in our society. The rest, sadly, will be gone.

Minusorange · 26 Jun 2018 at 09:21

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-44579422

Those poor little chicks starving to death because their stomachs are full of plastic, I wonder how many other animals are suffering due to our littering that we're not yet aware of

I see no reason why we can't go back to glass bottles and the old deposit system on those bottles, that would at least solve one issue of plastic waste and no new tech would need to be invented to replace it and it has worked fine for years with alcoholic products (although why no deposit on these ?)

ubersonic · 26 Jun 2018 at 09:34

Minusorange said:
I see no reason why we can't go back to glass bottles

Not only is glass more expensive than plastic to create/recycle but creating/recycling it is actually worse for the environment than creating/recycling plastic (this is true of cardboard too).

The best solution is to recycle as much plastic as possible and incinerate the rest, sadly though the eco warriors go nuts if you tell them you want to burn plastic waste, even if it's much better for the environment than their alternatives.

Minusorange · 26 Jun 2018 at 09:54

Why is it more expensive to wash a glass bottle ?

wolfie138 · 26 Jun 2018 at 10:16

Mark1989 said:
Said it before I'll say it again as a race were our own worst enemy we will be our own downfall either kill planet or each other, only question is what will come first

hardwired...to self-destruct.

FoxEye · 26 Jun 2018 at 11:07

ubersonic said:
It's a catch 22 situation, the eco warriors whine and whine about plastic going into the oceans, landfills, etc. But if you try and incinerate it instead they whine even harder.

So what? Because some fringe people are hard to please the problem isn't real or worth doing anything about?

You do realise that "eco warriors" aren't the only people concerned with the amount of plastic causing harm to the environment - that the scientific community is also worried.

ubersonic said:
Not only is glass more expensive than plastic to create/recycle but creating/recycling it is actually worse for the environment than creating/recycling plastic (this is true of cardboard too).

Source?

XeNoN89 · 26 Jun 2018 at 11:10

One thing I was wondering about was dental floss, does this stuff break down? I usually flush mine down the toilet but did think the other day I'm not actually sure what it's made of!

ubersonic · 26 Jun 2018 at 11:26

FoxEye said:
Source?

Glass has numerous drawbacks compared to plastic:

Is Glass Or Plastic Better For The Environment?
Most people would say that plastic bottles are an environmental problem especially when they are discarded in oceans or littering tourist trails. However, they are not a problem if they are recycled or reused.

Many people would say that glass packaging is more environmentally friendly than plastic because glass is a more natural substance and requires less energy to manufacture and/or recycle. People also think that all plastics leach toxins into the contents of their containers.

However, glass is not all it is cracked up to be for the following reasons:

It breaks

It costs more to ship

It is more expensive to recycle

Glass takes twice as much energy to produce

More pollution is created in manufacture, shipping and recycling of glass

Glass creates more than 6 times the global warming gases than plastic

The cons of using plastic packaging are:

Litter (but people throw glass away too)

Some plastics can leach chemicals

Some plastics contain PVCs

The fossil fuels required to generate the very high temperatures needed to form glass are just one of the considerations.

Clearly there are some products that definitely need glass, but plastic is much better for the environment in many cases.

NB: I realise that info is from a company that makes plastic, it's the first hit I got while Googling it for you, I'm sure you can find the info from a more unbiased source if you want.

FoxEye · 26 Jun 2018 at 11:31

So you don't really have a source, and just went to Google when asked for one. OK. And now it's my responsibility to find a source for you. Hmm.

aardvark · 26 Jun 2018 at 12:50

XeNoN89 said:
One thing I was wondering about was dental floss, does this stuff break down? I usually flush mine down the toilet but did think the other day I'm not actually sure what it's made of!

its plastic, probably nylon, it doesn't break down, and you shouldn't flush it under any circumstances.

ubersonic · 26 Jun 2018 at 13:21

FoxEye said:
So you don't really have a source, and just went to Google when asked for one.

No mate, I was discussing some fairly well known facts with another poster, you asked for a link to info on it as you apparently didn't know much about the subject and I very kindly found you one, if you want more you can find them yourself, I'm not your butler.

Roar87 · 26 Jun 2018 at 13:31

I'm all for the UK doing it's part around climate change and things like plastic littering the ocean, I just worry about places like China, India, Brazil, etc; developing countries doing their bit is far more important.

dowie · 26 Jun 2018 at 13:44

Minusorange said:
Why is it more expensive to wash a glass bottle ?

I'm not sure it is, I suspect the glass vs plastic thing is more focused at looking at say glass that gets taken to a bottle bank,. smashed up and then melted down to create new glass bottles and not the old system we had in the UK with electric milk floats delivering and collecting bottles back again to be washed

FoxEye · 26 Jun 2018 at 14:00

ubersonic said:
No mate, I was discussing some fairly well known facts with another poster, you asked for a link to info on it as you apparently didn't know much about the subject and I very kindly found you one, if you want more you can find them yourself, I'm not your butler.

Try putting that on any kind of academic paper.

"References:

1. It's well known fact, innit.
2. Find them yourself.
3. I'm not your butler."

I'd love to see how that went down in the academic community.

If you're asserting something, as you are, then it's not my responsibility to prove your claims for you.

Minusorange · 26 Jun 2018 at 14:02

dowie said:
I'm not sure it is, I suspect the glass vs plastic thing is more focused at looking at say glass that gets taken to a bottle bank,. smashed up and then melted down to create new glass bottles and not the old system we had in the UK with electric milk floats delivering and collecting bottles back again to be washed

Does that factor in the fact the majority of plastic we recycle isn't actually recycled and is instead sent to another country to be incinerated ?

Surely the alleged climate related damage (I believe climate change is natural and cyclical as opposed to man made) from producing/recycling glass is a lesser evil than the issues that come from plastic ?

Something needs to change globally and a bigger focus put on being able to combat the issue of plastic instead of climate change because we're entirely to blame for the plastic crisis (while climate change is still debatable as to our impact)

ubersonic · 26 Jun 2018 at 14:26

FoxEye said:
Try putting that on any kind of academic paper.

"References:

1. It's well known fact, innit.
2. Find them yourself.
3. I'm not your butler."

I'd love to see how that went down in the academic community.

If you're asserting something, as you are, then it's not my responsibility to prove your claims for you.

Hahaha.

Except I wasn't writing an academic paper, I was discussing something with another poster when you interjected and asked for some info on the topic as you knew nothing about it, I very kindly obliged then you comlplained because you wanted more info and were too lazy to find it yourself.

Out of interest, what specifically is it that you're having difficulty understanding here? That glass is heavier than plastic? That it costs more to recycle it? That it requires more energy to produce? That recycling/producing it creates more pollution than recycling/producing plastic? That the shipping and recycling of glass Glass creates more than 6 times the global warming gases of plastic?

If you can tell me what specifically you're having difficulty with I man be able to help you further.

gort · 26 Jun 2018 at 16:25

Minusorange said:
Something needs to change globally and a bigger focus put on being able to combat the issue of plastic instead of climate change because we're entirely to blame for the plastic crisis (while climate change is still debatable as to our impact)

Good old pandemic FTW. Wipe put a good few billion people to try to create some kind of balance.
Right, who's going first then? It's for a good cause!

Minusorange · 26 Jun 2018 at 16:33

gort said:
Good old pandemic FTW. Wipe put a good few billion people to try to create some kind of balance.
Right, who's going first then? It's for a good cause!

But killing billions of people doesn't clean up the mess that is already out there that needs cleaning up, sure it helps prevent future problems but it doesn't really do anything for the "now"

FoxEye · 26 Jun 2018 at 22:16

ubersonic said:
Hahaha.

Except I wasn't writing an academic paper, I was discussing something with another poster when you interjected and asked for some info on the topic as you knew nothing about it, I very kindly obliged then you comlplained because you wanted more info and were too lazy to find it yourself.

Out of interest, what specifically is it that you're having difficulty understanding here? That glass is heavier than plastic? That it costs more to recycle it? That it requires more energy to produce? That recycling/producing it creates more pollution than recycling/producing plastic? That the shipping and recycling of glass Glass creates more than 6 times the global warming gases of plastic?

If you can tell me what specifically you're having difficulty with I man be able to help you further.

And yet plastic is causing more actual damage/concern than glass, by several orders of magnitude.

You don't hear about glass forming vast islands in the ocean, entering the food chain, causing cancer.

Also those metrics you are using are very misleading. The manufacture of plastic is many times worse by those same metrics than the manufacture of glass. Glass is also inert and doesn't not wreak environmental carnage like plastic does. Glass is essentially no more damaging than sand when it breaks down, even if it ends up somewhere it shouldn't, like the oceans. The figures I'm reading btw are that the manufacture of plastic emits 5x the greenhouse gases and uses twice as much fossil fuels as glass.

The metrics you are using are only skewed in plastic's favour because of transportation costs. The weight, basically.

And one thing we need to get much better at is local production and sourcing/producing and consuming locally. Rather than shipping glass products from the farthest corners of the planet.

So... glass is inert, breaks down into harmless sand-like particles, is more environmentally friendly to manufacture.

Plastic is a complete disaster for the planet; saying that glass is worse is either deliberately misleading or disingenuous, take your pick.

LabR@t · 26 Jun 2018 at 22:48

Narj said:
Seriously, I mean with heartbreaking incidents like this going on, why do we not firstly limit our consumption of plastic, and secondly, limit the number of people who will use this deadly rubbish.. Maybe time for population control is here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-44344468

Half of me thinks I think I'm turning into a hippy but the other half thinks I'm being a harsh, pragmatic human on the right side of the fight... I really think we're at a tipping point where our actions are verging on turning our global habitat into a complete dystopian ****hole.

I was on holiday last week on what I thought was an unspoiled beach. I saw smatterings of plastic absolutely everywhere after high tide had receded and it's depressing. What should have been happy times photo wise turned into "wtf is happening here?".

Where was the beach?