Ocean Plastics

Great report on CBC’s The National tonight by Greg Rasmussen investigating the amount of plastic that washes up on remote parts of BC’s coastline. As you can imagine we’ve fucked things up real good. The bulk of it seems to be marine industry related such as dock floats, fishing gear, etc, but there’s plenty of consumer plastic as well.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/bc-plastic-beach-cleanup-1.6103786

A while back in a food thread I think I toyed with the idea of trying to eliminate disposable plastic from my life. Watching that report tonight added some fuel to that goal. I think for the average person trying to do it for just a week or two would really illustrate the issue of how pervasive plastic is in our lives. Could you go a couple of weeks without buying anything that includes plastic that will get thrown out or into recycling?

we  seen a lot of plastics paddling out on the north coast, most of it with oriental writing but it wasn't near as bad as  the beaches in Bali

I miss the days when the Asian fishing fleets used glass balls as floats.  They made nice ornaments.  

I could try Syncro, but plastic is pretty pervasive.  Did you ever manage to pull it off?

No, but watching that report last night got me thinking about it again. It’s probably close to impossible, but I’m going to try. The bonus from the food/diet perspective is that it’s a sure fire way to eliminate crap food from your diet.

Posted by: chupacabra

I miss the days when the Asian fishing fleets used glass balls as floats.  They made nice ornaments.  

I could try Syncro, but plastic is pretty pervasive.  Did you ever manage to pull it off?

Used to go out with a beach cleanup crew in my area, they knew the sources of all the various plastic doodad's piled up like oyster spreaders and what not. Amazing how far this crap travels.

I have a few glass balls from back in the day too :)

I know it's nasty for the environment and all that.. but it does make for interesting beachcombing. Styrofoam is the worst fucking thing on the planet though.

Eliminate? Impossible.

Reduce and reuse, here are a few of the things we do.

1. Superstore blue bins used instead of bags. Buy them once and reuse forever. Also handy for many other binning jobs.

2. Old lady shopping trolley. See above. Also bought at Superstore, and the wheels replaced twice already when failed instead of buying a new trolley.

3. Paper lunch bags for kitty litter disposal. Also quicker to degrade at the dump.

4. Brewing beer and wine, reusing bottles indefinitely.

5. Produce baggies made from reused tule off a divorcees wedding dress.

6. Homemade beeswaxed clothes as food wrappers.

7. Consciously buy metal or glass over plastic. Kitty litter scoops, coathooks in the bathroom, lots of opportunities

8. Bulk food instead of prepackaged small packages.

9. Sodastream. Fuck bottled water! Working on a scuba tank CO2 hookup next

10. Glass “tupperware”

11. Eggs only in cardboard, in bulk never styrofoam

12. Fucking hippies. ;)

Posted by: heckler

5. Produce baggies made from reused tule off a divorcees wedding dress.

Damn, that is metal.  How do you broach the divorcees?  Where is Gooch when you need him?

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/28/shanna-swan-fertility-reproduction-count-down

Posted by: chupacabra

Posted by: heckler

5. Produce baggies made from reused tule off a divorcees wedding dress.

Damn, that is metal.  How do you broach the divorcees?  Where is Gooch when you need him?

One word.  Squamish.

12. Homemade liquid laundry soap, from cleaning products that come in cardboard boxes. We have used the same two no-name cold water detergent containers for at least ten years, refilling them from a 20 gallon brewing bucket (repurposed due to a bacterial beer growth). So Clean washing soda and borax mix. Way cheaper too!

At least some action has come from covid.  Unfortunstely, cleaning up after the fact is pointless IMO. 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/bc-plastic-beach-cleanup-1.6103786

We each have to hit it individually at the source.

yeah, that's the report I was talking about - they didn't have it posted to their page yet when I started the thread. thanks for listing it. you're right about hitting it at the source.

13.  Just ordered takeout Wendys Frosties.  ‘No spoons please’.  Metal spoons at home. 

It’s the little things that all add up.