The Plastic Problem

BorneTobyWilde · 14-03-2018 08:46PM

Makes sense to incinerate it to produce electricity, and then to try cut out the need for plastic packaging.
Get back to the good old glass bottle.

Will I Am Not · 14-03-2018 09:35PM

Flippyfloppy wrote: »

At least they're getting up off their arses and doing something about it

They can do it without being mental...

Standing Bear · 14-03-2018 09:47PM

Cotton buds are a disaster too but there's hope on the horizon: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/02/13/johnson-johnson-ditch-plastic-cotton-buds-save-oceans/ Pity that our useless parliamentarians wouldn't get off their backsides and lead the way instead of always hand wringing and saying that we are such a small polluter that it would make no difference to get our act together.

Cookie_Monster · 14-03-2018 10:08PM

There seems to have been a lot of movement in the news in the last 6-12 months on this at least. lots of countries banning various types of plastic. Straws seems to be enemy number 1 now, lots of place refusing to use them or substituting plant based etc. Coffee cups made from plant derivatives instead of plastic coated. China has banned loads of stuff starting from 2020 onwards, as have the EU iirc.

Maybe too late overall but actions are being taken. Several companies also looking at ocean cleanup as well to deal with some of the issue: https://www.theoceancleanup.com/

Costa Rica want to be the first country in the world to ban all single use products (and to go completely carbon neutral as well)

Chinasea · 14-03-2018 10:35PM

Deposit refund on plastic bottles, glass and cans would not only reduce our litter problem by 80% but cover costs of responsible disposal.

It's extremely successful in the progressive countries that have this system in place.

We constantly pat ourselves on the back for the plastic bag levy, but it seems we peaked at that.

gingergirl · 14-03-2018 10:42PM

Manufacturers and supermarkets need to change the amount of plastic wrapping on their products, consumers should start to make noise about this. In my local Aldi there's a bin at the bag packing area, I usually discard the pa caging in there. Maybe if people started to discard pa caging supermarkets might take notice

Harry Palmr · 14-03-2018 11:27PM

Plastic bottles drink tiny plastic strands. Oh yes opening the cap may be the main polluter!

Ubbquittious · 14-03-2018 11:40PM

BorneTobyWilde wrote: »

Makes sense to incinerate it to produce electricity, and then to try cut out the need for plastic packaging.
Get back to the good old glass bottle.

Incinerating will seem like a huge waste in years to come, better to recycle it into more long-lived and useful stuff

Cookie_Monster · 14-03-2018 11:55PM

gingergirl wrote: »

Manufacturers and supermarkets need to change the amount of plastic wrapping on their products, consumers should start to make noise about this. In my local Aldi there's a bin at the bag packing area, I usually discard the pa caging in there. Maybe if people started to discard pa caging supermarkets might take notice

Repak allow supermarkets to ignore the problem. They just pay repak and that covers them and leaves consumers with the disposal problem. Repak needs reforming so it's demanding supermarkets provide facilities for packaging disposal and return rather than just foisting the problem onto consumers

dr.fuzzenstein · 15-03-2018 12:15AM

Well with plastic destroying the ocean, the bees dying and climate change, it really is crunch time.
And with China, India and the US really stepping on the gas, I am actually fearful that within 100 years this planet will become uninhabitable.
Human beings truly are closer to a virus than other mammals. We just destroy and move on.

GhostyMcGhost · 15-03-2018 12:22AM

I kid you not, at a restaurant the other day and inside a sugar bowl was individually packaged sugar cubes

Yes each and every sugar cube wrapped up like a sweet

Completely and utterly unnecessary and a pure waste

WoollyRedHat · 15-03-2018 06:28PM

Some interesting posts here, good to get the discussion going. I hope people can get more civic minded on this matter. If you notice your company may be guilty of perpetuating this problem, try bandy together and put pressure on them to change. It's not going to be enough, but any progress is progress.

GhostyMcGhost wrote: »

I kid you not, at a restaurant the other day and inside a sugar bowl was individually packaged sugar cubes

Yes each and every sugar cube wrapped up like a sweet

Completely and utterly unnecessary and a pure waste

If they want to go down the hygiene route, why not use paper!

I placed an order with a popular office supplies comapny the other day. It was a box of magnets x 2 which are tiny, and was in a massibe envelope with plastic covering, it was ridicilous.

Today an article about a study on bottled water:

In the new study, analysis of 259 bottles from 19 locations in nine countries across 11 different brands found an average of 325 plastic particles for every litre of water being sold.

and

Of the 259 bottles tested, only 17 were free of plastics, according to the study

The study found that there was twice as much plastic particles in bottled water compared to tap water.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/15/microplastics-found-in-more-than-90-of-bottled-water-study-says?CMP=fb_gu

Spudmonkey · 28-03-2018 10:06AM

Thought it was worthwhile resurrecting this..

https://news.sky.com/story/govt-to-launch-deposit-return-scheme-for-single-use-bottles-in-england-11306448

Fair play to SKY, they've been highlighting this as an issue for months now and are probably one of the reasons this has been accepted. The last line on the article is stark...

"By 2050, it is predicted that the total amount of plastic in the oceans will weigh more than the total amount of fish."

Would love to see something similar introduced here.

kneemos · 28-03-2018 10:45AM

All well and good to make an effort but we're looking in the wrong https://www.google.ie/search?q=pollution+in+india&client=ms-android-huawei&prmd=inv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiy1taW3Y7aAhVIIMAKHTFcDIoQ_AUIESgB&biw=360&bih=524#imgdii=w_YoMsd8BdAoaM:&imgrc=RR7SaGXYvlhN9M:.

Hector Savage · 28-03-2018 11:00AM

What about some sort of transport into space ? or dumping it all on Mars ?

Didn't they find an old dishwasher on Mars ?

Harry Palmr · 28-03-2018 11:05AM

Hector Savage wrote: »

What about some sort of transport into space ? or dumping it all on Mars ?

Didn't they find an old dishwasher on Mars ?

Double decker bus I thought!

Seriously though good to see the UK are getting on board with recycling bottles as Ireland will almost certainly follow on.

Sidebaro · 28-03-2018 11:10AM

Everybody needs to relax, some future whiz kid will invent a solution to the pollution and everything will be fine. If we try to solve it now then we'll be preventing said whiz kid from making a fortune from our mistakes.

Hector Savage · 28-03-2018 11:42AM

Sidebaro wrote: »

Everybody needs to relax, some future whiz kid will invent a solution to the pollution and everything will be fine. If we try to solve it now then we'll be preventing said whiz kid from making a fortune from our mistakes.

Speaking of whiz kids, isn't some young guy developing a really smart system that will be able to collect a **** load of ocean plastic ?

I think this is it - https://www.theoceancleanup.com/

SEANoftheDEAD · 28-03-2018 11:45AM

Hector Savage wrote: »

What about some sort of transport into space ? or dumping it all on Mars ?

Mars is our future home, gotta keep it clean for as long as possible.

Venus would be a better bet. Just round up all our rubbish and launch it into that planet. At least it'd all burn up.

Hector Savage · 28-03-2018 11:48AM

This is the founder,
https://twitter.com/BoyanSlat

Such innovation and so young - the world needs more people like him.

Kingp35 · 28-03-2018 12:08PM

Spudmonkey wrote: »

Thought it was worthwhile resurrecting this..

https://news.sky.com/story/govt-to-launch-deposit-return-scheme-for-single-use-bottles-in-england-11306448

Fair play to SKY, they've been highlighting this as an issue for months now and are probably one of the reasons this has been accepted. The last line on the article is stark...

"By 2050, it is predicted that the total amount of plastic in the oceans will weigh more than the total amount of fish."

Would love to see something similar introduced here.

Fair play to the UK. It's infuriating that we don't have a deposit return scheme for plastic bottles, glass bottles and cans. We need to follow suit and fast.

Kingp35 · 28-03-2018 12:19PM

I found this document on the Repak website about a proposed deposit return scheme for Ireland. It's from December 2017.

https://www.repak.ie/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/PMCA-Report-on-Deposit-and-Return-Scheme-in-Ireland-041217-FINAL.pdf

Athdara · 28-03-2018 01:05PM

Rather than wait for the big guys to do something we can do something at local level. It all adds up. Here in Kilkee West Clare a lot of local businesses have teamed up with "Make Kilkee Plastic Free". Check it out on FB. They have grouped together to get the best prices on compostable coffee cups & paper straws. They have also signed up to filling people bottles up with tap water when requested. This is just a start for this Summer season- being a seaside town the amount of coffee cups and straws used is huge.

Ubbquittious · 28-03-2018 04:49PM

Hector Savage wrote: »

Speaking of whiz kids, isn't some young guy developing a really smart system that will be able to collect a **** load of ocean plastic ?

I think this is it - https://www.theoceancleanup.com/

I think eventually plastic bottles will go obsolete because people will get all their drinks on a subscription service piped directly to their house or office. Just like your broadband and electricity except it will be just a little transparent 8mm tube coming into your house connected to a built-in kitchen drinks dispenser by a man in a van with a scruffy branded uniform, a barcode scanner and a notebook.

This kitchen appliance will have some internal storage bottles known as "buffers" that the user doesn't see for frequently used drinks and an advanced predictive cloud-based AI algorithm will try to guess what drinks the user will pour next and fill these bottles accordingly during quiet periods.

If the user chooses a drink from the touch-screen menu on this kitchen device that it doesn't have buffered it will be dispatched from a green cabinet down the road. This cabinet has 100s of buffer bottles and is constantly being refilled by much bigger pipes directly from the factory. There would be a good bit of pressure on the feed from this cabinet so he wouldn't have to wait too long for the drink to start pouring after he puts his cup under the machine

If your neighbour is pouring a drink at the same time as you the cabinet will pump out a small bit of your cup, followed by an air gap, followed by a bit of the neighbour's drink followed by another air gap and a bit of your drink and so on. All the consumer machines are daisy chained together to save on plastic tube. They recognise which drink is intended for them using a photocell and an artificial taste receptor.

gingergirl · 28-03-2018 06:04PM

Trying to post a link to a campaign on 21 Apr to leave all plastic at supermarkets see FOI shop and drop

rubberdungeon · 28-03-2018 06:10PM

gingergirl wrote: »

Trying to post a link to a campaign on 21 Apr to leave all plastic at supermarkets see FOI shop and drop

https://www.foe.ie/blog/2018/03/23/tell-supermarkets-where-to-stick-it-very-politely/

Harry Palmr · 23-10-2018 11:23AM

First plastic to be found in human ****!

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/22/microplastics-found-in-human-stools-for-the-first-time

Microplastics have been found in human stools for the first time, according to a study suggesting the tiny particles may be widespread in the human food chain.

The small study examined eight participants from Europe, Japan and Russia. All of their stool samples were found to contain microplastic particles.

Up to nine different plastics were found out of 10 varieties tested for, in particles of sizes ranging from 50 to 500 micrometres. Polypropylene and polyethylene terephthalate were the plastics most commonly found.

On average, 20 particles of microplastic were found in each 10g of excreta. Microplastics are defined as particles of less than 5mm, with some created for use in products such as cosmetics but also by the breaking down of larger pieces of plastic, often in the sea.

Igotadose · 23-10-2018 11:28AM

Hector Savage wrote: »

This is the founder,
https://twitter.com/BoyanSlat

Such innovation and so young - the world needs more people like him.

No shortage of people. http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/

It's the root cause of all the world's problems, including plastic pollution - as if that's the only pollutant out there.

The Plastic Problem

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