How Might Plastics be Eliminated from the Food Chain?

You mean we could actually get something for free..........you're taking the piss, something for FREE..........I'll take it.

Do you eat meat that may come from a feed lot? Do you feed a pet dry food? chances are good you indirectly consume WVO. This is in no way a new use for WVO, which may also be converted into soaps & cosmetics. The lard & butter you advocate probably comes from farm raised animals. For better or worse WVO had uses before the recent movement towards it's use as fuel

The reason we have the amount of imported food is mostly because the logistics [transportation & such] have gotten cheap enough that it makes sense...

coupled with so called free markets. the Chinese for example have tilted the playing field in their favor by keeping the exchange rates artificially low.

we could of course also talk about labor & safety standards

ADM, Cargill & the like will use what ever means at their disposal to maximize their ROI with nary a thought as to whether or not it's a good idea for the people or the planet

people don't expect to be able to buy summer food in the winter, but will if it's available & the price is low enough....

Gentlemen, the problem with biofuels STILL is the fact that more energy is needed to plant, cultivate, harvest, and process the product than you get back out of it when you burn it. Waste vegetable oil is somewhat better in that regard because it has an economic incentive to produce, but it generates more SO2 than conventional diesel and in cold climates, you have to install heaters to keep it from gelling.

Besides, burning perfectly good alcohol is a crime in of itself!

It is also noteworthy that the prices of corn, chicken, and beef (among other things that use corn and HFCS (High Fructose Corn Sweetener) as a feedstock, such as Coke!) went up, as did gasoline when 10% ethanol was mandated by the EPA. In some instances by quite a bit.

It is also noteworthy that the prices of corn, chicken, and beef (among other things that use corn and HFCS (High Fructose Corn Sweetener) as a feedstock, such as Coke!) went up, as did gasoline when 10% ethanol was mandated by the EPA. In some instances by quite a bit.

While I accept that other factors exist, once again I have to point out that costs are up because demand increased with no real increase in supply and we are still paying farmers not to grow anything... talk about voodoo economics, we're getting tagged twice on this nonsense since it is our tax dollars being used to pay people not to grow so that we can pay other people more because of the limited supply

True enough, but that unfortunately will never end because those freaking farmers have the politicians by the political shorthairs. Must be nice to be able to blackmail politicians to pay you to sit on your keister.

Oh! - this is a travesty.

"more energy is needed to plant, cultivate, harvest, and process the product than you get back out of it when you burn it."

This is a skinny mantra based corn diverted to ethanol, not corn waste used for ethanol or indeed methane fuel.

Waste oil, waste organic, over produced organic, the energy un-viable last bit of Garthhs beet - these are what you make fuel out of NOT Edible Virgins

"SO₂" i.e. the stuff the oil refineries pre remove by the ton, if it hasn't accidentally been lost at the wellhead?

"conventional diesel and in cold climates, you have to install heaters to keep it from gelling." No you blend the oils to deal with gelling. Just like you do for paraffin in dug-up diesel.

(yeah, ok, that crime bit's right)

"price of corn ...." That was because the totally technically vacuous (NYSE) thought corn was the "new good thing" for making ethanol. It's not.

Most disappointed in you Rorschach ... very sad now.

At least you got the sugarbeet point :)

The corn based ethanol is a bit more complicated than it appears on the surface

in this area one of the biggest producers, was really in the business of supplying their feedlots with brewers waste at a discount.

they got caught on the wrong side of the corn market. Seeing no end in sight they locked in at $9 a bushel, which looked clever when the price was $12. Not so clever the next year when the price dropped back down to $3 & at the same time the bottom fell out of ethanol prices as supply caught up with mandated demand.

"Can you come up with a business model to pay to clean the oceans?"

Not one that would work today, but at some point petroleum feedstocks for plastics manufacture will get expensive enough to justify sending factory ships to the gyres to sweep up the plastic débris and depolymerize it in situ. The factory ships would unload the resulting custom crude onto tankers to deliver in the usual manner. Crews would relieve each other periodically, but the factory ships would remain at sea until they needed a shipyard overhaul.

That assumes, of course, that the alleged vast accumulations of plastic exist. I'm a little doubtful because they don't show up on overhead photos. I'm waiting for National Geographic to send a ship to report on these things...

One day, too, powerful interests will fight for the privilege of mining old landfil sites.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch

I think a better question than what business model will pay to clean up the oceans?

But why don't present consumption practices account for the entire lifecycle of products?

these issues are being more effectively handled at land fills due to the cost of real estate to use for long term storage & concerns over contamination of the underlying water table.

The situation in the ocean is more complex as public resource is being exploited. There is no ownership of the areas affected, thus groups or individuals don't have any reason to act responsibly. Any action taken to mitigate/regulate are problematic due to the lack of ownership.

The advent & widespread use & disposal of materials with greatly expanded lifespan, is an example of where advances in technology lead the social organizations & groups ability to adapt to changing conditions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch

Good article, it does nicely explain how the giant garbage island formed, but it provides nothing to convince a skeptic of the actual existance of an enormous floating island of refuse...

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Lack of ownership is definitely a major obstacle to resolving this issue. Not only does no-one own the ocean but no-one feels a sense of responsibility for the garbage since most likely they didn't personally put it there, and many of those who are directly responsible are ignorant of the impact they are having as they are ship hands recruited from third world countries who are merely doing what they have always done.

........ as they are ship hands recruited from third world countries who are merely doing what they have always done.

This may have been the case years ago, but, not now. I know it may occur sometimes, but there is always that risk of getting caught.

There are at least 136 countries that are signatories to the MARPOL 73/78 International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships. This represents 98% of the world's shipping. The six Annexes to the convention are:-

Annex I Oil and Oily Mixtures

Annex II Noxious Liquid Substances

Annex III Harmful Substances in Packaged Form

Annex IV Sewage

Annex V Garbage.....all plastics wastes are to be retained on board .

Annex VI Air Pollution from Ships.

Ships must also have an oil record book and a garbage disposal book (garbage incinerated or compressed and to be disposed of ashore all........ash from the incinerators are bagged and disposed of ashore)

All these Annexes are very strict and are becoming increasingly more severe as each year passes............there are also National and State Standards in Australia that apply to fishing and recreational vessel.........anyone caught disposing of plastics into the sea can face very hefty fines.

If you have ever worked outside the US or Europe you would realize exactly what those words on paper mean - not very much at all!

..........until they caught!

They get caught, pay a small bribe and keep right on - no big deal in 90% of the world. On the open sea who will catch them? Tinkerbell maybe?

Without enforcement, laws are just wasted paper (electrons).

Though they do make green types ever so happy that something has been done. They are often to stupid that their big victory is meaningless.

If they have the option of incinerating the trash on board, what is to keep them from simply tossing it overboard and marking it down in their log that they burned it? And who is going to enforce it? Most of the signatory countries are notoriously corrupt and the ship is subject to the flag country's laws until they get within another country's territorial waters. On the high seas, pretty much anything goes.

I have read that the gyres of plastics do not show up on satellite photos because they break apart just enough to stay a bit under the surface.

Possibly you have hit on the economic incentive to reoil from the scavenged plastic cloud swirl. We have recently seen the Japanese inventor's plastic bag back to oil mechanism, though I thought the trash plastic used in the Youtube vid?, looked awfully clean.

Fortunes have been made from trash.

Currently I work at repairing found furniture to sell to students who typically spend no more than 40 dollars for anything from a desk to a table. Turned dressers with 5 drawers into something with two.

I dumpster dive at the cabinent shop for birch and maple plywood.

Get some boost when my art photos sell...

So there is money to be made in Trash! Gold is where you find it!

Who knows, maybe somebody has made a Prozac recovery machine, obviating the need to make more of it, or even a Birth Control pill water separator device the drug manufactures will install so they just recover their drugs from pee, instead of having to make more?

Stranger things might happen. We ain't dead yet.

I've said that before, there will come a day when landfills will be mined for their mineral content and for their energy content. Doesn't look like it will be any day soon, but looking at the vast amounts we put into landfills, one never knows.

In Nova Scotia people take their mayonnaise jar to the store for a refill. Think Americans would do this without it having to be mandated by the government?

Oh the FDA would plotz!!! Re-use a mayonnaise jar... think of all the poor vomiting botulized little kids who just wanted a zesty flavor on their little sandwich with the crusts cut off...

Seriously, this is a good idea, but it wouldn't fly here... too much ignorance and bureaucracy running amok and no personal responsibility (required to prevent the grocery store getting sued because you didn't wash last months mayo out of the jar before you refilled it...)

Plastic is Vary Dangerous for Human Health, it also harmful for all live. Plastic have bad effect for Soil. Many of animals are died by animal every day. So there should be proper solution for recycling the Plastic else it will be very harmful for every live.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

It might be, who really knows. It would be nice to read facts about it rather than the garbage that makes the news.

If greens write the stuff we won't make it another week. If the opposite side publishes the stuff they claim it is not important. We all know the truth lays somewhere in between. In the meantime, the general public is turned off by the furor and promptly forgets all about the entire topic.

This problem is similar to all life style choices today however few people want to take any responsibility for themselves - better to blame Obama or Bush or others.

Whoever figures this one out gets my vote for the Nobel Prize!

you would have to come up with an alternative that is as flexible and cheap as plastic, and presumably harmless too (at least less harmful than plastic). you'd then have to sell this product to farmers, dairymen, processing plants, manufacturers, grocers, little old ladies and house wives, not to mention the fast food and restaraunt industry... a Nobel Prize and about a billion dollars a week for this genius if they work it right!

We're not getting plastic out of our food chain anytime soon, though we certainly should.

I commend you on this thread and hope that it gets more people thinking about what they may not know they put into their bodies every day...

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next we should do something about those health nuts that are 'improving their well being' by jogging with traffic... Nothing's better than some good old CO for getting the blood pumping!

Ok, guys you don't seem to get it! The original thread was, "How Might Plastics be Eliminated from the Food Chain?". It has been documented over and over that harmful/cancer causing chemicals, from plastics, leach into our food. The solution is quite simple - go back to glass. It's recyclable, even if you throw it into your back yard, it doesn't leach anything into the food, and you can use it over and over again, without having to re-manufacture it into something new (just wash and sterilize it). If glass won't fit the product, wax or aluminum coated paper works great.

You can make a difference today. Buy only products sold in glass and send an email to companies that change over to plastic, like Sobe just did.

I'd rather clean up a few glass and food spills, on occasion, than submit myself and my family to a long drawn out death with chemo and radiation to "cure" me from the the slow poisoning the food companies are subjecting us to so they can decrease their breakage and weight shipping issues.

I think this is a great topic and I hope you will all give it some real thought. It's in your best interest and especially that of our future generations.

Homesteader

We get it just fine but not much to be gained by being a fuzzy headed green is there?

Hey Homesteader,

In principle I agree with you totally. Glass is an excellent medium for food storage... however switching to glass from plastic containers across the board is going to affect a cost increase, and likely a significant cost increase at that.

Manufacturers choose plastic containers for several reasons:

• Cheaper than glass
• Easier to create custom forms
• Less product loss due to breakage
• Less weight =
• Lower shipping cost
• Reduction in lifting related injuries
• More product per case

and so on... Plastic is big money for the companies who use it too, not just those who make it.

Some of us on the economically-challenged end of the financial scale, do not have access to the resources required to pay the added costs resulting from shipping glass containers from factory to consumer. In other words, switching to glass means hunger for some of us...

& don't forget that it takes more energy to make glass, there is a reason or 3 that very few products come in reusable glass containers, the logistical nightmare being high on that list

It is likely that Corning has some competitive glass. My wife hates it if I get beer in bottles. Hence it is that I buy beer in aluminum cans.

I use the plastic bags to collect the aluminum beer cans. It's all my wife's fault.

Guys,

I was reading in the last week or so that there is no Atlantic equivalent of the Pacifice Garbage patch. I am sorry I did not have the premonition that we would be talking about this, this week, and did not store the reference.

The belief was that there was no Atlantic version because the Gulf Stream aka the North Atlantic drift? was suffficient to prevent its formation - to date anyway.

There are concerns amongst the enviromentalists that the trend will be towards a cooler and weaker Gulf Stream thus the Atlantic Garbage patch could still come about.

We also have an enormous garbage patch in Space which will reduce our space capability until someone, somewhere actually does something about it.

We are a people with a tendency to throw away what we don't need at this moment.

We will regret not patching this up sooner rather than later; the later we leave fixing the garbage, wherever it is sited, the bigger will be the problem and the more expensive it will be to fix.

BTW I agree entirely that the plastics and the excreted medecines are our problem, right NOW.

Sleepy

It is very unlikely that anything serious is going to be done about the trash problem for one simple fact: It is a natural function of life. Every species that has ever existed that we can recognize as "living" has extracted resources from the environment and excreted wastes back in to the environment. Humans are just much more prolific at it than most species. If we refuse to acknowledge that there is nothing "special" about being human in this environment, we are very unlikely to develop an appropriate strategy for dealing with our natural processes- extracting resources and dumping waste are natural things to do. When you accept the fact that this is what people do, then you can begin to understand the approaches less damaging to the environment. Just telling people they should not pollute is not going to get you anywhere...

Aren't kegs made out of aluminum?

We have become adept at extending the life span of our junk

ever since man started firing clay & smelting metal our junk has become more durable

Very true. I remember once watching an archeologist in the jungle find shards of pottery- he would look for little peaks of dirt where the shards had prevented rain from washing the dirt away directly under the shard. Traces of human impact from something like 4,000 years ago...

I think we have as a species already discovered that reusing and repurposing "junk" can be profitable. One of the most successful recycling programs has been car batteries. Reuse of beer bottles in Toronto Canada was standard practice when I lived there.

The American Indian Tribes that depended on the Buffalo were pretty good at using all of the Buffalo for what they needed. -it, we aint all bad.

So actually the problem is not so much that we aren't better than the dumb animals, but that many who have riches feel better than those that don't, and push trash off on the have nots who have no means to deal with life issues long term, and are forced to do things short term.

Sometimes something new isn't even recognized as a problem for awhile. Birth Control pills haven't even been around all that long for instance.

Quote, 'The American Indian Tribes that depended on the Buffalo were pretty good at using all of the Buffalo for what they needed.'

Not really true - they would run the entire herd of a cliff to get what they wanted - excess was wasted.

When killing one - I expect everything was used - easier and safer than going after a second.

look up sargasso sea....

Thanks rorsach,

I have been aware of the Sargasso Sea for over 60 years when I used to spend hours in the local library and used all the families library tickets (my memory says it was 11) to take out as many books as I could carry and return them the following week. My reading was eclectic and covered fiction, non fiction, included science and Maths Geograhy and History as well as many other topics.

My understanding of the Sargasso Sea is that it is a place where a gyre develops which is primarily seaweed and life forms. I would worry if it too became a rubbish bin full of plastics (primarily because of the possible impact on the life systems which use the weed as a temporay home{eels, fish on migration routes}) and none of the recent articles about it that I have seen came to that conclusion - you may have later material - I have seen many recent documents from which my thoughts are now represented.

I am always ready to take in neww ideas and thoughts, please let us have any N.Atlantic gyre/plastics articls to read!

Sleepy

Don't buy them. Don't vote for them!

Until we figure out how to live without plastic in the food chain, we can start by not using plastic containers for hot food. Especially heating food in the microwave oven! Heat certainly help in the leaching of plastic components into the food. Use only glass or ceramic plate in the microwave oven. This will greatly reduce the amount of plastic you consume with your food.

Also, most wax found on the market are from petroleum sources. Waxed paper or cardboard containers are very likely to have the same problems than plastics containers.

not at all true. It is the plasticizers that are the problem, wax has no plasticizers.

..............did someone say there may be a way to assimilate plastics????

Beware of the Borg...........or maybe.......Where are the Borg, and let them assimilate the plastic.

Resistance is futile!

or.........should be

Persistence is perpetual

You want plastics (and whatever you like) pollution:

A river in Indonesia..........and where does all this end up

Probably getting their evening meal!

The Caspian Sea

Gore Point Alaska

Spooky Mobi - that looks just like a bridge in China, even the hills... and ....

If you want to see the benefits of plastics being eliminated from the food chain examine Angola or Mozambique or any of the countrys of the world where plastics are scarce and life expectancy is about 40 years.

They are more concerned with starvation or lead poisoning. I venture to say they would trade with any of you folks who are whining about plastics in the food chain. No food, let alone plastics in it.

just because "our's is better than their's" doesn't mean our's is good, or should be tolerated. The real issue is the magnificent ignorance of the general populous who are going to start running out of places to dump their plastic refuse (if they aren't poisoned by it first) and then those folks in Angola and Mozambique will find out just how amazing plastic is.

While I appreciate that starving to death quickly may be 'worse' than being poisoned to death slowly, there is far less corporate profit being made starving people than is made by poisoning consumers and producing abundant waste that then poisons the entire world population, those poor starving folks are going to be getting modern industrial 'luxury' in their food whether it is shipped to them directly around a twinky or has to find its way through the food chain from the bottom of the ocean. They may be more concerned about lead poisoning and starvation, but their vision is limited by their experience and we should know better and we should use that knowledge to protect those people in the world who, because of their situation, can't see beyond their own day to day survival. Besides which, of course they aren't worried about BPA, they don't know it exists. If you didn't know nuclear power existed and produced nuclear waste you wouldn't think about it, let alone worry about it; even after the radiation sickness set in.

"The real issue is the magnificent ignorance of the general populous who are going to start running out of places to dump their plastic refuse ... folks in Angola and Mozambique"

Is this a reference to exporting "computer recycling" to Africa?

in part, though last I heard that was a special Chinese import...

I'm mostly referencing the general lack of recycling where it is possible, and the general tendency of people to throw their garbage out the back door and forget about it, and the fact that almost everything you buy anymore comes with some sort of plastic packaging (that goes in the garbage), and the fact that a disturbing amount of our plastic waste winds up in the food chain as it breaks down (whether that food is commercially processed or organically/subsistence farmed is not going to be relevant soon as these chemicals are already circulating in the ocean), and one day our garbage dumps will be full and we will look for some poor ignorant fool that thinks getting paid to 'store' our garbage is a good deal, at least until they actually start receiving our garbage and it ruins their lives like we are desperately trying to pretend is not happening to us...

I guess what I really wanted to say there is that our ignorant consumerism is going to take advantage of their (3rd world populations) ignorant survivalism at some point, so to say that trying to fix our problems is silly in the face of the problems of people in Angola or Mozambique (as suggested by beriberi's post) is shortsighted, because our problem will certainly become their problem in the not distant future. The fact is that their ignorance prevents their awareness of the issue and their situation inhibits their ability to be informed. If they knew, they would certainly join in the "whining", of course if we weren't so ignorant (and selfish) their circumstances wouldn't be so bad.

I have far more respect for the 3rd worlders out there, they at least have justification for their amazing ignorance, unlike most of us.

Once I was standing on the stage floor after a show in the coliseum. I was IATSE Union and looked up at the Mexicans cleaning in the stands.

Somebody asked me what I saw.

I said, "My past is your future."

Love Canal was no joke.

For those with an interest in the issue of plastics in the ocean, don't miss this link, which showed up in the CR4 Daily Digest:

http://www.fastcompany.com/1690136/project-kaisei-covanta-energy-working-to-turn-the-plastic-vortex-into-diesel-fuel?partner=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+fastcompany%2Fheadlines+%28Fast+Company+Headlines%29

That pretty interesting CW.

What has had me pondering is the turning "non-recyclable plastics" into fuel. Which rather suggests the "viability" is based in collecting everything, sorting out the profitable recyclables and 'digesting' the rest.

Not exactly what Trans raised as just getting the plastic, but on further looking it seems;

A. there is only about, quote "enough to fill 4 ships" of the larger stuff.

B. a lot is turning out to be microscopic particles - which are the "entering the food chain" problem.

C. the workable concentrations migrate and/or are "invisible" to common tracking systems.

So it would seem if the "filtration" is down below alga size (per B), it would provide a lot of material suitable for 'digesting' to fuel - and some plastic thrown in.

Or mining the ocean's alga might provide 'viability'.

One is now wondering about that impact on the ocean bio-system and CO₂ absorption of another "green scheme".

A filtration system of such scale, is however, an interesting design exercise.

It's a pity they aren't saying more about the actual goals and proposed methodology though.