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by Mike in O on Sun Oct 19, 2014 12:38 pm
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There are ways to make plastic bio degradable such as making them dissolve when exposed to UV light...why aren't more of these solutions being used? (maybe not in new airplane bodies or Nikon 750 cameras)
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by SantaFeJoe on Sun Oct 19, 2014 2:10 pm
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Mike in O wrote:There are ways to make plastic bio degradable such as making them dissolve when exposed to UV light...why aren't more of these solutions being used?  (maybe not in new airplane bodies or Nikon 750 cameras)
It still breaks down and goes into the environment. Roberta (neverspook) wrote a bit about about recycling problems and other ways plastic can enter into the food chain earlier in this thread. It's nasty stuff!

Joe
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by SantaFeJoe on Sat Nov 08, 2014 3:40 pm
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Here's another link to show how plastic pollution affects the earth and wildlife. The photos say more than words:

https://www.google.com/search?q=plastic ... 20&bih=979

Joe
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by neverspook on Sat Nov 08, 2014 4:13 pm
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SantaFeJoe wrote:
Mike in O wrote:There are ways to make plastic bio degradable such as making them dissolve when exposed to UV light...why aren't more of these solutions being used?  (maybe not in new airplane bodies or Nikon 750 cameras)
It still breaks down and goes into the environment. Roberta (neverspook) wrote a bit about about recycling problems and other ways plastic can enter into the food chain earlier in this thread. It's nasty stuff!

Joe

For some reason I missed these posts until now. So sorry for the tardiness of my input.

My understanding of biodegradable plastic is as follows. What makes plastic so durable and non-biodegradable is that it is manufactured so the chemical bonds between the molecules are very strong. So normal biological processes don't break it down. All plastic will PHOTOdegrade (which is different from BIOdegrading) in UV light but as Joe says, then you just get a zillion bits of plastic out there entering the food chain.

Biodegradable plastic has weaker bonds but in very many cases is largely greenwash as discussed in the links below and no doubt many others.
.
http://www.sustainableplastics.org/spot ... ood-or-bad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodegradable_plastic
http://www.futurenergia.org/ww/en/pub/f ... astics.htm

The term biodegradable plastic covers a lot of different products most of which require very specific conditions to degrade and even then it is not clear whether their environmental benefits outweigh their environmental costs when you factor in things like energy required to manufacture them, likelihood they will be disposed of under proper conditions for their breakdown, release of methane (more potent than carbon as a greenhouse gas) during breakdown and so on and so forth. 

So just because the checkout person at the store tells you their bags are biodegradable, that could effectively be meaningless and it is far better to refuse the bag or bring your own reusable one. Ditto the waiter who says their restaurant take out containers are biodegradable plastic (bring your own tupperware for doggy bags).

Even bio-plastics made from plant starches that are supposed to be compostable are no panacea. They may require commercial (rather than backyard) composting facilities to break down and may not biodegrade in the ocean at all.

As one of the links above points out, focusing on biodegradable plastic is just finding ways to make it easier to throw away. Far better to reduce, reuse and recycle instead (though in the case of plastic as noted previously in this thread, reducing is the only real long term solution as plastic is not ever truly recyclable).

Roberta Olenick
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by SantaFeJoe on Sat Nov 08, 2014 5:11 pm
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Here's another link:

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Away ... 20&bih=979

Some of the photos are the same, but many are different. On this next link, I don't know if the film has been released yet or not:

http://www.plasticoceans.net/

http://www.plasticoceans.net/the-documentary/

http://phys.org/news/2012-02-filmmaker- ... astic.html

This next link states that in the first decade of this century, more plastic was made than in all history up to the year 2000:

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/camp ... _plastics/

Joe
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by SantaFeJoe on Tue Nov 11, 2014 11:00 pm
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Another reason to think about how plastic is disposed of:

https://www.google.com/search?q=animals ... 20&bih=979

Joe
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by neverspook on Tue Nov 11, 2014 11:21 pm
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Very disturbing images, Joe.
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by SantaFeJoe on Wed Nov 12, 2014 9:11 pm
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In this article:

http://eia-international.org/the-shocki ... our-oceans

I was shocked to read that in just one week, the US produces enough discarded plastic water bottles to circle the planet 5 times!

Joe
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by neverspook on Wed Nov 12, 2014 9:53 pm
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One thing those concerned about wasteful plastic packaging can do (besides not buying things packaged in plastic) is to return the packaging to the CEO of the company selling the product with a letter explaining why you object to their packaging. If more and more of us start mailing back the packaging, then maybe CEOs will get the hint.

Here is one example of what I am proposing.

I bought a GoPro and accessories a few months ago and I was APPALLED at how overpackaged in plastic these items were. Just about the worst product I have seen for excessive plastic packaging. I ordered my GoPro online and almost sent it back when I saw how it was packaged. But the potential utility of the product caused me to buy it despite the plastic packaging.

The camera itself came in thick hard plastic - I have kitchen dishes that are not as thick and solid as that throw away single-use packaging. And everything was in a package WAY BIGGER that it needed to be, orders of magnitude larger than the item it contained.

None of this GoPro packaging had a recycling symbol or number so I could not even put it in the blue box. I did not know what to do with it, so I just hung onto it in the box all the GoPro stuff was sent to me in because I could not bring myself to just throw it out into the landfill.

At the time I bought it, I called GoPro's customer service line to comment on the negative environmental impacts of all this packaging and they listened politely and said they had had other complaints about the packaging as well. So I thought they might make it more environmentally friendly the next time round.

But just recently GoPro has just come out with a newer model and it seems to be at least as excessively packaged in plastic as my Hero 3+ Black.

So I decided to mail all my saved up GoPro plastic packaging back to the CEO of GoPro with a letter explaining my serious objections to this wastefulness. I talked about Midway and albatrosses and sent along six 8X12 prints of my albatross images from Midway as a gift to the CEO. (These were of live beautiful birds so he could see what was at stake.)

The CEO of GoPro (Nicholas Woodman) is an avid surfer who developed the GoPro to take images of surfers in action. So he must have considerable appreciation for the ocean. He is a self-made man, started with little, built the GoPro into a very successful business and is now a billionaire. I like to think, with a little urging, that he might be willing take some of those earnings and put them into developing packaging that has less environmental impact while still having sufficient marketing appeal.

I just sent the plastic, letter and photos a few days ago so have not had any reply yet. I am hoping I will hear back and that the CEO is responsive to my concerns. Fingers crossed!

And I am hoping a whole lot more people will join me in sending their plastic packaging back to GoPro and other companies that use excessively wasteful amounts of packaging. (It might take a bit of digging to find the name and address for the CEO of the company you are addressing. Also it is useful to research the CEO so you can slant your letter toward his/her interests. I would recommend against just sending it back to the general RETURNS address as possibly some one in the mail room will receive it and just throw it out. If you do sent it to general RETURNS for lack of a better address, be sure to indicate it must be given to the CEO and provide the name of the CEO if at all possible.)

FYI, I am posting below the letter I sent to the CEO of GoPro in case it is helpful for those wanting to do something similar.

Roberta Olenick
www.neverspook.com
___________

MY LETTER TO GOPRO

                                                                                                    my address
                                                                                                    November 10, 2014

Mr. Nicholas Woodman, CEO
GoPro
3000 Clearview Way, Building E
San Mateo, California
USA 94402-3710

RE: GoPro Plastic Packaging Returned to You on Behalf of Wildlife

Dear Mr. Woodman,

The GoPro is a great product. It is compact, fun, easy to use and facilitates making images from unusual perspectives – and your tech support team has been outstanding. I am a wildlife photographer and wide angle images of wildlife are challenging to get, so a small unobtrusive camera that can be triggered remotely and that works underwater opens a whole realm of possibilities for people like me.

But there is one thing I don’t like about the GoPro: the excessive amount of plastic packaging.

Enclosed please find all the plastic packaging from the various GoPro items I have ever purchased. I am returning them to draw your attention to, and in protest against, the negative environmental impacts of this wasteful packaging.

I ordered these items online and, quite frankly, when they arrived I nearly sent them all back once I saw the amount of plastic packaging. This whole box is full of GoPro packaging, yet the actual items that came in it take up almost no space at all.

I simply could not bring myself to just throw out this whole box full of the world’s valuable resources and I could not toss it in the recycling bin since none of it had a recycling symbol or plastic number (not that plastic in the blue box ever really gets recycled in many cases anyway).

So the best thing I could think to do with all this plastic was to return it to you, in the hope you can come up with something environmentally and socially responsible to do with it.

I understand you are an avid surfer who developed the GoPro out of your love for the ocean and ocean sports.  Given this love – and the fact that GoPro is promoted, at least in part, as a fantastic tool for photographing nature and wildlife – it strikes me as sadly ironic that the GoPro comes so unnecessarily over-packaged in a material that is so destructive to the natural world.

I am sure you are aware of the environmental impacts of plastic, especially single use plastic items (like packaging) that are used just once and then thrown away. I could list many impacts but I am going to focus here on just one.

Plastic kills wildlife.

I have witnessed firsthand the heartbreakingly painful deaths of far too many albatross chicks from plastic ingestion on Midway Atoll in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Adult albatrosses foraging at sea mistake floating plastic trash for proper food and bring this back to feed their chicks. With stomachs full of indigestible plastic, 30% of the chicks on Midway slowly die of starvation, dehydration, toxicity, obstruction or perforation of their digestive tracts. Had these albatross chicks survived, they could have lived for more than 60 years, mated for life, and effortlessly soared a million kilometers over the vast North Pacific during their lifetimes.

Please watch this brief, poignant video from artist Chris Jordan who has spent far more time on Midway than I have. http://www.midwayfilm.com/  

Most of the plastic trash that kills albatrosses is thrown away not at sea but on land; from there it gets washed into the ocean by rivers, blown in by the wind or picked up by the tides.

Plastic does not biodegrade.  All the plastic ever manufactured is still present here on Earth.

Recently a dead albatross was found with seven decades-old plastic from the 1940s in its stomach. I hate to think that the packaging from my GoPro could kill an albatross now – or 70 years from now.

Of course, plastic kills not only albatrosses. According to the United Nations Environment Program, 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles, as well as a million seabirds of various species, die each year from plastic entanglement and ingestion.

Out of my love of albatrosses and all other living things on this planet, I am returning  your plastic packaging with an urgent request that you change it in future to something far more environmentally responsible.  (Post-consumer recycled cardboard would be great.)

Thank you kindly for your consideration of my concerns. I look forward to your response informing me of what action you will take to fulfill my request.

Most sincerely,

Roberta Olenick, M.Sc.
Zoologist/Photographer
Never Spook the Animals Wildlife Photography
www.neverspook.com
info@neverspook.com
my phone number here


P.S. Please accept the enclosed gift of a few of my photographs of healthy albatrosses from Midway so you can perhaps appreciate for yourself how wonderful they are. (You can see more images at http://neverspook.com/subsites/birdsmidway.html.)  
My images of chicks killed by plastic are not nearly as artistic or compelling as those of Chris Jordan. http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/midw ... 13%2018x24


P.P.S. Websites with more information about the negative impacts of plastic include the following:
http://www.surfrider.org/programs/entry ... e-plastics
http://plasticpollutioncoalition.org/
http://5gyres.org/
http://www.plasticoceans.net/
http://www.algalita.org/
http://stopplasticpollution.org/
http://neverspook.com/subsites/field.ht ... lIngestion is a link to my own blog post about plastic pollution on Midway. (It does not work on mobile devices)
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by SantaFeJoe on Wed Nov 12, 2014 10:12 pm
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Way to go, Roberta!

Joe
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by SantaFeJoe on Fri Nov 14, 2014 7:38 pm
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The next plastic polluter?

http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... nergy-home

Joe
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by Royce Howland on Fri Nov 14, 2014 9:00 pm
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Hmm, interesting. I totally support the design goal of this thing to reduce power and water consumption, possibly detergent use as well. But creating a new form of micro-plastic pollutant generates a trade-off. Which is better?

It's not clear how the nylon beads of this machine would be handled when their cleaning capability is consumed. But the concept of micro-plastics that are designed to be used and then flushed straight into the water system is becoming shockingly common... this trend in consumer products needs to be stopped as soon as possible IMO. No doubt this type of thing is being used in a lot of industrial processes as well.

Maybe the beads in this washing system can be handled more responsibly on the back-end, a better option than just flushing them into the sewer or dumping them in a landfill. And the other design goals around water and energy are definitely good. But I'd still ask the question whether their environmental and sustainability trade-off is a net benefit or not...
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by SantaFeJoe on Wed Dec 31, 2014 1:45 pm
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More news on plastics:

http://news.yahoo.com/effort-kill-calif ... 11879.html

Joe
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by neverspook on Wed Dec 31, 2014 4:20 pm
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That is so infuriating, Joe. The plastic bag industry is lying when it says plastic bags just get recycled. Very little plastic actually gets recycled even if it is put in the recycling bin. And it is NOT made into more plastic bags - it is downcycled to lower grade materials. And guaranteed that lots of people won't bother putting their bags in the blue box in the firt place.

Even it every bag wastotally recycled, so what? Recycling is not nearly as good as not using in the first place.

It is easy and convenient to just take your own bag to the store. Many stores here in Vancouver give you a small discount if you bring your own bag...

Roberta Olenick
Vancouver, BC
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by SantaFeJoe on Wed Dec 31, 2014 4:37 pm
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Something interesting I came across while looking for info on orcas:

http://www.whaleresearch.com/#lorca-conservation/cbuu

Read under"Practice the 3Rs", #1. I can't verify it, but it says that it takes 1.85 gallons of water to produce a 16 oz. bottle for water!!!!! If true, and I have no reason to doubt it, that is an astounding bit of info.

Joe
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by neverspook on Wed Dec 31, 2014 4:53 pm
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Another sad impact of plastic, entangled sea lion on the BC coast. Unfortunately, not an isolated incident.

http://bc.ctvnews.ca/entangled-and-dist ... -1.2165687
http://globalnews.ca/news/1747021/fanny ... -sea-lion/

Roberta Olenick
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by SantaFeJoe on Mon Feb 16, 2015 6:34 pm
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I'm glad to see a bit of mainstream media coverage of the problem:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-polluti ... ming-rate/

Joe
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by SantaFeJoe on Wed Feb 25, 2015 12:18 am
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Interesting news about corals eating plastic debris:

http://news.yahoo.com/fears-over-plasti ... 05504.html

Joe
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by SantaFeJoe on Wed Aug 19, 2015 12:48 am
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Another dilemma for wildlife and a smart whale:

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/http:/www ... tic-trash/

Joe
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by Primus on Wed Aug 19, 2015 6:00 am
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Really sad. I too am infuriated by the hard plastic shells a lot of stuff these days comes in.

One other way would be for people to refuse plastic water and soft drink bottles. I have my own Nalgene bottle that I take everywhere and have used the same one for the past five years.

Pradeep
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