Are We Becoming Plastic (cancer, eyes, cheap, salt)

[6 FOOT 3]

There's a great article in one of my fitness magazines (Best Life) about how the ocean is so poluted with plastic from all the garbage dumped into it. Some particles are almost microscoptic that its being ingested by the fish and all and now with us eating the fish we are ingesting these particles.

Also a biproduct of plastic called BPA which is found in all plastic containers is now found in almost every human on earth scientist wonder what will be the long term consequences on us.

I've never been the enviromentalist type but still sad and eye opening so here's the article (5 pages) for those interested.....

Best Life Magazine: Health & Fitness: Our oceans are turning into plastic...are we?

[citybythebay]

Very interesting article. Thank you for posting it.

The photo of the turtle with the plastic band around it's shell, if that image alone doesn't wake some people up *shaking head*...
It's disgusting how people don't even think twice about littering.
It makes me sick that it's people that walk among us that are doing this to our land. It's sad.
Where do they think the trash goes??? *Unbelievable*

My house sits on a rather busy road and I am forever out there picking up trash that people toss out car windows.
I keep my yard meticulous and take pride in that fact. But when I go out there I can gather at least a bag full of trash from my tree lawn.
It burns me up! And it's not just my yard....all my neighbors deal with the same thing.
When I do my daily jog. Same thing... in that 5 mile distance I can collect so many items of trash along the way..it's sickening.
There is absolutely no excuse for littering.

*I wish more people (and if parents will teach their kids that it's wrong!) would pick up trash they see on the streets, sitting on gutter lids, laying on beaches, campgrounds/parks...etc...etc....
Just pick it up and throw it in the trash, don't leave it there thinking someone else will come along and pick it up...it's not that difficult to do!*

[Mattie Jo]

That photo of the turtle is so sad. I hope they cut the ring off.

People throw trash out on our street too, and since buying our new home on what used to be farm land, we only have 1/2 acre now, we are constantly digging up trash, mostly broken glass, which my dog cut himself on but what you can't do anything about at the moment. Meaning we dig it up and rain uncovers more. Plus, they tossed their garbage in back and buried much more. If I were a milliionaire I would hire someone to go through it all. The rototiller brings up a lot, but what else is down there? I even pick up things like what the turtle has on it.

[lastra]

O my God...That picture made my eyes teary...We had two turtles, and I cannot imagine them going thorugh that...Thank you for posting it though. I hope they cut that ring off...I hate when people just throw the trash out. It is stupid, selfih, not caring etc. Thank you for posting the article. Nedless to say that I agree with all three posts...

[BlueWillowPlate]

That is a really good article--very informative, if depressing.
That "Eastern Garbage Patch" is simply chilling.
I pick up plastic junk all the time at the beach. I did just this morning.
And what the article says about abandoned fishing gear is all too true.
You know what I hate the most? Those clear plastic water bottles.
They are everywhere, not just in the ocean.

[citybythebay]

Originally Posted by cil

You know what I hate the most? Those clear plastic water bottles.
They are everywhere, not just in the ocean.

Yes! I can't stand finding those plastic water bottles EVERYWHERE! And they do nothing but fill up landfills. Below I added a portion from the text about recycling plastic.
Quite a shocker that only 3-5% of plastics actually get recycled. And it talks about the dangers of burning plastic. It makes me wonder just how many people are educated on this crisis?
I'm thinking not many----

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


**The ring around the turtle maybe won't ever be removed, because think about it...it's already deformed it's shell and who knows, it's probably holding it's internal organs together. Taking it off might prove to be more detrimental.**

In the article it talks about the dangers of plastic. The pic of the turtle is only one example. There is a carcass of a seagull washed up on shore and it's quite disturbing what plastic junk is inside this bird! Plastic bottle caps galore! This plastic mess is also showing up in our fish that we consume.
A possible cancer correlation from having consumed fish that swallowed down a fresh helping of some type of plastic???
Read the article...it's very interesting...

Taken from the text: Pg.#3:

"This news is depressing enough to make a person reach for the bottle.
Glass, at least, is easily recyclable. You can take one tequila bottle, melt it down, and make another tequila bottle. With plastic, recycling is more complicated. Unfortunately, that promising-looking triangle of arrows that appears on products doesn’t always signify endless reuse; it merely identifies which type of plastic the item is made from. And of the seven different plastics in common use, only two of them—PET (labeled with #1 inside the triangle and used in soda bottles) and HDPE (labeled with #2 inside the triangle and used in milk jugs)—have much of an aftermarket. So no matter how virtuously you toss your chip bags and shampoo bottles into your blue bin, few of them will escape the landfill—only 3 to 5 percent of plastics are recycled in any way."

--continuing from the text:
“There’s no legal way to recycle a milk container into another milk container without adding a new virgin layer of plastic,” Moore says, pointing out that, because plastic melts at low temperatures, it retains pollutants and the tainted residue of its former contents. Turn up the heat to sear these off, and some plastics release deadly vapors. So the reclaimed stuff is mostly used to make entirely different products, things that don’t go anywhere near our mouths, such as fleece jackets and carpeting. Therefore, unlike recycling glass, metal, or paper, recycling plastic doesn’t always result in less use of virgin material. It also doesn’t help that fresh-made plastic is far cheaper.

Moore routinely finds half-melted blobs of plastic in the ocean, as though the person doing the burning realized partway through the process that this was a bad idea, and stopped (or passed out from the fumes). “That’s a concern as plastic proliferates worldwide, and people run out of room for trash and start burning plastic—you’re producing some of the most toxic gases known,” he says. The color-coded bin system may work in Marin County, but it is somewhat less effective in subequatorial Africa or rural Peru.

Truth is, no one knows how long it will take for plastic to biodegrade, or return to its carbon and hydrogen elements. We only invented the stuff 144 years ago, and science’s best guess is that its natural disappearance will take several more centuries. Meanwhile, every year, we churn out about 60 billion tons of it, much of which becomes disposable products meant only for a single use. Set aside the question of why we’re creating ketchup bottles and six-pack rings that last for half a millennium, and consider the implications of it: Plastic never really goes away."

[CosmicWizard]

Even among relatively environmentally conscious groups like mountain bicyclists there is still a holdover litterbug mentality. My wife and I were walking on a multi use ( bicyles and hikers ) BLM trail near our home in Grand Junction on Sunday afternoon a few hours after a bicycle race. We were appalled to see at least 50 energy bar wrappers littering the trail side. It's almost as bad as a smokers mentality where they unconsciously toss a butt out the window at a stop light, having no awareness that a butt qualifies as litter. Good thing that some of us take the time to do some pick-up service from time to time. ( Nothing like a self-administered pat on the back. )


blessings....Franco

[6 FOOT 3]

What's kinda sad is back in the 80's when i was in the U.S. Navy once your offshore i believe its 20 or 50 miles (long time back) that all trash in plastic bags are thrown off the Fantail (back part of ship) and we were told to poke holes and the bags will sink. I thnk we (Navy) really believed the salt water would some how dissolve the trash/plastic and all. Anyway if you think about it thats all the Navy ships of the world doing that. Wonder if the Cruise Ships do that or do they have ''Trash Holding Bays''.

Anyway none of us knew back then about the future ramifications as this was standard Navy policy concerning trash......

[PinkString]

Originally Posted by NewAgeRedneck

Even among relatively environmentally conscious groups like mountain bicyclists there is still a holdover litterbug mentality. My wife and I were walking on a multi use ( bicyles and hikers ) BLM trail near our home in Grand Junction on Sunday afternoon a few hours after a bicycle race. We were appalled to see at least 50 energy bar wrappers littering the trail side. It's almost as bad as a smokers mentality where they unconsciously toss a butt out the window at a stop light, having no awareness that a butt qualifies as litter. Good thing that some of us take the time to do some pick-up service from time to time. ( Nothing like a self-administered pat on the back. )


blessings....Franco

I keep trying to give you rep points, but it won't let me.

[Mattie Jo]

PinkString,

You have to give others rep points before it will allow you to give to NewAge again.