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Post by chris on Apr 15, 2024 18:43:51 GMT -5
Watched CBS Sunday Morning. They had a segment on recycling and I found out that recycle icon means nothing. It was created basically for us to feel we are doing something right when in reality its bogus. Most plastic is not recyclable. Very little actually can be recycled. Most of it is dumped at the local landfills then burned.
Not sure if we are ever going to save this planet. We need to get back to glass. The Earth 🌎 is becoming one giant dumpster….and then there is Media another polutant.
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Post by clarencebunsen on Apr 18, 2024 8:08:08 GMT -5
Plastic recycling is a problem. So many different types and colors. You can't just melt down a vat of mixed plastics and get anything other than a gooey mess. A mess with lumps it it since thermoset plastics don't melt. Get those hot enough and they will burn and release toxic fumes. Foamed polystyrene is an exception it can be melted easily and is usually. The problem there is the low density. Imagine the fuel cost to truck a load of styrofoam a few hundred miles to a place where it could be melted down and remanufactured. No cost savings there or any real environmental savings if you consider the burned fuel.
I don't know the solution.
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Post by Clipper on Apr 18, 2024 9:20:53 GMT -5
I agree that we should go back to glass containers and do away with much of the plastics we see today. It is shameful that so much is recklessly discarded inappropriately. Every place I go I find plastic drink bottles. In the lake, on the roadside, in parking lots, and even in our own front yard. There are a lot of people here who dip snuff and spit in soda or water bottles. The pigs throw those bottles of disgusting spittle and other beverage bottles everywhere. In this area people are notorious for littering. It amazes me that people can't just hold on to their trash and litter and put it in the trash when they get home. A couple of times a week I pick up plastic bottles or aluminum cans that have been thrown out into that little open space across the road that I keep mowed and picked up.
We recycle our plastics at a recycling transfer station. There are places with dumpsters for recycling in several locations around the area.
A hundred years from now a person digging a hole may find themselves hitting a cache of old plastic bottles. The damned plastic is indestructible and will be there forever.
Another pet peeve is fast food trash. People will finish their McDonald's or Burger King and just drop the entire bag of trash out the window onto the road. These Southerners seem to have little regard for the environment or for others that have to travel the local roads. It is not unusual to see a whole bag of household garbage in the ditch on some of the back roads, a mattress, or pile of old tires just discarded over a bank along the road.
Does Utica still have an active recycling program with the orange buckets?
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Post by Atticus Pizzaballa on Apr 18, 2024 12:20:16 GMT -5
I am very concerned with the amount of plastic particles ( microplastic ) in bottled water. The amount is alarming. One reason I stopped buying plastic bottled water and carry a metal two chamber water bottle with me. The researchers found that, on average, a liter of bottled water included about 240,000 tiny pieces of plastic. About 90% of these plastic fragments were nanoplastics. This total was 10 to 100 times more plastic particles than seen in earlier studies, which mostly focused on larger microplastics.Jan 23, 2024 January 23, 2024 Plastics in bottled water At a Glance Researchers developed an imaging technique that detected thousands of tiny bits of plastic in common single-use bottles of water. The technique can help to shed light on the presence and impact of extremely small particles called nanoplastics, which are widespread but poorly understood. Plastics are a part of our everyday lives, and plastic pollution is a growing concern. When plastics break down over time, they can form smaller particles called microplastics, which are 5 mm or less in length—smaller than a sesame seed. Microplastics, in turn, can break down into even smaller pieces called nanoplastics, which are less than 1 μm in size. Unable to be seen with the naked eye, these are small enough to enter the body’s cells and tissues. Previous research has found evidence of plastic particles in human blood, lungs, gut, feces, and reproductive tissues like the placenta and testes. But the potential health effects of these tiny plastic bits are still unproven and unknown. The small size of nanoparticles has made them especially difficult to detect and study. To gain more insight into nanoplastics, a research team led by Drs. Wei Min and Beizhan Yan of Columbia University modified a powerful imaging technique that Min co-invented 15 years ago with NIH support. The technique, called stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy, is now widely used to visualize small molecules in living cells. The method works by focusing two laser beams on samples to stimulate certain molecules to emit unique detectable light signals. Unlike many other methods, SRS microscopy does not depend on labeling specific molecules to find them. For the new study, which was supported by NIH, the researchers developed a new SRS approach to detect micro- and nanoplastics at the single-particle level. After confirming that the technique could rapidly spot plastic particles smaller than 1 μm, they developed an algorithm based on machine learning to detect seven common types of plastic. To test their new high-throughput imaging platform, the team analyzed the micro- and nanoplastics in three popular brands of bottled water. Results were reported on January 8, 2024, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers found that, on average, a liter of bottled water included about 240,000 tiny pieces of plastic. About 90% of these plastic fragments were nanoplastics. This total was 10 to 100 times more plastic particles than seen in earlier studies, which mostly focused on larger microplastics. The water contained particles of all seven types of plastic. The most common was polyamide, a type of nylon that’s often used to help filter and purify water. An abundance of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) was also detected. This might be expected, since PET is used to make bottles for water, soda, and many other drinks and foods. Other identified plastics included polyvinyl chloride, polymethyl methacrylate, and polystyrene, which is also used in water purification. The method identified millions of additional particles that did not match the seven categories of plastic. It’s not yet clear if these tiny particles are nanoplastics or other substances. The researchers say that this new technique will help to advance our understanding of human exposure to nanoplastics. “This opens a window where we can look into a plastic world that was not exposed to us before,” Yan says. In the future, the researchers will apply this approach to analyze more environmental samples, such as tap water, indoor and outdoor air samples, and biological tissues. They are also developing filters that can reduce plastic pollution from laundry wastewater, since many fabrics include nylon, PET, and other plastics. —by Vicki Contie www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/plastic-particles-bottled-water#:~:text=The%20researchers%20found%20that%2C%20on,mostly%20focused%20on%20larger%20microplastics. act.biologicaldiversity.org/wpuISfYV402gLIMKCwYS8A2?gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwiYOxBhC5ARIsAIvdH53haIHom8LBFN9pvae6jr2asympZu7kZZxIS9UU1j7hNfAtHZpCTiMaAnm-EALw_wcB |
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Post by chris on Apr 18, 2024 14:15:44 GMT -5
All those microbeads are affecting the waters. Maybe thats why they are having wierd behaviour in the oceans they cant explain
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Post by BHU on Apr 18, 2024 15:22:58 GMT -5
Speaking of fast food joints & litter. There's a Citizens Bank on N. Genny & Wurz Ave where we have an account. Right next to it is a Wingstop franchise. Every time I go there I have to step over piles of fast food containers, soda bottles, napkins, you get the picture. The parking lot is a pigsty thanks to cretins who sit in their vehicles, stuff there pieholes with wings & fries then toss their junk out the car window, too lazy to take care of it. And it's every time I go there. People just don't care.
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Post by chris on Apr 22, 2024 10:46:41 GMT -5
I often wondered why the fast food places dont have containers for trash. I have to pull into a space in the parking lot where someone just dumped their garbage before pulling away. What is wrong with people.
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Post by chris on Apr 22, 2024 10:49:44 GMT -5
I often wondered why the fast food places dont have containers for trash. I have to pull into a space in the parking lot where someone just dumped their garbage before pulling away. What is wrong with people. Maybe there should be signs in the windows ….dont leave your trash, take it with you, you paid for it. |
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Post by Atticus Pizzaballa on Apr 22, 2024 16:06:16 GMT -5
All those microbeads are affecting the waters. Maybe thats why they are having wierd behaviour in the oceans they cant explain and in people too |
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Post by Atticus Pizzaballa on Apr 22, 2024 16:07:33 GMT -5
I often wondered why the fast food places dont have containers for trash. I have to pull into a space in the parking lot where someone just dumped their garbage before pulling away. What is wrong with people. nothing but why do ya have to walk to a dumpster then have to tough that dirty thing. |
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Post by chris on May 2, 2024 14:41:03 GMT -5
I often wondered why the fast food places dont have containers for trash. I have to pull into a space in the parking lot where someone just dumped their garbage before pulling away. What is wrong with people. nothing but why do ya have to walk to a dumpster then have to tough that dirty thing. A trash bin….not the big dumpster. |
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Post by clarencebunsen on May 3, 2024 8:19:28 GMT -5
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Post by Clipper on May 3, 2024 8:34:05 GMT -5
Interesting indeed. They remain dormant until placed in a compost environment? I wonder if half digested food in your tummy would trigger them to come to life. I am not sure I would want something in my tummy that can digest a plastic bottle, lol.
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Post by clarencebunsen on May 3, 2024 8:47:31 GMT -5
Hopefully the acid in your gastric juices would take care of them. If not, I guess you can add plastic to your diet and become part of the global solution to recycling plastic waste. Perhaps I should trademark a Waste to Waist logo now.
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Post by Clipper on May 3, 2024 10:23:47 GMT -5
Hopefully the acid in your gastric juices would take care of them. If not, I guess you can add plastic to your diet and become part of the global solution to recycling plastic waste. Perhaps I should trademark a Waste to Waist logo now.[/quote I love the logo idea. I will be waiting to see your marketing campaign. Just grind up a few bottles, and maybe add some artificial flavoring of some sort to make the plastic palatable. |
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