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That article helped me to unerstand it a bit better now. This is devastating for marine wildlife.
I have NEVER been able to understand how so much plastic ends up in the oceans anyway! The secret is not charging 5p (in UK anyway)for a carrier bag at the supermarket or banning bags. The secret is doing the right thing with them once we have them! For some unknown reason the 5p carrier bag charge is having NO effect on what is being tipped into the oceans! What is going on? How is so much garbage ending up in the water?
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I don't think charging for the bags has helped. People feel that once they have paid for a bag they can dispose of it any way they want.
I don't know what would help. People do not take the problem seriously. They routinely toss plastic garbage anywhere they want. The flush all kinds of weird things into out water system. They just don't see the connection between their actions and serious ocean problems.
I wonder if they will see a connection when they develop health issues from plastic they have ingested from the bodies of fish they are eating.
It is really an emergency, but people are not reacting. They want to think that pollution is someone else's problem or it doesn't really exist anyhow. If the oceans die we will wish we had done something better.
Catherine
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11-14-2016, 03:28 AM
(This post was last modified: 11-14-2016, 04:59 AM by LPC.
Edit Reason: Tobi, FYI I just deleted an identical post to the one below (double post). You can delete this edit comment once you have seen it.
)
Yes I have seen litter just tossed out of cars etc, and some of it ends up in streams and rivers. But more of it stays in hedgerows and grass verges (unless someone picks it up) Where I live I often walk along the river, and occasionally do see something floating in the water that shouldn't be there. But it's fairly rare.
But for THAT amount of plastic to be ending up in the oceans there has to be something else going on surely -on a larger scale?
I am surprised that sewage treatment systems don't filter plastic out, or anything flushed down the toilet. It seems that whatever goes into drains is going straight into the ocean. Now why?
One problem was those micro-beads which go into facial scrubs and body scrubs. We hardly notice them and they get washed into the drains. They have been recognised as terrible polluters. Most beauty manufacturers are now having to use something else.
(There never was anything wrong with oatmeal for a facial or body scrub!) Cheap, effective, healthier and not dangerous!
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11-14-2016, 05:08 AM
(This post was last modified: 11-14-2016, 05:12 AM by LPC.)
Incineration is not an ideal solution, but here in many parts of France rubbish is burnt (including plastics not suitable for recycling) in incineration plants. This is used to create electricity. Filters are fitted on the chimneys to trap any fumes.
The real answer is to stop issuing non-recyclable plastics. In France, the old-style flimsy, non-recyclable bags have been banned for many years and cannot be bought in supermarkets. People must either bring their own bags, or else pay a sizeable sum for a sturdy, reuseable bag. I'm not sure of the cost these days: maybe a euro or two. The carrot is that when a bag is too old to be used any more, the supermarkets will replace it free of charge - if the old one is brought back to the store. That system seems to work. I don't know why the supermarkets in the UK can't do the same thing.
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That sounds like a good system LPC.
The problem is as you say -many plastics are manufactured which aren't recyclable. And that shouldn't be happening.