Guest speaker

 

SUC50012

Originally uploaded by ouroboros-team

While rifling flickr for nasty plastic photos, (see my plastic visual world map for details), I come across people documenting and commenting on the ever increasing amounts of plastic pollution. Blogged from there is this weeks  Guest Speaker _ I urge you to look at his other stuff

Pollution in playa Azul in Tarcoles. The river brings the pollution of the whole country in the Pacific Ocean that grows the 7th continent of garbage in the middle of the vortex flow close to Hawai.

Uploaded by ouroboros-team on 15 Sep 09, 1.21PM PST.

plastic bags are good

Here’s a website to get you snorting… save the plastic bag ..which, yes you guessed it, is out to prove that plastic bags are harmless and much maligned.

He might want to visit adopt a beach and check out the following reports….
“Plastic bags have been found in stomachs of the following marine species. several of which are classified as endangered*: *Green turtle (Uchida. 1990; Balazs 1985; Meylan 1978) *Loggerhead turtle (Plotkin and Amos 1990; Bjorndal and Bolten. 1994) *Hawksbill turtle (Teas and Witzell. 1994; Hartog 1980) *Leatherback turtle (Balazs. 1985; Sadove and Morreale. 1990) *Black footed Albatross (Sileo et al 1990) Northern Fulmar (van Franeker. 1985. 2003. 2005) Herring Gull Great Black-backed Gull (Day et al. 1985) *Harbour Porpoise (Walker and Coe. 1990) Common Dolphin. Bottlenose Dolphin. Risso’s Dolphin. Northern Right Whale (Walker and Coe. 1990) Pygmy Sperm Whale (Tarpley. 1990) Blackfin tuna (Manooch and Mason. 1983).

In April 2002 a dead Minke whale washed up on the Normandy coast. An investigation found its stomach contained 800g of plastic bags and packaging including two English supermarket plastic bags (GECC. 2002).

Or this on turtles …

Turtles. particularly leatherback turtles; the most commonly seen turtles in UK waters. are especially at risk from plastic bag ingestion. as these bags. especially white or clear shopping bags closely resemble jellyfish. their primary prey. when suspended in the water column.

Plastic bags along with sheeting and plastic pieces are the predominant synthetic items found in the stomachs of turtles. An autopsy of a dead leatherback turtle washed up in Scotland in December 1994 reported that it had died as a result of starvation. caused by primary obstruction of the digestive tract by ingested plastic and metal litter. There was also a plastic bag lodged 40cm down the oesophagus (Godley et al. 1998).

A leatherback. washed ashore in Galloway in December 1998. was found in very poor condition with plastic bags obstructing its alimentary tract. The blockage included 1 white plastic bag. 1 black plastic bin liner. 3 transparent plastic bags. 1 green plastic bag. and 1 transparent plastic bag for chicken meat packaged by a US company.

Another leatherback found dead on Harlech beach in Wales in September 1988 had a piece of plastic blocking the entrance to the small intestine. and an autopsy established this could have contributed to the animal’s death (Eckert and Luginbuhl. 1988).

A study of dead stranded sea turtles on the coast of Brazil from 1997 to 1998 found the main items ingested were plastic bags. Of the 30 green turtles examined. white/transparent plastic bags were recorded in 14 (47%) of the green turtles found. Ingestion of anthropogenic debris accounted for the death of 4 (13.2%) of the green turtles examined (Bugoni et al. 2001).

Or this on whales

The Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust took various skin and blubber samples and removed the stomach for further study by the Scottish Agricultural College. On initial removal it was found that the entrance to the stomach was completely blocked with a cylinder of tightly packed shredded black plastic binliner bags and fishing twine.

It is believed that this made it difficult for the animal to forage and feed effectively. This would have a biologically significant impact on the animal’s ability to survive. Full analysis of the stomach contents is currently being undertaken. Cuviers Beaked whales usually prey on squid and catch their prey through the action of suction. It is believed that Cuviers Beaked whales mistake plastic bags in the water column for their prey species squid and ingest them.

In previous years a number of Cuviers Beaked whales stranded in Scotland have been found to have plastic bags in their stomachs. For any more details on this case please contact the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust at 28 Main Street. Tobermory. Isle of Mull. Scotland. PA75 6NU. 01688 302620. email info@hwdt.org”

or this on elephants

or this on camels

A few facts

Click here for the slide show

A Dutch study in the North Sea of fulmar seabirds concluded 95 per cent of the birds had plastic in their stomachs. More than 1600 pieces were found in the stomach of one bird in Belgium.

The United Nations Environment Program says plastic is accountable for the deaths of more than a million seabirds and more than 100,000 marine mammals such as whales, dolphins and seals every year.

Since his first encounter with the gyre in 1997, Moore created the Algalita Marine Research Foundation to help study the problem. Canadian filmmaker Ian Connacher joined Moore last year to film the garbage patch for his documentary, I Am Plastic.

“The most menacing part is those little bits of plastic start looking like food for certain animals, or the filter feeders don’t have any choice, they just pick them up,” noted Connacher.

Perhaps an even bigger problem is hiding beneath the surface of the islands of garbage. Greenpeace reports that about 70 per cent of the plastic that makes it to the ocean sinks to the bottom, where it then smothers marine life on the ocean floor. Dutch scientists have found 600,000 tons of discarded plastic on the bottom of the North Sea alone.

A study by the Japanese geochemist Hideshige Takada and his colleagues at Tokyo University in 2001 found that plastic polymers soak up the resilient poisons such as DDT and polychlorinated biphenyls. The researchers found that non-water-soluble toxic chemicals can be found in plastic in levels as high as a million times their concentration in water. As small pieces of plastic are mistaken for fish eggs and other food by marine life, these toxins end up at the dinner table. But even without the extra toxins, eating plastic is hazardous to health.

see http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/12/are-there-reall.html

 

Find  plastic free products with the >>>A-Z<<< plastic free index

Burning Bins

Burning bin

For more on burning plastic check this link

Originally uploaded by Black X List

Burning trash in a 55 gallon drum or in just a pile, often in the backyard, is a common method of solid waste disposal in some rural areas.

Surveys have revealed between 25 and 50 percent of rural residences and farms may do backyard burning.

Materials “burned” range from all household trash including plastics, glass and metal, to a more selective burning of just paper items. However, with today’s wastes, it is very difficult to keep plastics out of even carefully sorted paper-only waste. Envelope windows are usually plastic, as are some inserts in junk mail. Paper packaging often has plastic coatings.

Backyard burning is by definition “uncontrolled” burning and results in very high levels of toxic chemicals emitted in the smoke. Compared to municipal incinerators it takes place at much lower temperatures, with virtually no combustion air control, and with none of the very expensive high-tech pollution filtering apparatus required before the incinerator stack.

Very high levels of toxic chemicals and particulates are present in the smoke from open burning of waste. These may cause acute respiratory and other health problems in those breathing the smoke.

Burning plastics can be especially problematic, with PVC plastic in particular contributing to high emissions of dioxin. Dioxin is a persistent, bioaccumulative toxin which means it isn’t broken down into safer chemicals, and it is concentrated in the food chain. As dioxin in burn barrel smoke drifts away to eventually settle on nearby fields, it can be eaten by cows where it is concentrated in their fat. Some is then excreted with the milk while the rest remains in the animal’s fat. When humans consume dairy products and meat they end up with the long-lived dioxin in their own bodies. The US EPA now considers burn barrels a major source of dioxin. They also consider that current dioxin levels in Americans, due to consumption of dairy and meat, are high enough to add a significant cancer risk, as well as other serious health risks.

Open burning can also be a significant fire risk, with frequent brush, forest, and structure fires attributed to burning which got out of control. Deaths have even resulted from such fires.

A number of national, state, and local organizations are working on educating the public on the risks of backyard burning. The federal government does not currently have laws or regulations addressing this problem. However, numerous states and localities have banned open burning, and the list is growing rapidly.

The problem of open burning may have increased in recent years because the cost of proper disposal of solid waste has risen and is more likely to be charged by weight and to the individual. Recycling and proper waste disposal have also become less convenient in many areas. Therefore, part of the solution to open burning will be improvements in convenience and affordability of local solid waste management systems.

http://www.burnbarrel.org/Background/Background.html

 

Find more plastic free products with the >>>A-Z<<< plastic free index

Navotas, Manila

Another great photo, another ruined landscape and lots of plastic bags

Navotas, Manila Originally uploaded by jna876

plastic chemicals leach into sea water

Oh it just gets better – sea bathing isnt going to be good for you for much longer

Great photo originally uploaded by Mink

Lots of lovely plastic…

Sperm whale with netting wound round its lower jaw

Originally uploaded by Bag the Bruck

floating round the sea … killing all the sea beasts and ending up in me.

Cow Killers

Cows hanging about on street corners eating plastic bags. Doesnt do them any good at all and it is estimated that thousand dies each month from accidently ingesting the bad stuff. 

Hear all about it here or read about it here

And its not just cows – all kinds of animals die from eating plastic

Heres another interesting explnation of plastic pollution

 
Go plastic free – find  plastic free products with the >>>A-Z<<< plastic free index

polythene recycling

Just to remind you, polythene is a simple plastic, (you can tell it by its kind of stretchy feel.)It can be recycled any number of times – some say indefinitely.

 It is used to make bread bags,veg sacks, toilet paper wrappings and carrier bags. All these polythene bags can be recycled through the supermarket carrier bag recycling schemes. Sainsburys even print this fact on their packaging – I saw it on their grapes the other day.

If you don’t live near a supermarket (!) with a recycling scheme, then you can send the bags to this company who run a recycling scheme.

deformed turtle

This one is for Martin. And here’s a  film of another deformed turtle – 6 pack plastic holders are responsible here

You think they would know what plastic looked like – lord knows there’s enough of it in our oceans

Yeah and here are some stupid ducks choking on plastic