Kevin's Watch

This stuff is really majorly screwing with the seas - and it is something that each and every one of us can do something about. I hate the idea of marine invertebrates ingesting micro-beads as they filter their food, of albatross mother's attempting to feed their chicks on discarded plastic strips, so this coming year I'm going to make a concerted effort to alter my buying habits such that I minimise my plastic footprint to its lowest possible level. We can all do it......and probably save money at the same time! Bottled water is one of the major culprits, yet in countries with potable water it is a complete non-necessity. Plastic bags from supermarket shopping, buying food in wrappers instead of loose paper bag shopping. Small stuff I know, but if we all do our bit maybe the big companies will get the idea that vote with our money and begin to rethink how our supplies can be sustainably delivered. Hope one or two of you will join me.

Weve banned plastic bags in a few states but still a long way to go. Youre right it is a problem. Theres a lot of push back. People need to get behind change or it wont happen

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Plastic is one of the greatest inventions of mankind. I recycle, but I have no interest in reducing.

Care to share some objective evidence of its harm? Given its benefits, it's going to take a lot to convince me that it's bad. There is a trade off with everything. No solution is without problems, including all the bacteria harbored by your reusable shopping bags. I love bottled water for its convenience and taste. I wash fewer dishes this way, saving electricity, detergent, time. I can chill them down, don't need ice (which is gross and not always sanitary). I can take as many as I need for work (i work out of my truck), without having to keep up with reusable cups that get dirty, leak, etc.

Convenience is a big deal to me. I am too busy to worry about my water bottles.

Nope Z - each to his own. You do your thing, I'll do mine; I can live with that.

Plastic bags were banned here a couple of years ago, and there's a (small) fee if you want a paper one. It hasn't been a big deal. I mainly use canvas shopping bags from Trader Joe's - they're about $3 each, but they last a few years (even if you use them to tote 50-lb bags of cat litter) - and they're machine washable.

I cant help but laugh my ass off at my kids who refuse to drink either our rain water or our 100 percent pure spring water from our bore. They instead prefer buying water. It is such a millennial thing to do. Unless you have foul tasting water, its a redundant waste of money and continues the demand for bottled water in plastic bottles

And canvas bags can be washed - so not bacteria infested - especially if you keep them clean. F

The introduction of a really small charge onto plastic carrier bags has reduced their usage in the UK by eighty percent! This must be the way forward; build the cost of recycling into the product and charge wastage tax accordingly.

Sure

There's a charge on them here too, but don't see it really reducing their usage much.

--A

We were driving up in the Andes and the beastly things were everywhere - and we were miles from the nearest town!

Wow

Yeah Av

I see that here too

But demand and supply applies. If people still pay for them in the absence of being provided free, I cant see anything much changing.

Apparently Petes right though plastic bottles are the biggest problem sometimes things have to come to a head but by then it will probably be too late to remedy.

Not wanting to sound all doomsday on ya

Personally, I think it's already too late to "remedy."

Even if everybody started being completely eco-friendly tomorrow, (and of course they won't), it would probably be too little too late.

Nope, what we need to look at now is striking a new ecological balance, and maybe we can try and influence what that will look like. But doubt like hell we can prevent it.

--A

mmm.. you could well be right.

I read a while ago that all the garbage that is seperated into seperate bins, plastic bottles washed, paper and cardboard components folded .. is no longer recycled. Its dumped like everything else. So we have a show of recycling orchestrated by local government that has zero effect.

It is definitely true in remote rural locations where there are no real recycling processes in place.

We in the UK are waking up to a real problem now that China are stopping the importation of domestic waste from third parties; no-one knows what to do with it now. The irony is that most of it simply went into landfill in China so it was all a cosmetic exercise anyway.

We need an industry that will turn waste into something viably commercial lol

Plastic isn't the problem..
The problem is people.
People who don't give a dam about properly discarding their trash
into the bins for reuse or recycling.
People who think they are above all else except themselves.
We need to get rid of those people...

Hahahaha .. perhaps we need a commercial incentive to weed out and dispose of human trash