MetaFilter posts tagged with Environment and plastic

Teach, Bundanoon, teach!

flapjax at midnite — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:18:47 -0800

Plastic Bags May Sue You

jabberjaw — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 12:15:43 -0800

Plastic bags are bad for the environment, right? Not according to the Plastic Bag Coalition, which created savetheplasticbag.com in order to help stop the demonization of the supermarket staple. Taking a firm stance, they have recently threatened to sue the city of Santa Monica for passing an ordnance banning plastic bags. This isn't the first time they've sued. Previously. A link to the audio transcript of a debate over plastic bags' impact on the environment, care of the NPR station KCRW.

I Never Drink Water, Fish F**K In It

Xurando — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 19:13:08 -0800

Bottled Water is Bullshit. We are now in the midst of bottled water back lash. Where will it end?

Avoiding death by plastic

TheyCallItPeace — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:15:13 -0800

Talk about plastic accumulating in the North Pacific gyre has popped up on and off for quite a while now. Vice is running a series on the state of the gyre, as part of their "Toxic Series". Given the fact that most plastics are not biodegradable, we need to start looking more carefully at how much damage we are doing to ourselves through our use of plastic, and what we can do about it. Not surprisingly, some plastics may also pose more direct health risks to us. Just a few months ago, Mountain Equipment Co-op, a popular retailer of outdoor gear in Canada, pulled polycarbonate Nalgene bottles from its shelves. Now the Canadian government has banned baby bottles made from this clear plastic because there are indication that Bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical used in its production and which leaches out of the plastic, may be potentially quite harmful. It seems unavoidable that we need to find viable replacements for plastics. San Francisco has banned plastic shopping bags, and even China, a country with pretty spotty environmental record, will ban plastic shopping bags nationwide starting in June. Given the current prevalence of plastics today, we also need to consider how we can recycle or reuse the vast mountains of plastic waste we have already produced. One of the links above mentioned Plastic Lumber, which apparently does not require plastic to be sorted before recycling. As today is Earth Day, I though this would be a good topic for people to think about.

2007 the year against the plastic bag

stbalbach — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 07:35:24 -0800

Each year the world makes about 5 trillion plastic bags^{(art exhibit)} using about 20 billion barrels of oil, each bag able to last thousands of years. In 2007 cities began legislating against plastic bags from outright bans to mandatory surcharges, starting in San Francisco, then Hong Kong, Melbourne and now some countries in Africa, Israel and even the entire country of China are taking similar strides to cut down on the worlds bag obsession. Who's next in 2008?

Whirling Vortex of Stupidity

chuckdarwin — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 02:40:27 -0800

The North Pacific Trash Vortex - Researchers have discovered a Texas-sized area of (mostly plastic) rubbish floating in the Pacific Ocean. On the most recent episode of QI, Fry posed this question: "what is the largest man-made object in the world?" The answer: The North Pacific Trash Vortex. The North Pacific sub-tropical gyre covers a large area of the Pacific in which the water circulates clockwise in a slow spiral, which tends to force any floating material into the low energy central area of the gyre. Given its size, I tried looking for a satellite image of it, but have failed so far. Anyone know of one?

Got oil?

sunshinesky — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 09:10:23 -0800

Need oil? Try microwaving your plastics.

Ban The Bag

chuckdarwin — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 06:39:47 -0800

The Algalita Marine Research Foundation's video Synthetic Sea is pretty shocking. "All we can do is stop polluting and hope the system will clean itself up in hundreds of years." So, what will be the fate of the plastic bag until the inevitable ban comes? Should they be Taxed? Should they be Banned ? Should stores charge extra for them? We don't really have a lot of time to argue about it.

"I would love to see it banished off the face of the Earth."

mek — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 10:16:52 -0800

Bisphenol A: this extremely common chemical leaches out of food packaging and plastics, and was long considered safe. But a number of recent studies link it to developmental problems and cancer in lab animals in doses far lower than the current regulatory limit. Canada and the United States both review the scientific data available in the coming months, but critics already worry the process will be corrupted by industry. Industry, of course, insists that BPA is safe.

Your discarded plastic cup is floating

elpapacito — Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:34:08 -0800

Told you plastic is nasty.... Most of plastic that somehow reached the ocean floats in the North Pacific Gyre[look at Currents], an exotic name for an area of the Pacific ocean with a surface larger then U.S.A, dreaded by sailors for its lack of winds and called by some World largest Landfill. The people at Algalita Marine Research Foundation have made this nice video[Quicktime] showing how tons and tons of tiny plastic particles have been accumulating in the area for the last 50 years, slowly entering the food chain. Why does that bother us who live thousand of miles away ? Because we're on the top of the food chain and because that plastic is a sponge of hazardous chemicals.[Via tpl1212's link in another unrelated story]

Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastics

thisisdrew — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 23:26:41 -0800

Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastics
TO ORDER, SEND CHECK OR MONEY ORDER TO:

The Center for Global Food Issues (operated by The Hudson Institute ..funded by ConAgra Foods, DuPont, Exxon Mobil, McDonalds, Monsanto, etc etc etc...)

"Diverse" reviews at Amazon

Chat Room

mcgraw — Fri, 07 May 2004 09:30:12 -0800

Microscopic fragments of plastic are a "major pollutant", floating in the ocean, settling on seabeds, and washing up onshore - with unknown consequences for marine ecosystems, according to a new study. "We've found this microscopic plastic material at all of the sites we've examined," [lead researcher] Dr Richard C Thompson [of University of Plymouth, UK] said. "Interestingly, the abundance is reasonably consistent. So, it suggests to us that the problem is really quite ubiquitous."