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Just a thought that came to me as I was writing my morning notes and my kitten was chewing on my Bic. Is it a move in the right direction? Writing utensils which are almost all metal except for the ink or lead and the top of the cartridge? Is there a Cross "sharpie"?
The worry about "plastic" is misguided-- Plastic is made from material from the petroleum cracking process that would otherwise go as waste. If you don't turn it into plastic, you still have to do something to get rid of it anyway.
Cf- history of the internal combustion engine-- kerosene was the original fuel-- low flash point for combustion, so just compressing it in a cylinder and it would explode. Gasoline was a waste product from processing petroleum-- they used to just dump it..
..Then Joe Carburetor invented a gizmo that would aerosolize the gas so it would explode (liquid gasoline isn't very combustible) and then Fred Sparkplug gave us another invention that improved the application for the transportation process… and the waste product gasoline became a very valuable asset.
Right-- but if you don't turn the stuff into plastic, what do you do with it?--You dispose of it. Something gets disposed either way.
Would you rather have the relatively inert plastic buried and sequestered, or have the short chain hydrocarbons oxidized more or less quickly and turned into co2 or soot in the atm?
Right-- but if you don't turn the stuff into plastic, what do you do with it?--You dispose of it. Something gets disposed either way.
Would you rather have the relatively inert plastic buried and sequestered, or have the short chain hydrocarbons oxidized more or less quickly and turned into co2 or soot in the atm?
The latter.......sea turtles don't mistake co2 or soot for food. Gulls don't get garroted on co2. That's the issue these days.
I think a bigger problem than plastic pens is the proliferation of plastic bags. Honestly, as they are constructed now, they should be abolished from the face of the earth.
Yeah, I know they can be recycled, but they end up in the oceans anyway.
The latter.......sea turtles don't mistake co2 or soot for food. Gulls don't get garroted on co2. That's the issue these days.
Quote:
Originally Posted by silibran
I think a bigger problem than plastic pens is the proliferation of plastic bags. Honestly, as they are constructed now, they should be abolished from the face of the earth.
Yeah, I know they can be recycled, but they end up in the oceans anyway.
There was a TV college Statistics course that aired in the 70s. In one episode they addressed the problem of unreasonable attention to problems not warranted by the stats.
They showed an "Enquiring Reporter" excerpt where a guy was asked on the sidewalk what he saw as the biggest threat to his existence. Without hesitating, he answered "Nuclear War!" over his shoulder as he stepped off the curb to jay walk-- and nearly got clipped by a passing car blaring its horn at him.
Please document how many sea turtles or sea gulls choke on plastic.---Statistically speaking-- none.
I'm not defending littering. I just want everyone to keep thing in perspective. The consciences of the Liberal Elite may be eased by outlawing plastic straws, but the Natural World won't be impressed in the least.
Please document how many sea turtles or sea gulls choke on plastic.---Statistically speaking-- none.
I'm not defending littering. I just want everyone to keep thing in perspective. The consciences of the Liberal Elite may be eased by outlawing plastic straws, but the Natural World won't be impressed in the least.
I just watched a documentary on Sky News - sorry I can't reprise it for you - but it showed the effects of plastic bags on sea life, and you would be amazed at the stomachs of whales and other large animals and fish in the sea who have eaten so many plastic bags their stomachs became engorged with them and the animals starved to death. When plastic degrades, it degrades into smaller and smaller pieces, then smaller and smaller, until they become microscopic, and the sea life mistakes them for food and the same thing happens as with the larger animals, they starve to death. The amount of damage these bags do is incredible.
I just watched a documentary on Sky News - sorry I can't reprise it for you -....
...and I just saw a documentary on BBC about Martians invading the brains of liberal politicians giving them all spongiform encephalopathy. Sorry I can't reprise it for you, but it must be true - it was on TV.
You'll have to come up with a research article with data collected systematically, analyzed critically with sound statistical methods and discussed in an unbiased manner that shows any significant damage has been done to any ecosystem by carelessly discarded plastic....We're not accepting anecdotal reports of a straw up a turtle's nose (I still wanna know how it managed to get a lite, skinny straw floating in choppy ocean waters stuck in a narrow nasal passage when it shouldn't be breathing thru its nose, given the known difficulty of taking an inyentional bite out of a heavy apple floating in calm water inside a restricted bucket, with a big mouth? Miracles never cease...or it was Foto-shopped. Same for the famous dead sea gull with more plastic than body volume. They're not even good at their lying ways.)
OTOH- a REAL problem aggravated by the pretentious habits of all those TreeHugging Millennials is in fact devastating the ocean's fisheries: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sushi-e...of-extinction/ How come nobody's worried about that?
I don't eat sushi, but I did read your suggested article, and I hope you will return the gesture.
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