« Previous topic | Next topic »  
Topic Locked  
 First unread post  | 69 posts | 
by E.J. Peiker on Sat Jan 23, 2016 1:51 pm
User avatar
E.J. Peiker
Senior Technical Editor
Posts: 86761
Joined: 16 Aug 2003
Location: Arizona
Member #:00002
Mike in O wrote:The Pacific is huge with a lot of countries bordering it (many 3rd world) and ships no matter how big are just tiny.  The only cure is to stop it from entering the ocean.  A lot of money is too be made off of garbage disposal (Hawaii sends its garbage to Oregon) but the problem only gets addressed when it disrupts someone's beach walk.  Japan, unsolicited, sent money for Oregon beach cleanup from the Tsunami event knowing that is what people care about.
Of course it needs to be stopped but that doesn't resolve the dump that's there.  Yes ships are tiny but they can make a dent over time.  Doing nothing is much tinier.  I've been on Midway, it's atrocious.
Topic Locked  

by neverspook on Sat Jan 23, 2016 2:46 pm
neverspook
Forum Contributor
Posts: 1228
Joined: 14 Jan 2006
First and foremost, we have stop using so much single use plastic! There are so many simple things in this regard that are just not being done. Why aren't plastic groceries bags (one of the most frequently found items of plastic in the ocean) just outright banned? If Rwanda can do it, surely North America can, too. (When you enter Rwanda, the customs people ask you if you have any plastic to declare, they are that serious about it. And they have cleaned up Kigali in just a short time this way.)

And we need to make the plastic we do use more easily recyclable or truly compostable and biodegradable. Not everything claiming to be compostable/biodegradable really is and such claims are not well regulated. And don't be fooled by plastic made from plants. It is perfectly possible to make plastic from plants that is not any more compostable/biodegradable that plastic derived from fossil fuels. What makes plastic non-degradable is the strength of the chemical bonds, not the source materials it is made from.

And we need to prevent what is not recycled, burned for energy etc from entering the environment. This is key.

Manufacturers of plastic and companies using it in packagaing need to be held more responsible cradle to grave for their products. If they had to pay at least some of the cost of plastic clean up, recycling, disposal etc, you can be sure they would use a lot less plastic in packaging, set up means to collect it after use etc.This is starting to happen in some places, but not much in North America.

It would be awesome if Musk or Gates put their minds and money behind a solution for cleaning up what plastic is already in the ocean. A 20-year old Dutch guy, Boyan Slat, has devised an ingenious passive method for collecting huge amounts of marine plastic by using ocean currents in the gyres to bring the plastic to his collector rather than deploying a zillion ships that chase after the plastic. Some plankton might get caught in his device unfortunately, along with the plastic, though that might also be the case with ships using nets, which are much less energy efficient that Slat's idea. Slat hopes to deploy his first collector in the next year or so. Hope it works.

Here are a couple links about Slat's idea.
http://ecowatch.com/2015/06/02/boyan-sl ... n-plastic/
http://ecowatch.com/2015/09/03/rid-ocean-of-plastic/

He also has an interesting TedX talk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROW9F-c0kIQ

We need more people addressing this problem in innovative ways.And we need everyone to stop using plastic as much as they possibly can!

Roberta Olenick
www.neverspook.com
Topic Locked  

by E.J. Peiker on Sat Jan 23, 2016 3:09 pm
User avatar
E.J. Peiker
Senior Technical Editor
Posts: 86761
Joined: 16 Aug 2003
Location: Arizona
Member #:00002
Very cool, I was just using the retasking of oil tankers as an idea for better use of all of those ships - and there are a zillion of them, most of them being used as storage at the moment on the high seas due to the massive amount of overproducing of crude right now.
Topic Locked  

by SantaFeJoe on Sat Jan 23, 2016 4:47 pm
User avatar
SantaFeJoe
Forum Contributor
Posts: 8622
Joined: 28 Jan 2012
Location: Somewhere Out In The Wilds
E.J. Peiker wrote:
Mike in O wrote:The Pacific is huge with a lot of countries bordering it (many 3rd world) and ships no matter how big are just tiny.  The only cure is to stop it from entering the ocean.  A lot of money is too be made off of garbage disposal (Hawaii sends its garbage to Oregon) but the problem only gets addressed when it disrupts someone's beach walk.  Japan, unsolicited, sent money for Oregon beach cleanup from the Tsunami event knowing that is what people care about.
Of course it needs to be stopped but that doesn't resolve the dump that's there.  Yes ships are tiny but they can make a dent over time.  Doing nothing is much tinier.  I've been on Midway, it's atrocious.
E.J., you are much more optimistic than I am on this subject! Yes, the larger plastic can and must be recovered and disposed of. What concerns me is the microplastic beads and broken down plastic that can never be recovered from the oceans, yet it will, and already has, entered the food chain. The oceans are way to large and voluminous to be thoroughly cleaned. You are right when you say that "Doing nothing is much tinier.", but will we ever be able to make a dent in the problem? I just can't see it happening! With climate change, the volume of the ocean is increasing drastically. Maybe it will dilute the ocean water, but will it cause the pollution to spread even more? I'm far more pessimistic, but I'm wanting to be realistic at the same time. What annoys me is the fact that you can drive down any road anywhere and you are likely to see empty plastic containers littering the right of way. I see them floating down ditches and rivers in many places. If we can't stop the mentality that "One plastic bottle will not hurt anything", we will only be taking one step forward and two steps back. We must stop the initial cause of a major part of our plastic problem!!! Littering and improper disposal!!!

Joe
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.  -Pablo Picasso
Topic Locked  

by E.J. Peiker on Sat Jan 23, 2016 10:45 pm
User avatar
E.J. Peiker
Senior Technical Editor
Posts: 86761
Joined: 16 Aug 2003
Location: Arizona
Member #:00002
Agreed but by eliminating the larger stuff you are also reducing the addition of tons of little stuff as it falls apart over time.  I'm not saying what i wrote solves the problem but it surely would make a huge dent to figure out a way to eliminate the Pacific Garbage Patch and the several others like it in the world.  This is something that could be done if the proper resources were brought to bear.  It is infinitely better than doing nothing about it.  You have to start somewhere - the world isn't an ideal place and if we wait for perfect solutions, we will never end up doing anything.
Topic Locked  

by Larry Shuman on Mon Jan 25, 2016 6:45 am
Larry Shuman
Forum Contributor
Posts: 460
Joined: 25 Nov 2009
In 2013 I drove out to Magee Marsh in early April to photograph nesting eagles. On a walk over to the Lake Erie beach I was shocked at seeing the plastic litter left there by the ice fisherman. All manner of plastic including a full liter bottle of Coke. Was not opened, red label was faded. I watched two border patrol officers walk the beach past a 5 gal bucket and never pick up anything and put in the bucket. I have found fish line, balloons, and all sorts of plastic. We have ground nesting birds there so how does this mess effect them? When I was set up and there wasn't any eagle action I began picking my area which was enlarging as picked up more. I called Ohio's head wildlife officer and suggested $75.00 entrance for the ice fishermen. Upon exiting they would return their trash bag and get $50.00 returned to them. I was told they cannot do that. He told me the birders in May litter just as much. That's a bald faced lie. I'm out there beginning in March and I have never seen it as bad as when the ice fishermen left it in 2013.

Larry
Topic Locked  

by Blck-shouldered Kite on Mon Jan 25, 2016 10:46 am
Blck-shouldered Kite
Forum Contributor
Posts: 2669
Joined: 31 Dec 2010
Location: Maine
E.J. Peiker wrote:Agreed but by eliminating the larger stuff you are also reducing the addition of tons of little stuff as it falls apart over time.  I'm not saying what i wrote solves the problem but it surely would make a huge dent to figure out a way to eliminate the Pacific Garbage Patch and the several others like it in the world.  This is something that could be done if the proper resources were brought to bear.  It is infinitely better than doing nothing about it.  You have to start somewhere - the world isn't an ideal place and if we wait for perfect solutions, we will never end up doing anything.
This is just about the way we need to think!  

Starting at the bottom, I have been in natural resource management my whole life.  

One conclusion I have arrived at is that Litter causes more litter.

The worst option is to just leave it there....to do nothing at all. 



 


Last edited by Blck-shouldered Kite on Mon Jan 25, 2016 8:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Topic Locked  

by Blck-shouldered Kite on Mon Jan 25, 2016 11:47 am
Blck-shouldered Kite
Forum Contributor
Posts: 2669
Joined: 31 Dec 2010
Location: Maine
............"If we can't stop the mentality that "One plastic bottle will not hurt anything", we will only be taking one step forward and two steps back. We must stop the initial cause of a major part of our plastic problem!!! Littering and improper disposal!!!"

Exactly !

Here in Maine we've had a returnable bottle law for probably the last 40 years.  Regarding this, I think we followed Oregon's lead back then.  Store owners fought it, but in the end, it went into law. :D  You do NOT find much trash at all along Maine roadways and no bottles at all....none!....zero!   I love that.  It has been so long since the bottle law began that I have forgotten what it was like before.

Here in the City of Portland, we recycle much of what we have.  Or let's say that we can if we choose to. The city charges about $15 per Blue Bin, a 30" X 30" X 24" plastic carton, which takes years to begin to show signs of breaking.  You may choose to fill your blue bin with recyclables or not.  After the one-time $15 charge, there is no charge for recycling...until the bin totally falls apart.  Then you buy a new one.  But they do charge about $10 for a package of 5  blue bags that you must put your trash into (or they will not pick up your trash).  Once per week the city comes by your residence and picks up the blue bag(s) for incineration and empties the blue bins into a truck designed to separate the different resource materials.

This summer Portland passed two more litter ordinances.  They were meant to clean up the two categories of litter that continued to some extent, even after the bottle law and recycling.  These were the plastic bags that grocers bag your food in and styrofoam cups.  They get away in the wind and build up as litter.  

So styrofoam is banned in Portland now.  And so be it!  Again, I love it.  All coffee cups in Portland are now made of paper again.  And if you forget to bring your reusable grocery bag to the store, you get charged a mandatory nickel for each plastic bag.  Again, store owners didn't like it...... but too bad.  

I love it!

I guess it is safe to say that there are just two places in Portland Maine where litter can be a problem (and not always) -  bus stops and where railroad tracks intersect roadways.  The former I understand; the latter I do not.  Oh, there is one more place.  Along the roadway that approaches the public recycling facility, people are constantly losing material off their trucks or trailers and this road has a lot of litter.  

I live about 1/2 mile from here and once saw roof shingles flying off a guy's trailer several cars in front of me.  This was in the neighborhood where I grew up from a little boy.    So...NOPE!....I was not letting this happen.   I followed the guy right to the recycling plant and confronted him.  He assured me he would go back and pick up the stuff.  I said yes, I know you will, because I am going back and watching you.  If you do not, I am calling the cops.  I was as angry as a yellow jacket.    Don't kid me....these people know that their crap is flying off their vehicles as they go to the recycling facility.  They do not care just as long as it is not making a mess of their surroundings.  He picked it up alright ! 

Honestly, I must say that most cities I have passed through in my life, look littered compared to Portland Maine.  Sorry to sound like I am gloating;  that is not my intent....but like it or not, that is just the way it is.  It takes people who are determined to stop litter, pass the ordinances that force the hand and following through on things.  Portland's City Council has done a good job with respect to preventing litter.  No, you do not see cops writing up people for littering.  I can only guess that this is because of what Joe and I pointed out; i.e. the place is clean in the first place.  So if you start dropping wrappers around and litter starts building up around your store.....it will look like a mess, because everyplace else does not look messy.

Again:  Litter causes litter.

Just thought of an exception to my statement about most other cities looking littered:  Santa Fe New Mexico, like Portland Maine..... is another clean city :)  

Florida is another story: 



 


Last edited by Blck-shouldered Kite on Mon Jan 25, 2016 8:34 pm, edited 7 times in total.
Topic Locked  

by Blck-shouldered Kite on Mon Jan 25, 2016 7:54 pm
Blck-shouldered Kite
Forum Contributor
Posts: 2669
Joined: 31 Dec 2010
Location: Maine
Florida Litter

The only other places I have lived numerous years in are Florida and Georgia.  Hate to say this because my best friend is also a Wildlife Biologist and a southerner:  But the south is largely a litter mess....dumpy. :(   Oh yes it is.  Those states need laws similar to what Maine has.  If I am wrong about any one of the Sates down there, please let me know because I would love to retract my statement.  

From what I have seen, people have made a huge mess of Florida....especially south Florida.  Are there any litter laws there at all?  The public boat ramps I have seen are dumps (even furniture!).   Young people walk out of stores, unwrap their item and drop the wrapper on the ground.  That burns my butt.  But I have never seen a cop write up anyone for littering.  

This fits right into Joe's statement; i.e. If you are not going to make an issue out of that first bottle or other litter that someone drops.....how do you expect to stop the rest of it ?
Topic Locked  

Display posts from previous:  Sort by:  
69 posts | 
  

Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group