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PLASTIC BAGS and our WATER WORLD

Discussion in 'YachtForums Yacht Club' started by brian eiland, Jul 7, 2008.

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  1. Pascal, Feb 2, 2020
    #81
    Pascal

    Pascal Senior Member

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    Paper or plastic? Plastic! We have plenty of oil why cut trees for paper!!! Makes no sense. Tree huggers want to cut trees to make bags. Duh

    And the we re use the bags in bathroom trash cans instead of buying bags!
  2. brian eiland, Feb 7, 2020
    #82
    brian eiland

    brian eiland Senior Member

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    Give me a break !!
    Where did you get this info?
    Have you ever been to Asia?
  3. brian eiland, Feb 7, 2020
    #83
    brian eiland

    brian eiland Senior Member

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    We need to continue to research & implement technologys such as these,...and export them around the world.
    http://www.plastic2oil.com/site/home

    ...NOT continue to explore & develop new coal resources,...etc

    Wake up America
    The Chinese also have some VERY smart kids that could, maybe are, working on this problem?
  4. Pascal, Feb 7, 2020
    #84
    Pascal

    Pascal Senior Member

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    How many dirty coal power plans are the Chinese building every year?
  5. Pascal, Feb 7, 2020
    #85
    Pascal

    Pascal Senior Member

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    Yes although that was a LONG time ago... and once was enough.
  6. rtrafford, Feb 7, 2020
    #86
    rtrafford

    rtrafford Senior Member

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    I've got a train of thought on this topic. If I use plastic, I handle it properly, dispose of it properly, never abandon it to nature. No, I thoughtfully place it into a trash bag which eventually is carried out to my recycle container, and that container finds its way to the curb for retrieval by the public sector.

    So how does my bottle or my straw end up in the Pacific Ocean? I pay my taxes. I do my part. Yet I see barges of trash being shuttled offshore on a regular basis. Yet this is my fault? Did I not pay enough taxes? Did I somehow misalign the canister at the curb causing the recovery team to spill them into the ocean? Why am I being punished and forced to drink from a paper straw? (which I will not do)

    Why am I logging into a boating forum and being made to feel like a villain because I prefer to drink bottled water? I paid for the bottled water in addition to handling my waste and paying my taxes.
  7. bayoubud, Feb 8, 2020
    #87
    bayoubud

    bayoubud Senior Member

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    Trash is a subject most boaters are familiar with. Years back cruise ship's were dumping their garbage in the Gulf of Mexico. Mexico was also dumping garbage from barges. Barges off some industrial areas dumping 55 gal drums in the water. The tidelines turned into garbage lines, it was really bad. Both have supposedly stopped the dumping and things have improved but still seeing too much plastic in the water. There were "DUMPING GROUNDS" marked on the charts in the Gulf! We live on the water and pick up a lot of plastic and assorted trash along our shoreline, mostly during the tourist season. Lots of wave runners, pontoons, boats, and "docks" that are careless with their trash. All a big problem that gets worse every year.
  8. brian eiland, Mar 18, 2020
    #88
    brian eiland

    brian eiland Senior Member

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    A lot of folks want to blame Asian countries for this plastic pollution, and yes they are big contributors.

    But I don't think this accounts for what we can find right here in our own Caribbean environment,....just google images of caribbean plastic trash,..or have a look here,..
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5114157/Idyllic-Caribbean-island-ruined-rubbish.html

    I just want us all to own up to whatever responsibility we may have individually, and help in any small way we can to try and solve the problem....

    I don't want our beaches to look like this in the future.
    I don't want plastic outnumbering the fish in the sea.
  9. Capt J, Mar 18, 2020
    #89
    Capt J

    Capt J Senior Member

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    Honestly, I doubt that any member on this forum, is the problem.
  10. brian eiland, Mar 18, 2020
    #90
    brian eiland

    brian eiland Senior Member

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    Capt J,
    It can be something very simple,...like picking up your groceries in those plastic bags the food stores provide,...100's of thousands,...millions in fact.

    Many stores are starting to eliminate them, and asking that you bring your own bag to carry your foodstuffs home. I bought 3 Trader Joe bags about 7 years ago, and I am AMAZED that they are still serviceable. Wonder how many plastic bags I have saved from the landfills or the water.

    I really wish we would invest in providing the technology to return these plastics to oil,..or something else.

    At one point back in late nineties, I made a month long trip to Cuba on a friend's boat. While there I looked at what potential business opportunities might exist there (since our President at the time was suggesting reopening trade with Cuba). I identified an energy sector that was in great need of help, and I though back about the clean burning efforts being made to help with our ENORMOUS surplus of old used tires,....why not relatively small city size energy plants that could burn our old tires? These small plants might even be containerized sized.
    Perhaps no need to construct an elaborate power distribution system to get started,..power up each small town around the island,...barge the tires in from FL, etc. (and it would have put a halt in the construction of that Chernobyl type plant they were building down there).
  11. d_meister, Mar 18, 2020
    #91
    d_meister

    d_meister Senior Member

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    Many of us are, albeit unwittingly
    One of the largest sources of plastic bags in the ocean is the result of the bags being blown from landfills into the ocean. Some are grocery bags that are used as trash bags and then torn apart by birds at the landfill trying to get at the tasty morsels in the bags. The birds tear the bags open and shake them to allow the treasures to fall out, then the bags are caught by a breeze. The same thing happens at waste receptacles along coastal zones and beaches where oil drums and other open trash cans are used by the people that actually deposit their rubbish in designated receptacles.
    Grocery and fruit/veg bags have the perfect surface area to weight properties to fly great distances.
  12. PacBlue, Mar 18, 2020
    #92
    PacBlue

    PacBlue Senior Member

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    The greatest offenders I have observed on the water are commercial ships- tankers, container ships and cruise ships. Foreign flagged ships that didn’t give a crap about our US waters.

    The dumping of their trash when no one was looking on the high seas is a travesty.
  13. brian eiland, May 24, 2020
    #93
    brian eiland

    brian eiland Senior Member

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    Possible Solution !?

    https://newatlas.com/energy/sgh2-cheap-green-hydrogen-california/

    ...just an excerpt....
    How it works
    The process, developed by SGH2's parent company Solena, uses high-temperature plasma torches putting out temperatures between 3,500 and 4,000 °C (6,332 to 7,232 °F). This ionic heat, with oxygen-enriched gas fed in, catalyzes a "complete molecular dissociation of all hydrocarbons" in whatever fuel you've fed in, and as it rises and begins to cool, it forms "a very high quality, hydrogen-rich bio-syngas free of tar, soot and heavy metals."

    The process accepts a wide variety of waste sources, including paper, old tires, textiles, and notably plastics, which it can handle very efficiently without toxic by-products. The bio-syngas exits the top of a plenum chamber, and is sent to a cooling chamber, followed by a pair of acid scrubbers to remove particulate matter.
  14. bayoubud, May 24, 2020
    #94
    bayoubud

    bayoubud Senior Member

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    The worst plastic trashed beach I have ever seen was the Atlantic side of the Abacos the 2000 summer after Floyd. Massive amount of plastic/trash still on the beach, apparently there was little effort to clean it up. I suspect this happens around the Bahamas/Caribbean each time there is a hurricane.
  15. Pascal, May 25, 2020
    #95
    Pascal

    Pascal Senior Member

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    We usually keep some compactor bags in the dinghy and fill a couple of them when visiting sound side beaches in the Exumas. Looking at the marking on most of the trash you can see most isn’t coming from the Bahamas but some third world country ships... many containers marked in Chinese, Arabic, etc.

    Problem with plastic bags is that there are no replacement. When using disposable galley stuff there are now some good alternatives. I just received a case of plastic cups, to replace red solo cups we use for parties, compostable made out of a plant baseD resin. A few pennies extra per cup but best if it made in the USA. Worth it Same with plates. We ve been using plates made out of palm fronds. Fairly cheap, look good and eco friendly.
  16. Sea Gull, May 26, 2020
    #96
    Sea Gull

    Sea Gull Member

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    Pascal, good for you doing your part to help fight this global issue. But be sure those compostable service items end up in the commercial composite facility they were designed for. They are not compostable at home, and not much better than petroleum based plastics in the environment.

    The biggest issue is not plastic per se, but what happens to it after it’s used. Pyrolysis can work, as can waste-to-energy, but there is no substitute for keeping waste out of the oceans.
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