Oceans full of plastic polution

[robpage]

The dairy industry where I spent a couple of decades uses hdpe this can be recycled Time After Time milk bottles have to use Virgin hdpe because you can't autoclave it but once it's had milk in it and goes back to be granulated it makes a whole range of other non-sterile vessels from oil cans to water tanks . Attending a talk once the recyclability is something to do with polymer chains it was such a boring talk I can't remember the start to the finish but I do remember making snoring noises half way through . My understanding was there's an awful lot of the plastics can be recycled and I remember the figure of it took 1.75 kg of oil or other non-renewable to actually produce 1 kg of plastic so recycling is good for energy as well as for the plastic industry . The huge problem came in when dye was added to the plastic , a lot of the dyes contain some pretty noxious stuff but as it's combustible and Burns well with a very low Ash remaining why we don't get burn it and use the energy I do not know

[Tony Taylor]

One way plastic bags now banned here in Oz, replaced by long life plastic pay for bags, save the supermarkets around $3 billion a year.

But a report today spoke of the amount of plastic particles in fish caught in the oceans.

Does BOT wash up, that is silver, china etc over the side, do any damage?
If it does then the seas between UK and South Africa are well and truly stuffed.

Ha Ha, yes, there must be a trail of beer cans from western approaches to USA, Caribbean and So. Africa

[Tony Taylor]

No Terry very little plastic in our time - gash yes - poo yes - dunnage definitely - wires and ropes yes - paint tins and drums yes - but worst of all dangerous chemical and possibly irradiated waste which we dumped where and when as ordered.

My first job ashore involved visiting all the yards and drydocks on the Tyne regularly. On one occasion I had to go aboard a Mexican registered tanker in Middle Docks in So. Shields. The vessel had carried the lead additive for petrol for many years and was so contaminated it could not be scrapped. They stripped everything of value that was not contaminated, towed it in the Atlantic and scuttled it.

[j.sabourn]

#11... My son in law Rob , and now his son my grandson have Ph.Ds and they talk way above my head. When you get. To the Higher aspects of Physics they to the layman are really boring. They would bore the pants off me if had to sit through a lecture. But someone has to do it. The little that has penetrated that up to recent times the cost of destroying plastic was prohibitive. If they have found a way of doing so which is cost possible they are keeping quiete about it.. JWS

[happy daze john in oz]

Rob, Sweden is burning all manner of waste to fire up power stations.
Some countries now using plastic in road surfaces and the |Chinese have developed a way to turn plastic back to Diesel.

So the answers are there, it just takes govs and industries to take charge of the issue.

See the EU is going to ban all one way plastic. That will be interesting as so many supermarket items are either made from or covered in it.

[Keith at Tregenna]

As ever, to little to late.

K.