Plastic pollution in our seas

[Robert Tilbury]

Somewhere in the Caribbean: ...
and they are surprised when someone call their country a "shithole".
That's still nicely worded.
They can not even organize their waste and throw all the plastic into the river.
Were do they think this rubbish ends up ?
Yes in the water you and i sail in ,

[Robert Tilbury]

Originally Posted by P3sailor

Let's face it, generally speaking, humans are pigs and basically lazy! No news flash there. You see it everywhere, along the roads, some peoples property, in the harbors and ditches and yes, in the sea...Trash! Much of this trash is in the form of plastic, from your little 12oz water bottles to trash bags.
We're all to blame by not pressuring government to restrict or ban the use of many of these products and that's mainly because we all use them, kind of like automobiles, which kill or maim more people per year than any disease known to man. Nothing is done because we use or depend on these products daily.
How many "sailors" actually hold on to all of their trash during a passage? I'm guessing some do or make an effort to do so but you can only accumulate so much before that decision to "unload" has to be made. I sailed with a well-educated professional person for three months. While I made every effort to contain our trash it would eventually disappear whenever that person was on watch. Hmmmm
The train of thought here is "Out of sight, out of mind!"

we have a RV we spend 8 or so weekends in her when we want to see inland ,
When we stop we make sure to stick the gloves on and pick up the rubbish others leave ,,,
Leave it better than you find it !

the dirty people that will leave the garbage around when they leave are the same that winge about getting locked out of parks ,,,,
Shame but thats people hey ,,,,

[Uncle Bob]

Originally Posted by patprice

You forgot to mention anchors and anchoring....

Damn, you'r right! OK should I use a plastic anchor when anchoring the floating plastic in the pacific gyre, and further, would nylon rode be preferable to a plastic one ?

[IslandHopper]

Originally Posted by Pete7

Here is another that could take off if the demand increases and the price subsequently falls.

Cardiff Dad renovates 45-year-old milk float due to demand | Daily Mail Online

Milk delivered in glass bottles??? what a stupid idea, never catch on

[TrentePieds]

Yeah, the man must be out to lunch. Them floats wuz electric. Stupid idea!

TP

[Frugal]

While traversing Manila Bay some years ago I was forced to go overboard three times to clear the prop. People were building shacks on the pile of refuse collecting next to the Yacht club. The cause of all the garbage was the city residents using their waterways as a garbage dump and trusting the next Typhoon would flush their toilet / rubbish bin.
Also Nuka'alofa and Tonga in general shouldn't have concerns about the rising sea levels as their accumulation of garbage is raising their land form at a faster rate.

[MarkusK]

The problem is apathy. It’s everywhere. Friends, neighbors, co-workers, government. I can’t fix this. What I can do is lead by example:

1- At home: we have excellent recycling programs in place including compost…I have almost no trash. I also walk around the neighborhood and pick up metal (BBQ’s, tire rims, furniture, mowers, sports equipment, etc) that is being thrown out which I sell to the scrap yard.

2- At work: paper was recycled by the document shredding company, but no blue bins for plastic or glass so I had one in my office…which I would take HOME! I also collected the coffee grounds from the coffee machine for compost.

3- At play: I will pick up cans and bottles when out cycling. Sadly, the saddlebags can get full.

What have you done?

[Nikki S]

Originally Posted by boatman61

when I was young my parents only bought us new clothes twice a year. For the most parts we wore ‘hand-me-downs’ from our older cousins. There was no shame in that – it was the done thing.
The heady days of consumerism may be a thing of the past. But the future can only be truly sustainable if every part of the recycling chain wants to participate – willingly.

"new clothes only twice a year?......the heady days of consumerism a thing of the past?" Are you kidding. I have bought my 13 year old new clothes only twice in his life....and that was probably because i couldn't find a second hand school uniform that fit in time for school to start. my point is not to blow my my own bugel, (I like everyone in my town contribute to the problem because we are powerless to stop buying even our groceries packaged in plastics), but to point out that consumerism is not a thing of the past; That we are billions of people with very differing realities, views about what constitutes a lot of stuff, a lot of waste, and very different circumstances..... wish i had an ingenious solution

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by TrentePieds

Yeh, Dear Old Pete Seeger had a song about that. But who's paying attention to old geezers like that, eh?

TP

Evidently, more than one of us.

“... Garbage (garbage, garbage, garbage) Garbage!
We're filling up the sea with garbage (garbage...)
What will we do when there's no place left
To put all the garbage? (garbage...) ...”

➥ Garbage Lyrics by Pete Seeger - Lyrics On Demand

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX14qeHlVj4

[TrentePieds]

Thanx Gordon :-) Seeger was a man ahead of his time in so many respects.

What was in my mind was this:

If it can't be reduced
Reused, repaired
Rebuilt, refurbished, refinished, resold, recycled or composted
Then it should be
Restricted, redesigned
Or removed
From production

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Marketplace show recently stated that the average Canadian adult buys SEVENTY "fast fashion" garments A MONTH! And that only 1% of ALL discarded textiles are recyclable in the sense Seeger means in the above lyrics. 70%, claims Marketplace, of articles placed in "recycling" receptacles in retail outlets, for what Marketplace calls the purpose of "green-washing", are exported to "third world countries", and that in Kenya, for one such, 40% of all discarded textiles, shipped there by "recyclers" in the employ of these "green-washing" retail organizations, are dumped in landfills because they are surplus to demand!

We must treat statistics with caution, of course, but bearing Auntie CBC's clearly enunciated mandate in mind, while allowing for the fact that she does survive mainly on advertising revenues, I think it is reasonable to take these numbers as being close to the mark.

But I'll be in Fiddler's Green before the balloon really goes up, as it will, so I can afford to be like Alfred E. Neuman, eh :-)?

TP

[1Sunseeker]

OK, we all agree there is a pollution problem, everywhere. Right! Now we as stewards of our waters need to help get them clean. Stopping plastic production will not help what's out there. How can we get it cleaned up?


On an earlier post I suggested having those incarcerated work from barges and with scoop nets. Let them earn their rice and beans. The old chain gang approach, But some one rightly pointed out that there are good critters living in that garbage. So how do we get out the bad but leave the good? I go back to my barge and scoop nets and I would add a low pressure hosing off as the garbage comes up. We would lose some bad and some good but maybe better than nothing. So a few more (volunteers?) stand there and lose things down. Workable? Needs modification I am sure. It may only be a day job but we have to start somewhere. This idea provides some jobs for the barges and crew, cheap help to clean up, outdoor exercise for all, a sense of accomplishment. Suntans? Perhaps not the only way to clean the waters up but it would be a start. Thanks for you attention, comments appreciated. 1Sunseeker

[Paul Elliott]

Originally Posted by 1Sunseeker

On an earlier post I suggested having those incarcerated work from barges and with scoop nets.

You must be thinking of coastal and bay debris, right? Here's what the north pacific gyre looks like:

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Evidently, more than one of us.

“... Garbage (garbage, garbage, garbage) Garbage!
We're filling up the sea with garbage (garbage...)
What will we do when there's no place left
To put all the garbage? (garbage...) ...”

➥ Garbage Lyrics by Pete Seeger - Lyrics On Demand

Thanks! Gord May.
I can remember when garbage scows bottoms opened to dump their load. The Hudson Channel still has a dead zone beyond Sandy Hook.

[jimbunyard]

Originally Posted by P3sailor

Let's face it, generally speaking, humans are pigs and basically lazy! No news flash there. You see it everywhere, along the roads, some peoples property, in the harbors and ditches and yes, in the sea...Trash! Much of this trash is in the form of plastic, from your little 12oz water bottles to trash bags.
We're all to blame by not pressuring government to restrict or ban the use of many of these products and that's mainly because we all use them, kind of like automobiles, which kill or maim more people per year than any disease known to man. Nothing is done because we use or depend on these products daily.
How many "sailors" actually hold on to all of their trash during a passage? I'm guessing some do or make an effort to do so but you can only accumulate so much before that decision to "unload" has to be made. I sailed with a well-educated professional person for three months. While I made every effort to contain our trash it would eventually disappear whenever that person was on watch. Hmmmm
The train of thought here is "Out of sight, out of mind!"

Doubt many (any?) here will like it, but this guy has a solution, or the beginnings of one...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVPz7uXLZtI

[TrentePieds]

Well - since you are asking for comments :-): No, we are NOT all agreed that "stopping plastic production will not help what's out there."

Cleaning up "out there" is a Sisyphean task UNLESS production is stopped. The two must go hand in hand since we are producing and discarding the stuff faster than any conceivable amount of voluntarily employed or conscripted labour could possibly retrieve it. No amount of collection, in and of itself, will dispose of the stuff in any ultimate sense, since the collectors must obviously hand the stuff on "for further processing". And since the stuff is essentially indestructible, there'd be no end to that chain. Collecting on its own, without cessation of production, is, therefore, an oozly-woozly bird.

You are, I'm sure, as familiar with exponential equations as I am. When I was born, the total world population was something like 2.3 billion. It is now something like 7.6B and in as many years from now, as I have now lived, i.e. in my granddaughter's expected lifetime, it is projected to go to 11.6B! Every one of these people will be striving for the sort of standard of living, including "consumption" of plastics with concomitant discarding of them, that North Americans have taken for granted for the last three score years but are now losing for reasons of which the production of plastics is no more than ONE symptom.

Ergo, the cessation of production of plastics AND the cessation of the production of PEOPLE is an urgent requirement if it is desired that any kind of civilization should be maintained. Indeed, a REDUCTION in population would be desirable, and as you will recall we have striven mightily for many, many years to effect precisely that by one of the three commonly available means: 1) We can give a war. Experience shows that even the most deranged of hegemonically inclined warlords get nowhere along that route. 2) We can call for volunteers, and when the uptake proves to be slight, as it always has done when this method has been tried, we can "volunteer" you, you and you, the selection criteria being determined by the cultural ghosts of the selection committee. We've done that throughout the world throughout history, and the method has proved ineffective. 3) we can rely on an "act of God". The Good Lord, whoever or whatever he may be, has been no more effective than H.sapiens in that regard.

Since the REAL problem is a death rate insufficient to counter a birthrate achieved courtesy of Flo Nightingale and Joe Lister, with all the consequences that that bears with it, it is probably time to try the TrentePieds Green Stamp Method of Birth Control :-)

TP