Plastic ocean

[Clitheroekid]

I've been seeing and reading a lot recently about the appalling amount of plastic that is ending up in the sea. There was a recent article in the Telegraph about it - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017 ... turn-tide/ There’s also a film about it, “Plastic Ocean”, which I intend to watch - http://www.plasticoceans.org/film/

My sister lives on a boat and sails the seven seas, and she has often said how when they visit even the most remote island or shoreline, hundreds of miles from human habitation, the beaches are strewn with plastic crap like cigarette lighters, fishing floats, shampoo bottles etc.

It's extremely upsetting and depressing, and as third world countries `progress' to being consumer societies it's bound to get far worse. But whilst wringing my hands about it I realise that I'm a contributor to this hideous mess whenever I buy a plastic bottle of fruit squash or a ready meal.

I salve my conscience by optimistically putting the packaging into the recycle bin, but with no confidence at all that it will or even can be recycled, and a lurking suspicion that it will end up in landfill.

Realistically, I suspect most people will be like me. They may feel bad about using plastic packaging but there's often no practicable alternative so we carry on doing it, and the seas carry on getting polluted and we end up with plastic forming part of our bodies. Apparently young people contain twice as much as we baby boomers - another legacy they'll no doubt be grateful for!

I would support any measure that would make it easier to avoid adding to the problem, but I’d be fairly confident that nothing will happen without legislation. The moves to take out supermarket carrier bags have been spectacularly successful, but unfortunately all the voluntary schemes that preceded legislation made little or no impact. It's a sad fact of life that people will carry on doing harmful things until they're forced to stop.

It's probably not practicable just to ban the use of plastic in most cases, as there is often no good alternative. However, as the compulsory charge on carrier bags has proved, people will vote with their wallets, so I think maybe the way forward is to make it just too expensive to throw plastic away.

I'd start with plastic bottles, legislating firstly that they must all be made of material that can and must be recycled - none of this nonsense you see at present saying it "may be recyclable where appropriate facilities exist."

This would make it simpler for people to recycle, but in addition they need a financial incentive, and I'd therefore suggest a deposit on bottles that could be reclaimed on returning them for recycling. I can foresee some practical difficulties actually implementing such a scheme, but I'm sure that most of these could be overcome fairly easily. And if some people end up paying more because they won’t or can’t recycle then so be it – every new law creates winners and losers, but in this instance there would be far more winners.

Any views?

[didds]

Like you I vaguely despair but see no answers.

This isn't to knock your idea - for example - of deposits on plastic bottles.... But I just don;t see how it could work. You are on a long car journey. You buy a plastic bottle of water from a dual carriageway service station - which doesn;t have a suster service station on the other carriageway (quite typical IME)


Who gets to reimburse that deposit ? The original service station? If so you now not only have to be returning that way but also be traveling in the original direction. then again - how would any retailer know if they were the prigibal receiver of the deposit? Then the deposit needs to be a balance system of deposits received versus deposits paid CF VAT. But that now requires a whole new "accounting" system to be implemented, requiring a whole tranche of extra government (presumably) workers to implement and oversee it, and an extra burden on businesses to implement and process it all.

it just seems too complicated a system for this day and age.

didds

[vrdiver]

When I was a kid in the USA, we were able to earn pocket money taking glass bottles from houses back to the shops for (IIRC) about 5c each. I assume the glass bottles were then returned to the suppliers who cleaned them and re-used them. They would also have reimbursed the store keeper, or even paid over the 5c a bottle so as to provide an incentive for his inconvenience.

I suspect that government interference is the only way to reduce plastic usage. Putting a tax on plastic usage so every manufacturer would rethink their packaging. Perhaps that tax could then be used to sort recyclables properly or to invest in facilities like https://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2015/ ... that-work/

A further legal move to ban non-recyclable plastics, or to apply a manufacturing tax on them, would also help focus the supply side.

Banning 4-can plastic can holders, or at least legislating for biodegradable packaging (cardboard if all else fails) would also help. Of course, plastic is cheaper than card or paper, so there will be consequences to these changes, but it's up to the government to explain why "polluter pays" is important to the future generations, and that right now we don't enforce this principle.

In the meantime, I will continue to put my recyclables in the two (three if including garden waste) containers provided and hope my council is doing a proper job with them, despite all the wails of underfunding and cutbacks in local services...

VRD

[didds]

I also remember glass bottle deposits here uin the UK when I was young.

In retrospect I am guessing that there were in effect few such drinks providers overall so the deposit scheme worked as the retailers that took in bottles were dealing with the same wholesaler that the original retailer used. So the system worked within itself as the wholesaler/instigator just recycled the returned bottles by washing them and re-suing them.

I suppose eventually a similar system coul,d work - but stop at any service station or supermarket now and you have a vast plethora of manufaftuerers and drinks providers ... who won;t be washing them and reussing them, but somehow tiiring into a recycling system.

didds

[gryffron]

Deposits on drinks bottles are still common in the 3rd world.

IME local kids always willing to take the empties off you to go collect the few pennies deposit.

If Africa can do it, I don't see why it should be too difficult in the West.

And no, you don't have to take it back to the same shop. How would they know? Any trader selling the drinks also collects the empties.

Gryff

[tjh290633]

The big change from returnable bottles, with a refundable deposit, came when bottles underwent "lightweighting". Improvements in bottle making machinery and treatment of the bottles allowed the weight of the glass to be reduced dramatically, and this led to the bottles becoming suitable for a single use only. Our milk bottles delivered by the milkman remain the only surviving example of the returnable bottle, although they two are much lighter than 60 years or more ago. This led to the introduction of "bottle banks" where bottles could be disposed of by colour into containers at strategic locations. The objective was that the glass could be returned to the glassworks for remelting into new bottles, with a considerable saving in melting energy. The downside was that the number of glassworks declined, and it became impracticable to transport the glass back to suitable glassworks, except within a fairly short radius. Unfortunately green glass is much more prevalent than other colours, because of imported wine bottles. Also amber glass and clear glass have different chemistry, and are best kept separate. Some factories do not make green glass and some either amber of clear glass. A clear glass factory will not want either amber of green glass in its recycled glass. Green glass can accept any, but is a very low proportion of glass made in the UK.

This is when collecting of refuse for recycling at centralised plants began to be introduced. If the area was a long way from suitable glassworks, then an alternative was to reprocess the glass for use as aggregates or grinding medium. Consequently glass bottles do not present too much of a problem. It is plastic bottles and aluminium cans which are the concern here. Both are easily recycled from centarlised plants, and this, surely, is the better alternative than a complicated deposit scheme.

TJH

[Lootman]

When I was a kid in the USA, we were able to earn pocket money taking glass bottles from houses back to the shops for (IIRC) about 5c each. I assume the glass bottles were then returned to the suppliers who cleaned them and re-used them. They would also have reimbursed the store keeper, or even paid over the 5c a bottle so as to provide an incentive for his inconvenience.

That program still exists, but only for glass bottles, not plastic bottles. One effect of it is that homeless people invade your neighbourhood on rubbish collection day, raiding your bins in the middle of the night and making an unholy noise, whilst loading the glass bottles into a shopping trolley for a big payday when the recycling centre opens the next morning. The recycling centre that was closest to me had an active drug-selling market right outside of it, perhaps not totally surprisingly.

The recycling centres also paid for cardboard, and there were people driving around with a van stuffing all the cardboard into the back that would fit. Since it is bought by weight the trick, apparently, is to soak your cardboard in water with a hose, to increase its weight.

Be careful what you wish for.

[Clitheroekid]

One effect of it is that homeless people invade your neighbourhood on rubbish collection day, raiding your bins in the middle of the night and making an unholy noise, whilst loading the glass bottles into a shopping trolley for a big payday when the recycling centre opens the next morning. The recycling centre that was closest to me had an active drug-selling market right outside of it, perhaps not totally surprisingly.

Be careful what you wish for.

Thanks for the warning, but I hardly think that making it compulsory to recycle plastic bottles will result in such dystopian scenes on the streets of Britain.

[Lootman]

One effect of it is that homeless people invade your neighbourhood on rubbish collection day, raiding your bins in the middle of the night and making an unholy noise, whilst loading the glass bottles into a shopping trolley for a big payday when the recycling centre opens the next morning. The recycling centre that was closest to me had an active drug-selling market right outside of it, perhaps not totally surprisingly.

Be careful what you wish for.

Thanks for the warning, but I hardly think that making it compulsory to recycle plastic bottles will result in such dystopian scenes on the streets of Britain.

You may be right, at least in the sylvan, riparian, delightful Ribble Valley where you (presumably) dwell. In Inner London? Not so sure.

But that said, plastic bottles are recycled in at least some US states, and without a problem as far as I know, because no payment is involved.

There are a number of different types of plastics and, in my experience of this, they have to be sorted separately, and some types were not recyclable at all. I suspect that many households would not very be diligent about that. It can be quite complicated, see here:

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/2 ... -Recycling

[redsturgeon]

Plastic in our oceans is indeed a real and worrisome phenomenon.

The great gyre seems to be the ultimate destination for much of it...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pac ... bage_patch

followed by its inclusion into marine life of all types with who knows what ultimate consequence.

It is possible to live garbage free though as some people are doing:

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-16168/i- ... -like.html

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-24636/a- ... s-how.html

I know I am not committed enough to go that far but it does show what is possible.

John

[escalader]

Where I live, we just put all our recyclables in one bin and they get sorted (I presume!) at the other end.

Maybe a partial solution is to ensure that all plastics that could end up in the oceans are bio- or photo-degradable.

Escalader

[TopOnePercent]

It would be better if much of the plastic packaging was not created in the first place. Marketing departments won't make that move unless legislation forces them to, and while I'm not generally in favour of ever more legislation, having witnessed plastic pollution in the oceans first hand, I'd readily vote for such moves.

The only alternative I can see is to incinerate what is not being recycled such that it can't reach the ocean. We'd at least recover some energy from the plastic prior to disposal, and could used that for heating homes. Scandinavia has many such small scale local incinerators that produce heating for homes, and they work well.

[Lootman]

Scandinavia has many such small scale local incinerators that produce heating for homes, and they work well.

Yeah but, as with global warming, the issue is not what some cute, affluent, liberal Scandinavian nation with 5 million people does. But rather what the three billion plus people in Asia do, and they seem determined to catch up with the West, whatever that takes, and whatever the cost to the environment and the planet.

The depressed cynic in me doesn't believe we can reverse such trends. My focus, solipsistically perhaps, is to try and minimise their impact on me and mine, rather than delude myself that we can all be saved via some glorious global initiative.

[TopOnePercent]

Scandinavia has many such small scale local incinerators that produce heating for homes, and they work well.

Yeah but, as with global warming, the issue is not what some cute, affluent, liberal Scandinavian nation with 5 million people does. But rather what the three billion plus people in Asia do, and they seem determined to catch up with the West, whatever that takes, and whatever the cost to the environment and the planet.

The depressed cynic in me doesn't believe we can reverse such trends. My focus, solipsistically perhaps, is to try and minimise their impact on me and mine, rather than delude myself that we can all be saved via some glorious global initiative.

I agree completely. I would suggest though, that once the marketing industry adjusted to less packaging, those eyeing up what we have would quite possibly willingly follow suit. I don't believe in AGW, or Santa Claus, but plastic in the oceans is actually a problem, and one that isn't the least bit difficult to address.

[tjh290633]

There are a number of different types of plastics and, in my experience of this, they have to be sorted separately, and some types were not recyclable at all. I suspect that many households would not very be diligent about that. It can be quite complicated, see here:

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/2 ... -Recycling

No, they don't have to be segregated to be reused. My understanding is that they can be used for moulding into pallets, or spun into fibre for jacket insulation. Our co-mixed recycling collection takes any of the plastics which are marked as recyclable. They will not take expanded polystyrene. Most containers are taken regardless of colour.

Whereas glass milk bottles can be sterilised for reuse, you cannot do that with plastics bottles. They would need to be ground down and remelted to be blown into new sterile bottles.

TJH

[Clitheroekid]

There are a number of different types of plastics and, in my experience of this, they have to be sorted separately, and some types were not recyclable at all. I suspect that many households would not very be diligent about that. It can be quite complicated, see here:

That's why I said:

I'd start with plastic bottles, legislating firstly that they must all be made of material that can and must be recycled - none of this nonsense you see at present saying it "may be recyclable where appropriate facilities exist."

[Clitheroekid]

More of the same: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02 ... h-beaches/

[9873210]

Plastic in the ocean is not a recycling problem, it is a littering problem. Plastic that ends up in well designed, well sited landfill will mostly stay there for very long periods of time. Recycling is better than landfills for other reasons, but a bottle in a landfill is as much not in the ocean, as a bottle that is reused or recycled.

If you want to make a difference don't litter. Make more of a difference by picking up litter and disposing of it properly. And (my pet peeve) keep the recycling bin and rubbish undercover and weighed down when gale force winds are predicted.

If you want to know how deposits could work, many American states have had mandatory deposits for some bottles for decades. These are not perfect, but they do overcome all the trivial objections noted in this thread. No need to reinvent the wheel when you can plagiarize do research. (Google New York or California bottle bill, other states have bottle bills, but there is more literature from the large states.).

[colin]

Apparently there is some kind of moth larvae that can eat the stuff, this thing is supposed to have evolved to eat the honeycomb wax from bee hives but can survive on plastic?!!

[UncleEbenezer]

If you want to know how deposits could work, many American states have had mandatory deposits for some bottles for decades.

As do European countries. Back in my childhood I became so accustomed to it I got mildly cross at there being no such deposits in Blighty.