Drowning in plastic

[Devil]

This is the title of a BBC documentary which was broadcast last night. It is a real eye-opener and rather frightening in that most of us – myself included – have no idea of the damage we are causing in the oceans with various types of plastic in equally various forms. It is not just six cents on a plastic bag that is going to resolve the problem of a turtle eating it or a whale drowning in fishermen's nets. In my opinion, a program that is well worth watching on catch up.

Review
by David Butcher
Liz Bonnin explores the huge problem of plastic waste choking the world’s rivers and oceans in a one-off special that is almost too distressing to watch. In the opening scenes, she joins rescue teams in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand as they help seabirds whose parents have unwittingly fed them plastic: the record is 260 pieces (often bits of bottle tops) in the stomach of a single shearwater chick. Bonnin also witnesses a mile-long raft of plastic waste on an Indonesian river and sees whales in New England caught in fishing gear.

There are more positive stories, too – including fascinating attempts to clean up our oceans using a sort of giant Pac-Man. But then she hits us with another dizzying statistic, such as the fact that every minute around the world we buy a million plastic bottles and two million plastic bags.

In the end, the picture is overwhelming, almost despair-inducing, but as Bonnin says at one point, almost weeping, “This is real. This is what’s going on.”
Summary
Trillions of pieces of plastic are choking the very lifeblood of the Earth and every marine animal, from the smallest plankton to the largest mammals, is being affected. In this 90-minute special, wildlife biologist Liz Bonnin visits scientists working at the cutting-edge of plastics research and joins work with some of the world's leading marine biologists and campaigners to discover the true dangers of plastic in the oceans and what it means for the future of all life on the planet, including humans.

[WHL]

Watched it, very depressing.

[lefkes]

How sad , every time we go to the coast we take bin liners and pick up what we can ,every little helps. Lefkes.

[Jimgward]

This MUST have been known about for decades and not focussed on for some reason.

We are consuming all resources at an alarning rate with recycling being lip-service. Most ends up dumped in landfill - either in the country of origin or poor countries in Africa - on ships journeys on way back to China.

Scandal.

Since our council started specific plastic and metal recycling, I am now amazed by the amount of plastic packaging on food items. In particular, black plastic trays to show off food better. Black plastic cannot be recycled apparently. But whte can....

[Devil]

This MUST have been known about for decades and not focussed on for some reason.

We are consuming all resources at an alarning rate with recycling being lip-service. Most ends up dumped in landfill - either in the country of origin or poor countries in Africa - on ships journeys on way back to China.

Scandal.

Since our council started specific plastic and metal recycling, I am now amazed by the amount of plastic packaging on food items. In particular, black plastic trays to show off food better. Black plastic cannot be recycled apparently. But whte can....

No, this has not been known about for decades. If you look at the program, you will see that the worst part has only been researched over the past 18 months or so and is still in the process of being researched. Nobody knew what was happening, where plastic pollution is affecting the whole food chain from the plankton up to the largest whales. Of course, visible plastic pollution has been known for years and many people have done much to reduce it but most of it has only come to the public notice fairly recently, as being a danger to the economy, as well as to the ecology.

What I do not understand is why it seems to be only north and central Europe that has made enormous efforts to generate electricity from plastic and other waste. There are about 500 power stations in Europe (very few in Eastern Europe and none in Cyprus) and over 1000 in the world which uses this technology, even some in developing countries. Yes, it produces fossil CO2, but actually less per kilowatt hour, than burning coal, oil or possibly even natural gas. Believe it or not, Sweden actually transports and imports waste from the UK and Germany to produce some of their electricity.I maintain that using this technology with draconian waste regulations could eliminate a large percentage of the plastics waste problem. It only requires countries like Cyprus to install waste-to-energy plants. In fact I have been saying the same thing for at least a dozen years.

[Anarita John]

Program was repeated last night on BBC. Needs to be shown worldwide to highlight the problem. On my walk around the Anglesey coast, I saw lots of people carrying sacks, picking up the waste on beaches. In Pembrokeshire, each beach had a special station for you to pick up a bag, collect waste and deposit it in containers.

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[trevnhil]

Bins like that would be good in every village.

[Devil]

Bins like that would be good in every village.

Maybe so, but what happens to the waste that is collected? It is possible but not certain that paper and metals may be recycled. Without sorting, plastics will go to the landfill almost certainly in time broken up into microparticles which will enter the environment. Our village is kinda sorta organised but all the plastics are mixed. Discreet enquiries have told me that they end up in a plant that simply minces them to reduce the volume going to the landfill. Oh! What a bloody waste, destined to cause harm! Without waste-to-energy plants, there is little hope for even a medium-term improvement.

In any case, more drinks cans are flattened on the roads than end up in bins where the aluminium can be recycled.

[boycott]

Unfortunately the Cypriot village I live in used to have green bins (actually blue in colour for some reason!) to place finished with cans and plastic, brown bins for paper/cardboard and a white bin for glass.

It took a while to be well used and were emptied once a week, however they became very well used and were full within a couple of days so all the items were thrown somewhere near the bins till they were emptied.

For some reason the bins were removed and a lot of people were questioning this at the community office and the explanation given is a) They were to popular and there was a mess from the area from them, b) people from other villages were using them, c) Cypriots (her words) were putting the wrong items in the wrong bins and non recyclable items in them as well.

At present there are no plans to replace them in this village or any nearby villages!

[Anarita John]

Here in Conwy, our main dustbin is emptied once a month. We have to recycle everything and the recycling truck comes every week. We put all our recycling into a huge bag, then on recycling day, take it outside and sort it into plastic, paper and card, glass and metal. Food waste is also collected weekly, although in Cyprus it could be a bit pongy. I would say that the amount of rubbish we put in our bin for landfill has been reduced by at least 80% as, even after four weeks, our dustbin is barely half full, usually just a couple of bags for a family of three.

[Paul]

Here is what their starting to do with plastic in India, there also doing this in parts of the UK.

[Devil]

I would want to know a little bit more about the long-term fate of the plastic.

In the first place, every time a vehicle passes over the road, a minute amount of the surface is destroyed into dust. I don't think plastic dust is exactly good for the environment. If the road were made with stone chippings or, as is common, ground up bottles, the dust would be more chemically inert.

Secondly, I would need a very close study of the effect of the heat from the asphalt on the plastic. There may even be chemical reactions between the asphalt and the plastic; such reactions could be either positive or negative in terms of the environment.

Thirdly, I would want to know what the effect would be on the road surface at its end-of-life. Would it be simply ploughed up and landfilled? Then what?

???

[Paul]

From what I have read they mix the ground plastic with the aggregate, which is heated to 170 degrease during mixing.
After that the bitumen is added to the mix, and then it is taken to the road works to be laid.
The plastic makes the road surface harder and more ware resistant for a longer life of the road.
They could also mix ground plastic in to concrete for use in paving stones, kerb stones and even use it in road construction as a base layer.
Look around and see how many plastic bottles are just thrown at the road side the you will see the size of the problem.
In India they used 1600 tons of plastic in about 600km on one road, there is now about 33.000km.
https://gulfnews.com/news/asia/india/wa ... -1.2122745