Plastic In Rivers And Seas

Discussion in 'Taylor's Tittle-Tattle - General Banter' started by Clive_ofthe_Kremlin, Nov 1, 2021.

  1. Clive_ofthe_Kremlin

    Clive_ofthe_Kremlin Squad Player

    I was shocked by that show on BBC at the weekend. Plastic waste is everywhere.

    As they said in the program, it's all very well cleaning it up, but you have to turn the supply tap off. It made me determined to try to buy less plastic, but it's almost impossible. Look at the supermarket shelves. So many things in plastic tubs or plastic wrappers.

    How can this be resolved?
     
  2. Robert Peel

    Robert Peel Squad Player

    When I worked in an office by the O2 I used to go running by the Thames at lunch. There's some parts by the white elephant cable car that have reeds, which have thousands of bottles caught up in them. I can't imagine how much is actually in that one river.

    Went shopping yesterday and bought some broccoli and a lettuce, both of which were plastic wrapped - why is that necessary? Can't they just put a sticker or some paper sleeve on it with the car code, or just do it by weight?
     
  3. Clive_ofthe_Kremlin

    Clive_ofthe_Kremlin Squad Player

    Worst I have seen is an offer of two boxes of cheese straws. The two boxes were wrapped together in cellophane, then inside that, each box was indivudually wrapped in cellophane, then inside that was the box and inside the box was a slide out plastic drawer thing with the cheese straws in. They could come in a brown paper bag.

    Why can't milk and pop etc be in glass bottles like it used to be? Why plastic? Most especially bloody plastic bottles of water. Why?
     
  4. a19tgg

    a19tgg First Team

    When I was at Uni (20 years ago) I did an environmental studies unit and they made the point that there is a balance with packaging, because if you don’t use enough and the food is damaged then that his an environmental implication in itself. So there is a balance to be had as it’s no good if consumers turn their noses up at food because it’s got superficial marks on etc.

    Thoroughly agree something desperately needs to be done about plastic use though.
     
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  5. sydney_horn

    sydney_horn Squad Player

    It's simply down to cost. Plastic is cheaper, more robust and lighter than glass so is easier and less expensive to transport.

    The only way, imo, to reduce our addiction to plastic is to make it more expensive.

    In addition to the packaging you see on the shelf, there is also a huge amount of plastic outer packaging. If you have ever seen behind the scenes at a major supermarket you will see they produce tonnes of the stuff every year.

    Something needs to change but I have my doubts that it will.
     
  6. Diamond

    Diamond First Team

    If co-op can create bags made out of material that decomposes then how far off can we be from such material to wrap product in?
     
    Smudger likes this.
  7. HeiaWatford

    HeiaWatford Reservist

    It's very difficult situation that governments, supermarkets and consumers need to act and fast.
    For instance here in Norway we pay extra levy on plastic bottles of drinks. You then recycle all of your bottles at any supermarket to receive a credit voucher which is to buy your shopping. This has been ongoing for over 20 years and over 97% percent of bottles are recycled. It's massively advantageous for all. Anyone who wouldn't want to do this simple procedure really needs to take a long hard look at themselves.
    But as consumers is recycling your rubbish such a massive task to undertake?
     
    Smudger likes this.
  8. Lloyd

    Lloyd Squad Player

    Packaging reduces food waste by protecting the product in transit and on the supermarket shelf. The big grocery retailers are always on the look out for ways to reduce their costs, so you can bet your backside that if it wasn’t needed it wouldn't be used.
     
  9. Clive_ofthe_Kremlin

    Clive_ofthe_Kremlin Squad Player

    I think a good deal of it is also used in terms of advertising and promotion rather than for practical reasons.

    There's no 'protection' reason for example, why kids sweets were being sold in thick plastic tubs with a lid and carrying handle for halloween yesterday. I suppose the idea is the kid can carry the plastic tub to collect sweets whilst trick or treating. The parent sees it, buys it, maybe the kid uses it or maybe they don't, but perhaps it makes life a teeny tiny bit more convenient than reusing say a cloth bag, and then today it's chucked into the rubbish or recycling. For me that sort of waste in return for the extremely marginal benefit of having a plastic tub just can't continue.
     
    Smudger likes this.
  10. Lloyd

    Lloyd Squad Player

    I couldn't agree more. But unfortunately most people are still far more likely to buy something that comes in brightly coloured shiny packaging than an identical product sold in a brown paper bag - even if the packaging ends up floating around in the sea for the next million years.
     
  11. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Are they recycled within Norway? A lot of UK recycling has sadly been shipped abroad and dumped. The improvement needed is massive.

    I had to get a bag the other day at Morrisons and that was paper and pretty sturdy. I’m also surprised there isn’t more moulded cardboard used for packaging fruit etc.
     
  12. Clive_ofthe_Kremlin

    Clive_ofthe_Kremlin Squad Player

    I'm sure a whole lot more could be done by manufacturers and retailers. As pointed out above - the sparkly and shiny one use consumerist appeal is still all dominant unfortunately.

    I asked 4cyclones age 11 whether he wasn't worried about the state of the planet - he said no, Jeff Bezos is taking us all to Mars.
     
    Lloyd likes this.
  13. Halfwayline

    Halfwayline Reservist

    Do we have to buy a plastic water bottle when there is an aluminium alternative? Do companies have to wrap a small item up in a tonne of inaccessible plastic? Can we all not recycle properly?
     
    Smudger likes this.
  14. HeiaWatford

    HeiaWatford Reservist

    Yes the bottles are cleaned and used again here along with tin cans. It works perfectly all over Scandinavia. They have even put tubes on waste bins all over Scandinavia where you can leave them and you have people constantly walking around collecting them, homeless for instance which gives them money in their pocket.
     
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  15. Cthulhu

    Cthulhu Keyboard Warrior Staff Member

    ???

    I thought this was all solved now fast food restaurants are using paper straws, these things biodegrade as soon as you take your first sip, love me having a drink that tastes of wet toilet paper.

    The cups and lids may well be 100% plastic but surely that doesn't matter.
     
  16. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    This thread is typical of today's snowflake generation. Oh, the world's temperature might go up 2.7 degrees, or the oceans are full of plastic. Oh no!

    In the old days we burned coal to power machines to dig for oil, so we could convert it to petrol to power chainsaws and bulldozers to flatten rainforests for more cattle grazing. Now the lefties want you to eat lentils and soybeans so that they can save the bees!
     
  17. Filbert

    Filbert Leicester supporting bloke

    It’s PC gone mad.
     
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  18. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    I'm constantly amazed and the sheer piles of rubbish some households in my street generate. OK they might well have a few more people living there than in meister manor but it just seems excessive. Weekly I generate:
    • about a football sized black bag
    • 1 full recycling bag of cardboard glass plastic cans
    • 1 full green recycling bag of garden waste
    • half a carrier bag of food waste for composting
    Other houses seem to dump 3 or 4 or sometimes more full black binliners of crap every week. Consumption is a huge issue that needs to be address going forward. I'd suggest charging people per KG of waste they produce but that will just make flytipping so much worse.
     
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  19. Diamond

    Diamond First Team

    I know it's ridiculous. They should burn it like I do.
     
  20. Smudger

    Smudger Messi's Mad Coach Staff Member

    As a nation we are far behind many others in terms of recycling. In Norway the average citizen is far more aware of environmental issues and more responsible. Here you still see people throwing away glass bottles, plastic bottles and aluminium cans in household waste or street bins. Not to mention all the fly tipping that goes on.

    There has been a huge lack of action on the part of successive governments in tackling the issue. There has been insufficient provision of recycling facilities in the UK for all sorts of materials. There has been a lack of funding of developing products that reuse these materials. And indeed no legislation forcing companies to make a certain percentage of their product from recyclable materials until very recently so that much of what is recycled is either sent abroad and burned or stockpiled. Hardly environmentally friendly or sits around not being used at all.

    It requires forward thinking to create the market and innovation to create products that are less harmful or make use of recycled materials. In doing so there is less pressure to keep excavating for new ore sources and metals for instance.

    There also has to be a focus on getting away from the notion of food all year round from any part of the globe when you want it. We need to be more attuned to seasonal food and making sure that we do not but more than we need. Food wastage packaging aside is alarming in terms of sheer tonnage.

    Plastic pollution is everywhere in the biosphere with all it's harmful consequences. If companies refuse to take action they need to be fined. LEGO for instance dragging their feet about their bricks. Or supermarkets continually using superfluous packaging and wasting chemicals for bright inks. It might seem austere but we need to be much less wasteful with regards to the future. Having written to several supermarkets they are still incredibly reluctant to change their ways with respect to plastic and have only been forced to by the furore created in the media about the consequences. But while they and other companies like the morons at Coca Cola trumpet their far from green credentials they are doing very little in real terms.

    Unfortunately the amount of plastic refuse seems to be on the increase thanks to the increasing levels of antisocial behaviour. Whatever happened to Keep Britain Tidy. Everywhere you go from the inner city even out in a National Park you will find refuse. It's disgusting.
     
    HeiaWatford likes this.
  21. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    Fortunately I live within walking distance of the Chess, so I can send all my waste back to nature. The circle of life.
     
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  22. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    They’re holding COP 26 in Glasgow, in November, lol. Doesn’t it occur to lefties like Boris that +2.7 degrees would improve Scotland?

    They just need to hold the temperature down in other places that are already nice.
     
    wfcmoog likes this.
  23. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    A few thousand pounds of Napalm could improve Glasgow.

    Don't understand why Cop26 isn't over zoom tbh. Carbon offsetting isn't really as eco friendly as not having thousands of people travel
     
  24. Lloyd

    Lloyd Squad Player

    Because, they're all total hypocrites
     
  25. Robert Peel

    Robert Peel Squad Player

    I was there last week for a few days, quite liked the place.

    That said, I went for a run one day and went pask Ibrox, which is not an area I'd want to be in after dark.
     
  26. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Agree about carbon offsetting, but if they make progress then they will finally have travelled somewhere with good reason.
     
  27. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    Yep was a bit tongue in cheek really. Hopefuly they can agree something and actually follow through.
     
  28. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Oh I don’t think we want Biden following through thanks. There’s been quite enough of that.
     
    hornmeister likes this.
  29. AndrewH63

    AndrewH63 Reservist

    It’s not popular, but basically it’s down to too many people buying and throwing away too much manufactured stuff. Replace plastic with plant derived alternatives simply means you have to devote land that could have grown food to grow the biomass alternatives.

    Cop 26 should have set a 100 year target to get the worlds population down to year 2000 levels, and a 1,000 year strategy to reduce world population by two thirds.
     
  30. Diamond

    Diamond First Team

    This exactly. Technology is evolving but not fast enough to keep up with the crazy rise in population. Long term achievable goals are so much better than short term unattainable goals that cost £billions.
     
  31. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    It's quite simple but these liberal cry babies want something to moan about.

    Simply set up a network of pipelines. Pump cold air from places like Scotland, Canada, Iceland etc to hot places like Africa and all the bongo bongo countries. Pump their hot air the other way to warm up our chilly autumn.

    I saw this morning that there's a drought in Madagascar causing a famine. Well, it's been ******* down here, so why not ship some of our water over to them!!

    I have no idea why the lefty brigade overcomplicate all this stuff. They just want something to moan about!
     
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  32. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Population growth is tailing off and the thing that will halt it further is ensuring a decent standard of living and healthcare across the board. Given the likelihood that children will survive, most people cut down the number they have. Average children per family in Bangladesh, for example, has fallen to two.

    Not sure Boris is really the person to lecture the World on population growth either.
     
    Robert Peel likes this.
  33. Diamond

    Diamond First Team

    :D:D:D
     
  34. AndrewH63

    AndrewH63 Reservist

    Yes I agree the world population appears to be plateauing off, but it’s still growing and compared to what it was in 1950 the current population is a huge increase, trebling in 70 years, from 2.5 billion to 7.5 billion. A strategy to get us back to 2.5 billion seems to me to be the logically way to reduce environmental impact of human activity.

    Reducing mortality and increasing living standards might indeed see population growth stall and with other factors start to fall.
     
  35. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    A strategy to get back to 2.5bn is quite the most bizarre idea I’ve heard today.

    We haven’t managed to find workers to wipe old folks backsides after Brexit with years of warning. World population decline of two thirds would be an absolute train wreck. The restraint on having children to achieve it would be the greatest human suffering of all time.

    And it’s unnecessary. We need to live in harmony with the World. That’s possible at high populations.
     

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