Plastic should be considered toxic once it gets into the environment, MPs told

[FishingMagic]

This is a dedicated thread for discussing article: Plastic should be considered toxic once it gets into the environment, MPs told

http://www.fishingmagic.com/news_ev...ce-it-gets-into-the-environment-mps-told.html

Geoff Maynard and I were discussing only the other day the importance of 'Pollution' in children's education. While recognizing the importance of logarithms and sines and cosines and tangents as exercises for the mind if not for the real world as experienced by the majority, we agreed that the same results could be achieved through something more relevant - and our environment certainly is.

These past twenty years or so have seen a number of unprecedentedly successful indoctrination campaigns (though rather dubious, in some cases), once unassailable, popular views being turned completely upside-down to create a brand new way of thinking: smoking; multiculturalism; seat-belts; acceptable humour / comedy... that governments can bend your thoughts is surely not in doubt. If similar zeal was applied to the education of children on the subject of littering we would very quickly - very quickly - see an improvement in our surroundings; we'd genuinely benefit from a younger generation eager to scold their 'betters and elders' in the matter of environmental consciousness rather than (or in addition to!) the irksome criticism we currently receive for laughing at Bernard Manning clips.

 

[Cliff Hatton]

Geoff Maynard and I were discussing only the other day the importance of 'Pollution' in children's education. While recognizing the importance of logarithms and sines and cosines and tangents as exercises for the mind if not for the real world as experienced by the majority, we agreed that the same results could be achieved through something more relevant - and our environment certainly is.

These past twenty years or so have seen a number of unprecedentedly successful indoctrination campaigns (though rather dubious, in some cases), once unassailable, popular views being turned completely upside-down to create a brand new way of thinking: smoking; multiculturalism; seat-belts; acceptable humour / comedy... that governments can bend your thoughts is surely not in doubt. If similar zeal was applied to the education of children on the subject of littering we would very quickly - very quickly - see an improvement in our surroundings; we'd genuinely benefit from a younger generation eager to scold their 'betters and elders' in the matter of environmental consciousness rather than (or in addition to!) the irksome criticism we currently receive for laughing at Bernard Manning clips.
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[Lord Paul of Sheffield]

Littering and fly tipping are epidemic these days

Walk thru Sheffield and you will see people walk past a bin and throw rubbish in the street

worst offenders are smokers - they will stands next to a litter bin at a tram stop puffing their cigs to get the most out of it as the tram approaches then just throw the cig on the floor and get on the tram

 

[robtherake]

The biodegradable plastic bags only break into ever-smaller pieces; our seas are a soup of the stuff: the minds that envisaged the throwaway consumer society have a lot to answer to. The simple fact is that many people consider the human world as the real one and that the rest is just there to exploit, unmindful that we share this Earth with millions of other species and that the sheer scale of environmental change is taking place at a rate that they can't adapt to. The world will go on - once the foolish humans have died out, having pillaged every natural resource - and will flourish again without us to hold it back. It may take a long time for balance to be restored, but it will settle again, without us to spoil it. All those countless years of evolution bringing us to this point will have been for nothing. As a race we are stupid, greedy, ignorant and warlike: doomed to failure, then.

 

[The bad one]

Plastic shouldn't be considered as toxic waste? IT IS TOXIC WASTE!

 

[no-one in particular]

Plastic is awful stuff to be dumping on the scale it is. Should be banned except for where absolutely necessary. 5p on a plastic bag is a joke, who cares about 5p, ban them, go back to paper bags or something bio degradable, if they cost 25p, so what. Whats the price for plastic free Cod because that's where its ending up, in the food chain. Why do we have so much cancer, bodies reaction to foreign bodies. As rob said, the sea is full of it in fine particles and increasing every year. We will survive but this stuff should be dealt with, just ban the stuff, carrier bags especially.
Littering is part of the problem, educating children more will help but discipline wouldn't go amiss, I always got a right telling off if I dropped litter when I was a kid, I doubt that happens much these days but it still wont solve the problem of masses of the stuff ending up in land fill sites and the sea. We should be demanding bio degradable products when they are mass produced at least.
Cotton buds, tooth brushes, disposable razors, plastic bottles galore, cd's, glasses, fishing rods, floats. Thats just a quick scan round my gaff. Multiply that a few million million times; its not litter but it all ends up somewhere.

 

[Cliff Hatton]

Excellent comments so far, if I may say so.

 

[no-one in particular]

I was thinking about products that had a bacteria introduced in them so they broke down slowly and came across an article on google; the Japanese have discovered a bacteria that eats plastics. It breaks it down in about 6 weeks. They are yet to find a way to utilize it and this was found in nature, not man made, bacteria has evolved to use plastic as a food source which I think is pretty amazing.. So, maybe nature will deal with it in time, perhaps we underestimate the power of nature sometimes.
I would still ban the bloody stuff but I found this very encouraging.

 

[laguna]

Litter and waste plastic inevitably spoils the planet, poison it is, as its ingested by wildlife and gets into the food chain, and yet despite all the best intentions by some, the attitude remains.. out of sight out of mind by others.
To keep it in the mind is a step in the right direction, education alone will not work but at least it will go some ways to developing a conscience.
Rob said "The biodegradable plastic bags only break into ever-smaller pieces". Mostly ordinary plastic does that through weathering, there is some movement towards biodegradable but not enough and certainly not relevant to those who don't care enough. Biodegradable means to be consumed by micro-organisms... hopefully before the animals get to eat it which can mean many months down the line. Modifying traditional materials to make them more user-friendly and safer for the environment using cheap/safe 'fills' is the way to go. A number of biological materials may be incorporated into polymer materials, with the most common being starch and fibre extracted from various types of plants.

Plastic is a very useful material but its a big problem, especially in light of an ever increasing population around the world and it looks set to continue, not helped by the fact that councils charge for tipping which to my mind encourages fly tipping. Fly tippers don't give a sh*t.

There is no solution that I can see, banning plastic is out of the question but if one thing the Chinese get right (as if they get anything right regards animal/environmental issues), is the system they have of recycling. Plastic waste amongst other things are sold to collectors who sell on to manufacturers. They waste hardly anything of value. The downside is that of energy intensity to reprocess waste into new products.

Perhaps we as a Nation should do more regards recycling our waste? We're innovative enough to come up with a few ideas ourself, the new charge for plastic carriers should help deter a few and the bag for life scheme seems to 'educate' some folk.

There is a biodegradable plastic you can make yourself at home, it can be formed into useful things, pressed and moulded using simple household tools- a useful alternative for fishermen and the like.

 

[no-one in particular]

I found that article again, I thought it was interesting, a bit long but might be of interest:-

A team of Japanese scientists has found a species of bacteria that eats the type of plastic found in most disposable water bottles.
The discovery, published Thursday in the journal Science, could lead to new methods to manage the more than 50 million tons of this particular type of plastic produced globally each year.
The plastic found in water bottles is known as polyethylene terephthalate, or PET. It is also found in polyester clothing, frozen-dinner trays and blister packaging.
"If you walk down the aisle in Wal-Mart you're seeing a lot of PET," said Tracy Mincer, who studies plastics in the ocean at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.
Part of the appeal of PET is that it is lightweight, colorless and strong. However, it has also been notoriously resistant to being broken down by microbes-what experts call "biodegradation."
Previous studies had found a few species of fungi can grow on PET, but until now, no one had found any microbes that can eat it.
To find the plastic-eating bacterium described in the study, the Japanese research team from Kyoto Institute of Technology and Keio University collected 250 PET-contaminated samples including sediment, soil and wastewater from a plastic bottle recycling site.
Next they screened the microbes living on the samples to see whether any of them were eating the PET and using it to grow. They originally found a consortium of bugs that appeared to break down a PET film, but they eventually discovered that just one of bacteria species was responsible for the PET degradation. They named it Ideonella sakainesis.
Further tests in the lab revealed that it used two enzymes to break down the PET. After adhering to the PET surface, the bacteria secretes one enzyme onto the PET to generate an intermediate chemical. That chemical is then taken up by the cell, where another enzyme breaks it down even further, providing the bacteria with carbon and energy to grow.
The researchers report that a community of Ideonella sakaiensis working this way could break down a thin film of PET over the course of six weeks if the temperature were held at a steady 86 degrees Fahrenheit.
Mincer said the study was impressive and did a good job showing that these organisms were eating the plastic pretty well. However, he said it was not immediately clear whether or not it would help keep plastics out of the ocean, for example.
"When I think it through, I don't really know where it gets us," he said. "I don't see how microbes degrading plastics is any better than putting plastic bottles in a recycling bin so they can be melted down to make new ones."
He added that the research could make it easier to identify other microbes that might have similar PET-degrading capabilities.
"This process could be quite common," he said. "Now that we know what we are looking for, we may see these microbes in many areas around the world."


Read more at: Newly discovered bacteria can eat plastic bottles.

 

[laguna]

Thanks mark good find that.

PET is indeed difficult to dispose of properly and as that article illustrates perfectly not many microbes can break it down. PET is the preferred plastic used for making pop/soda bottles... there are literally millions and millions of them in the environment. The article didnt state wheather or not those identified microbes are air breathing or not. If not then landfill will prevent them being consumed.

One of the the most troublesome of plastics are polystyrene.
I have some mealworms bred from last year (as an experiment), sadly neglected so I have lost quite a few due to lack of available moisture but the ones that survive are consuming expanded polystyrene as we speak... they have nothing else to eat except wast packaging material and seem to be doing okay on the available carbon.

 

[robtherake]

Hemp can be used to make a clear plastic for bottles and also for many other applications. After it's thrown away it simply biodegrades. In fact, hemp is an incredibly veratile raw material, its use suppressed by those whose fortunes were made in oil.

Interesting reading here: Welcome to Hemp Plastic

 

[no-one in particular]

Thanks mark good find that.

PET is indeed difficult to dispose of properly and as that article illustrates perfectly not many microbes can break it down. PET is the preferred plastic used for making pop/soda bottles... there are literally millions and millions of them in the environment. The article didnt state wheather or not those identified microbes are air breathing or not. If not then landfill will prevent them being consumed.

One of the the most troublesome of plastics are polystyrene.
I have some mealworms bred from last year (as an experiment), sadly neglected so I have lost quite a few due to lack of available moisture but the ones that survive are consuming expanded polystyrene as we speak... they have nothing else to eat except wast packaging material and seem to be doing okay on the available carbon.

Very interesting Lag, meal-worms, who would have thought, maybe a solution will be found. I would still like it banned though or bio degradable alternatives found like Rob mentioned with hemp; certainly for mass produced articles. I am sure not enough is being done that could be done. Its a serious problem the world is ignoring.
What I thought was interesting that these bacteria have evolved naturally, the power of nature/evolution is incredible and maybe it will deal with the problem in its own time and in its own way. However, these processes are usually very slow so we should still step in and do something.

 

[laguna]

Very interesting Lag, meal-worms, who would have thought, maybe a solution will be found. I would still like it banned though or bio degradable alternatives found like Rob mentioned with hemp; certainly for mass produced articles. I am sure not enough is being done that could be done. Its a serious problem the world is ignoring.
What I thought was interesting that these bacteria have evolved naturally, the power of nature/evolution is incredible and maybe it will deal with the problem in its own time and in its own way. However, these processes are usually very slow so we should still step in and do something.

Yes we should all (with a conscience) do more. The trouble is nobody is really all that inspired to do more without some monetary gain, once the research grant money runs out? Until the day arrives which can clearly demonstrate profitability in developing biodegradable's (in the name of saving the planet), the problem will only get worse.

Unfortunately 'plastics' are cheap and profit is the primary motivating factor for humans.

Bio degradable plastics will therefore need to be made cheaper if they are to compete with existing plastics plus - there are literally millions of different types, including engineering plastics which do a specific job which cannot be replaced or substituted with biodegradables. As a starting point, protective plastics used for packaging are probably the biggest nuisance?

 

[no-one in particular]

Agree Lag-packaging drives me mad, 90% of what I throw out must be that.
What happened to all these woods that all the rich people were investing in back in the 60's-80's. Weren't they supposed to be fast growing and provide us with all the cheap paper we need. I remember when everything was put in paper bags or wrapped in newspaper, newspaper was OK for vegetables, for example.
And if using paper is more expensive, would it be cheaper or at least equal than putting tariffs on plastics which is were we seem to be heading anyway with the 5p on plastic bags, which I am sure will rise and spread to other things..And add to that the huge amount of recycled paper that I think we are not making the most of but could if we put more effort into it.
I accept plastics are necessary in some things but as I said before, what price are people prepared to pay to eat Cod free of plastic, I think they would accept it more than the Government think and if it meant making manufactures use more bio degradable packaging etc and charge more, it would not cause a riot.
And once manufacturers were forced into this by law, they would soon put a lot more research into it, they would all be competing to get the cheapest bio degradable packaging etc on their products because that what happens, they will want to make their product cheaper than their competitors and prices will come down.