Off Topic The Environmental & Pollution Thread

Is that a rewindup Davey?

 

Serve me right for getting all “beavered up” and not checking the bloody autocorrect!

 

Love that film!

 

As you probably know, Fossil Fuel companies have somewhat openly suspected that HICC is real since the 1950's. That internally they have known and accurately predicted its rate of "progress" since the late 1970's. And started their Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt programs (ie, to diffuse the growing opinion to the world consumers that HICC existed) in the late 1980's.
What you may not know is that they continued to research and accumulate data for internal use. Producing films and videos for selective release. Here's one from 1991. In the first half, Shell Oil explains, very accurately, what our then current lifestyle is doing to our habitat. Then spends most of the second half ignoring that. A Climate For Concern:

 

Not too sure about the introduction of beavers in Britain my, non scientific, observations in Canada suggest that, heaven forbid, once established they may systematically remove the trees that you guys inform us are so essential, damn up the tributaries to the main rivers and cause flooding.
If Cowtownred has an opinion I'd be interested but my advice is not to pussy around with beavers

 

Petition for you to sign, if you wish. At the moment 301K+ have signed this to be presented to No.10 on reducing/eliminating the amount of plastic which enters the oceans.

https://act.friendsoftheearth.uk/petition/help-reduce-plastic-oceans

 

do we really need a law to phase out plastic pollution? Not in my opinion. what we need is government led coordination of recycling and educating the public on what to recycle, where and how.

If we need a law, it should not be on use of a material but on disposal of that material. Fine the hell out of anyone caught disposing of it incorrectly. This petition will just end up a witch hunt on plastic again. Slowly and very low key, articles are beginning to appear suggesting that maybe the alternatives are just not good enough in terms of benefit or protection of the environment.

As I said at the start, do we really need a petition to stop stuff of any material being dumped in the ocean? We just need the correct government lead action and I’d happily sign a petition that asked the government to control, set up or sponsor proper recycling. I’m currently in Sweden and they know how to do it.

Beyond what I’ve posted above, this won’t make much difference. Stopping countries ship waste abroad makes more sense as 97% of plastic found in the ocean comes from a handful of places. India, Africa and the Far East.

Collect it all. Re-use it. Recycle it. It’s a fantastic material. Banning it just shifts the problem elsewhere.

 

Welcome back, FLT! Good point, well made. I agree that we need to find proper disposal and not just chuck it!

 

We need to send FLT into the schools to educate the facility. My two think plastic is evil, and their teachers seem to bang the drum on a daily basis.
Our use of plastic reduces tree's being cut down and massive farming of minerals.
What they should teach is, reduce, reuse, recycle. Can they be arsed........nope.

 

Reduce Reuse Recycle is the mantra Emphasis on the reduce, I've seen a big difference on Bali and other parts of Indonesia, single use bags, straws, coffee stirrers and styrofoam banned. There's a new industry in bamboo, papaya and reused/repurposed materials. There's a boat made of flip flops somewhere and other imaginative uses.
Recycling % worldwide isn't a good number. We have to learn from those countries that have a lead but it needs to be a worldwide movement. Taking care of your own ****, IE no waste shipping needs to be international law.
Enough ranting small individual actions add up just ****ing do it!

 

The problem with not having a petition illustrating public concern is that government will do sod all. If you follow the link I left you'll notice that this government is deciding to change the rules on plastic. Fantastic material agreed FLT, but it is totally out of control and we all know it. We need a crackdown on the society that cheerfully throws it away. And the Friends of the Earth aren't asking for a ban on its use, just a much more responsible attitude to it.

Actually, in Sweden, IIRC I believe they are burning it at very high temperatures, along with a lot of the rest of their rubbish. Which isn't the best thing.

 

In Sweden they burn SOME of it. They recycle and re-use lots of it. Better than most. To highlight and say they burn it is mis-information. Part of the story. This is exactly what I fear FOE will do. I simply don’t believe their petition is just to have a more responsible attitude. It’s one of the steps to increasing the bans.

It’s time we focused on the right issue. Human behaviour. Here is one example of why I really don’t like the message being given out and why groups need to focus deeper:

McDonalds straws. Plastic is bad. Let’s ban single use plastic. Big corporate brand seizes opportunity to be seen to be good (follows the media and anti-plastics groups wishes) changes straws to paper straws with a non paper lining. Front page news. Hooray, plastic is bad and has lost this one. Six months later inside page article points out that the new straws don’t function properly, they have a worse carbon footprint and, the real kicker, they can’t be recycled. Now what’s the real issue here? Do we need a straw? Do we need a thick milkshake? Do we eat properly? Where do I sign the petition to either ban McDonalds, ban milkshakes, fine people for eating **** food, or ban any use of a straw? Where’s the petition to McDonalds to put more recycling bins in all their stores. Their old straws were recyclable.

My point isn’t about straws, it’s about the message and it’s about a deeper dive.

 

I don't disagree with you FLT. I thought that was fairly clear in my post.

 

Those straws can be recycled. But it needs decent recycling infrastructure that many places in the UK don't have.

 

Are you referring to the plastic ones or the paper ones. The plastic ones most definitely can be and easily. It’s just the collection of them and the people behaviour change that is needed.

my number one activity would be to have the government accountable and invest in one recycling system throughout the whole country. Everyone has easy understanding and access to recycle everything.

 

https://www.packagingnews.co.uk/new...ail&utm_campaign=PN-4828-(Edi)DailyNews-#1497

This is what I have been saying for 15 years and more.... well more than what they say here.

One country wide system. That’s worth a petition about.

 

https://www.packagingnews.co.uk/top...ble-bottles-single-use-thrown-away-07-02-2020

They are right.


By the away. This week in Sweden I arrived at my first hotel to find two small empty plastic bottles in my room. They were thick and tough too, not the flimsy ones you get. The label on the bottle told me that their drinking tap water was some of the cleanest in the world and I should use the bottles for that purpose. I did. I took them everywhere and refilled them several times in three days.i then gave them to my colleague who is going to wash them and use them himself. 3 days in and that single use plastic is already at about ten uses.

 

I reuse bottles for drinking water at work and also for storing cold water in the fridge, periodically changing them.
I remembered seeing, on Facebook, a video about plastics being used for rebuilding road surfaces, so went searching for it.
It seems to be full of positives, including decreasing the amount of crude oil being used, and EU and UK patents are (were depending on when the video was posted) pending.