Message In A Bottle: Litter?

[Gadagirl]

Thanks Coop!

[Gadagirl]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

the question not whether it made me think, it is more what it made me think of

Pa leeze don't share! Keep your demons to your own self!

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by Gadagirl

Are the Dead Sea scrolls considered litter? Paper notes rolled up and left in a pristine cave!

Are petroglyphs graffiti? Perhaps yes.

Is a letter in a bottle environmentally harmful? Some littler is (turtles eat it, get tangled etc.), but much is simply visual offending modern sensibilities.

Litter probably. But if it washes up on a beach where a small child finds it (my daughter found one like that when she was ~ 6 left by a coastal sailor) it is also great fun.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by thinwater

Is a letter in a bottle environmentally harmful? Some littler is (turtles eat it, get tangled etc.)

How about leaving some booze in the bottle?

Litter or just sharing?

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by smj

I voted yes. Let's try a different angle. Would throwing a bottle overboard without a message be littering? Legally and morally I would hope most would say yes? In the end they both have the same environmental impact.

Which is what exactly?

[martinworswick]

i occasionally take my boys geocaching,i'm not sure i'd want to hear peoples opinion on that!

[valhalla360]

"The solution to polution is dilution."

That used to be an eco-friendly slogan and while it's no longer PC, there is a lot of truth to it. Find a single bottle washed up with a note in it and it's cool. 10,000 bottles washed up is trash.

Mostly though I've got bigger things to worry abou than the stray glass bottle floating around the ocean.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

No puppies allowed

Arf, arf!

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by martinworswick

i occasionally take my boys geocaching,i'm not sure i'd want to hear peoples opinion on that!

As long as you used glass containers rather than plastic then you would have no negative environmental impact. Glass is after all just melted silica (naturally occurring) with a few other benign additives (unlike plastics).

[belizesailor]

My vote (can't use polls from mobile app)

Yes, tossing a message in a glass bottle is legalistically "litter", but does zero environmental harm so I am OK with the practice.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

"The solution to polution is dilution."

That used to be an eco-friendly slogan and while it's no longer PC, there is a lot of truth to it. Find a single bottle washed up with a note in it and it's cool. 10,000 bottles washed up is trash.

Mostly though I've got bigger things to worry abou than the stray glass bottle floating around the ocean.

Never seen it as an environemtal slogan, and would not be conformatble with it for all environmental situations (need to dump 1,000 gallons of benzine? Why not, its a big ocean), but it is a handy first aid teaching phrase.

[leftbrainstuff]

I'd rather a message in a bottle than cigarette buts or plastic that injures wildlife.

Strictly speaking a message in a bottle is litter. But that's just being pedantic.

Is a carving in a tree grafitti? Sure. But when its by an explorer 200 hundred years ago it's also history.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[IdoraKeeper]

It seems to me that where you are and what water you sail in might have an effect on what you think. Highly populated areas with restricted areas of water ( Chesapeake, Puget Sound, Boston Harbor) confine and aggregate trash. It amplifies the perception of pollution. Never mind the fact that most pollution comes from runoff from land based entities. The cost of mitigating pollution originating from land is more than society has been willing to pay. Its easy to put the onus on boats, we are a minority. Throwing things in the water is littering but should not be confused with the actual problem.

[smj]

Originally Posted by leftbrainstuff

I'd rather a message in a bottle than cigarette buts or plastic that injures wildlife.

Strictly speaking a message in a bottle is litter. But that's just being pedantic.

Is a carving in a tree grafitti? Sure. But when its by an explorer 200 hundred years ago it's also history.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

Birds and marine animals have been found dead with punctured stomachs from eating glass. Probably hundreds of thousands of people cut their feet on glass bottles on the beach every year. But as long as theirs a message, or was a message in the bottle it's ok.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by smj

Birds and marine animals have been found dead with punctured stomachs from eating glass. Probably hundreds of thousands of people cut their feet on glass bottles on the beach every year. But as long as theirs a message, or was a message in the bottle it's ok.

Never heard of nor seen evidence of marine critters eating glass, problems with plastics I've seen first hand many times. Got a reference for the glass eating issue?