I don’t like Lieberal social engineering much either but when it comes to something like plastics I think this is an issue everyone can get behind. Our laziness is ruining the ocean food chains and filling our landfills - the chickens will be home to roost on this one.Originally Posted by MikePal
“You have enemies ? Good. It means you have stood up for something, sometime in your life”: Winston Churchill
I think You hit the nail right in the head.
About 2o years ago there was no bottled water(especially the 0.5 l one)and the Humankind survived quite well.
There was no plastic shopping bag til late in the 60-ties,same thing.We did awesome.
There was a lot a whole lot of less use of medical and over the counter drugs-and we were same with general health.
The canned beer was invented only 1959..............just to name a few.(at least the aluminium is somewhat reclaimed).
Environment should be for all of us a concern,if we respect ourselves and our kids-grand-kids.Every each Government could/ should do a lot for it.
Last edited by gbk; June 26th, 2019 at 11:26 AM.
Sorry the science and the studies don't support the premise.....
Bellow are two excerpts from studies on the alternatives...
The Planet Money article also cites a 2011 study by the UK government that found a person would have to reuse a cotton tote bag 131 times before it was better for the environment than using a plastic grocery bag once. When you factor in the manufacturing process used to make cotton bags, the impact on the climate is even worse than plastic.
Cotton, if grown in the United States, requires planting with heavy equipment, which uses fuel; weed killer; and the use of an exfoliant to remove cotton leaves before the cotton balls can be harvested using more large machines fueled by diesel or gasoline. Then there’s the process of actually manufacturing the cotton items. The Danish government estimates that “these factors make cloth bags even worse than plastic,” said the Planet Money article. “They estimate you would have to use an organic cotton bag 20,000 times more than a plastic grocery bag to make using it better for the environment.”
The Danish government study concluded that the best reusable bags “are ones made from polyester or plastic like polypropylene” but cautions that “those still have to be used dozens and dozens of times to be greener than a plastic grocery bag, which has the smallest carbon footprint for a single use.”
Taylor and her colleagues compared bag use in cities with and without plastic bag bans. They spent six months in grocery stores tallying the types of bags people carried out and analyzing the stores’ sales data. She found that these bag bans did what they were supposed to do: People in cities where bans were in effect used fewer plastic bags, which led to about 40 million fewer pounds of plastic trash per year. “But people who used to reuse their shopping bags for other purposes, like picking up dog poop or lining trash bins, still needed bags,” noted the Planet Money article.
“What I found was that sales of garbage bags actually skyrocketed after plastic grocery bags were banned,” said Taylor. This was particularly the case for small, 4-gallon bags, which saw a post-ban 120% increase in sales, the article noted.
The article in Planet Money noted that regular trash bags are “thick and use more plastic” than typical carryout grocery bags. “So about 30% of the plastic that was eliminated by the ban came back in the form of thicker garbage bags,” Taylor said. Additionally, cities that banned plastic bags saw a “surge in the use of paper bags,” which Taylor estimates resulted in about 80 million pounds of extra paper trash per year.From: https://www.plasticstoday.com/packag...34943847760696“Plastic haters, it’s time to brace yourselves,” said the article. A number of studies have found that paper bags are actually worse for the environment, which I’ve actually pointed out in a number of my blogs. Paper requires cutting down trees or using a high percentage of recycled paper, which still has to be processed using lots of water, toxic chemicals (including chlorine, if the paper is to be made white) and fuel in the heavy machinery required.
“Taylor says, the huge increase in paper, together with the uptick in plastic trash bags, means banning plastic shopping bags increases greenhouse gas emissions,” said the article. While the article acknowledges that plastic bag bans do reduce non-biodegradable litter, it still takes a considerable amount of time for paper to degrade in the open environment, which means it’s still an eyesore and doesn’t do the environment any good.
99% of the aluminum produced in the world still exists, it uses less energy to recycle aluminum than to make it from the raw ore that contains it. The oxide of aluminum is strong and does not flake off, that is why it does not break down. It is one of the most easily recycled materials that exist to us.
The 3 Rs, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, nobody would ever thing to reduce, reusing is such an old school thought, let's all just recycle, it makes no sense. If we limit the use of these materials, reuse them (even water bottles) then we would limit what needs to be recycled. We have a family of 3 with a toddler in diapers and we have 1 bag or less of garbage every 2 weeks yet I see 3-4 bags out in front of houses every single week, it is insane.
Just make sure to clean the stove chimney once in a while....
"Only dead fish go with the flow."
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Mike, the articles may be right, although whoever writes an opinion piece can always find data or a study that supports their argument
Regardless of anything quoted or written, a Texas-sized pile of floating garbage in the Pacific is a disgrace to humanity - and we’re all guilty
Metals and glass seemed to work well for so many years....I imagine the reduced shipping weight of plastic has had a lot to do with its growth in use.
I’m not a tree hugger but this one area where we need to change.
“You have enemies ? Good. It means you have stood up for something, sometime in your life”: Winston Churchill
You would think that, but we burn no garbage here, just do not produce much.Just make sure to clean the stove chimney once in a while....
You would be surprised how little a load of Aluminum cans weight..
Take the warning labels off. Darwin will solve the problem.
If you don't read articles and studies from both sides of a debate, then your opinion is based on false premises.
The hypocrisy of this issue is amazing. Climate Barbie is shown proudly in a PR stunt planting trees to save our environment ...then she bans plastics and claims they can be replaced by paper/cardboard products...maybe she doesn't know where they come from
The alternatives to single use plastics are expensive, less efficient, require more manufacturing (more of a carbon foot print) and will still end up in landfill. Single use plastics are a very small part of the waste going to landfill.
Some have claimed that plastic bags serve an important food-safety function and protect the public from harmful bacteria, outbreaks and food-borne illnesses. A University of Arizona study in microbiology suggested that the combination of reusable grocery bags and food can be harmful to many. According to the study, coliform bacteria and Escherichia coli (E. coli) were found in half of the reusable grocery bags sampled. The Mercatus Center in the U.S. claimed that discouraging the use of single-use plastic bags is almost pointless, given the insignificant variance in carbon footprint between bagging alternatives, including paper bags. And data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency suggest that only 0.28 per cent of all the garbage generated by municipalities, by weight, comes from plastic bags.
These groups believe that banning the use of plastic bags is more about appearances and idealism than about protecting the environment.
Why should I keep my yard clean? The big house down the road doesn't keep their yard clean.
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