Showing posts with label plastic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label plastic. Show all posts

Monday, July 4, 2016

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Plastiki


The Plastiki is a 60-foot (18 m) catamaran made out of 12,500 reclaimed plastic bottles and other recycled PET plastic and waste products. The craft was built using cradle to cradle design philosophies and features many renewable energy systems, including solar panels, wind and trailing propeller turbines, and bicycle generators. The frame was designed by Australian naval architect Andrew Dovell. The boat's name is a play on the 1947 Kon-Tiki raft used to sail across the Pacific by Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl, and its voyage roughly followed the same route.

(read more) (theplastiki.com) (video clip) (junk)

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

No More Plastic Water Bottles


The Huffington Post

by Adele Israel
Columnist, Community Activist
Posted: October 6, 2009

It is time to stop the insanity and you can help! I am referring to the madness of purchasing water in single-use, disposable plastic bottles. In spite of the convenience, this is a crazy concept and we must put an end to it.

You may ask, "What's so crazy about using individual bottles of water?" Pardon my candor, but not only is this habit unnecessary and ridiculously expensive, it is also wasteful and dependent on diminishing resources.

Let me share a few important facts:

1 Plastics are made by synthesizing certain chemicals found in fossil fuels like oil, natural gas or coal, to create chains of carbon and hydrogen atoms. These chains are enhanced with additional chemicals and highly-specialized manufacturing processes.

2 Plastic is forever. Although some types of plastic can be recycled, it does not ever completely biodegrade.

3 Plastic is lightweight and can travel many, many miles from where it was discarded.

4 Plastic water bottles account for more than one million tons of waste per year.

5 Plastics break down just enough to release toxins that can be hazardous to your health.

Bottled water is expensive. With most of us trying to trim our budgets, this is one expense to jettison immediately. Assuming you pay one buck for a 20-ounce bottle of water, that translates to $6.40 per gallon. Local Ute water costs less than 1/2 cent a gallon. We refill large reusable containers of water at Purified Water to Go and still only pay 35 cents a gallon. From an economic standpoint, individually bottled water is simply a ridiculous waste of money.

Then you have to take into account the amount of resources used to make all those bottles, fill them and transport them. The fossil fuel that is diverted into making water bottles for one year could run more than 100,000 cars during that same time period.

Which bring us full circle to the trash resulting from the bottled-water habit. Each year in the United States about 40 billion water bottles are thrown away, wherever "away" is. Fewer than 20 percent of water bottles actually get recycled.

Purchasing water in plastic, single-serve containers is a lose-lose situation. Stop buying this wasteful product and encourage others to follow your lead. Together we can stop the madness now. (read more)

Friday, April 16, 2010

Polymers Are Forever


The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has one of the highest levels known of plastic particulate suspended in the upper water column. As a result, it is one of several oceanic regions where researchers have studied the effects and impact of plastic photodegradation in the neustonic layer of water. Unlike debris, which biodegrades, the photodegraded plastic disintegrates into ever smaller pieces while remaining a polymer. This process continues down to the molecular level.

As the plastic flotsam photodegrades into smaller and smaller pieces, it concentrates in the upper water column. As it disintegrates, the plastic ultimately becomes small enough to be ingested by aquatic organisms which reside near the ocean's surface. Plastic waste thus enters the food chain through its concentration in the neuston.

Some plastics decompose within a year of entering the water, leaching potentially toxic chemicals such as bisphenol A, PCBs and derivatives of polystyrene. (read more)

Friday, November 27, 2009

Don't Buy Gift Cards

Not all gift cards are redeemed,
which can be for a multitude of reasons.
Common reasons may include loss of the card,
time decay (expiration and fees),
personal uninterest in the store
that the card is accepted, complex
rules of redemption, and the attempt
of the recipient to save money for the giver.
It has been estimated that perhaps
10% of cards are not redeemed,
amounting to a gain for retailers
of about $8 billion in the US in 2006.

Gift cards may seem attractive but
they are just another marketing device
designed to drain you of your cash,
you are giving your money away
for free when you choose gift cards.

$$$$!!!! 8 Billion !!!!$$$$

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Monday, July 13, 2009

A Sea of Plastic


Just for worldwide consumption of bottled water in 2004 alone it took roughly 87.4 million barrels of oil. You can imagine that with statistics for 2008, we have a figure in the hundreds of millions of barrels of oil being used just to produce bottled water. Don't buy water in plastic bottles, water is free!

America and the world’s addiction to plastic doesn’t end there. Plastic bags take oil, just like plastic bottles to produce. Currently the U.S. consumes 100 billion plastic shopping bags in a year and worldwide consumption is estimated to be from 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags a year. That is roughly 1 million plastic bags a minute being consumed and less than 1% is recycled. If we legalize hemp we could make bags from a profitable and sustainable source and avoid wasting all that oil and energy making "trash that lasts forever."

I guess it's okay to pollute our waters now because, "we can $ell them clean water in a pla$tic bottle." Clean water is a right, not a commodity to be exploited. I bet next they will try to $ell us air and fire and dirt.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

The Zippo


"Disposable" lighters are only one of the many items being made of plastic. "Trash that lasts forever" is the only phrase that can describe "disposable" plastic items. This "disposable" plastic finds its way into the ocean and collects in rotating ocean currents like the North Pacific Gyre, an area of concentrated plastic trash the size of Texas. The plastic to food ratio in this area is 6:1.


As you can see, this bird ingested several plastic "disposable" lighters along with other various plastic bottle tops and miscellaneous "disposable" plastic items. This bird died because it mistook our "disposable" plastic trash for food. Only 3.5 % of worldwide "disposable" plastic is recycled.


Zippo lighters are reliable and re-usable, a quality American made item not made of plastic. Buy a Zippo and stop using plastic "disposable" lighters and avoid buying "disposable" plastic products and packaging. It may even stop a bullet and save your life. "Disposable" plastic is the bane of our age.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

how dare we?



George Carlin: Great Comedian, Great Thinker, Great Philosopher, Great Man!

Saturday, February 7, 2009

"Disposable" plastic


"Disposable" plastic........

is trash that lasts forever.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Junk


Sailing to Hawaii on 15,000 plastic bottles and a Cessna 310, to raise awareness about plastic fouling our oceans........Junk.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Plastic is forever




Disposable plastic............................is garbage that lasts forever.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch...............is bigger than the U. S.

Of course they're eating plastic................that's all there is to eat.