15 January 2023

Plastic


Plastic in the ocean. To me this is the very symbol of modern man's disregard for the natural world we all inhabit. For more than half a century, we have been dumping waste plastic in our oceans - not caring one iota about what it might be doing to sea creatures, sea water or to the futures of our oceans and our children's children.

Maybe I am wrong to blame ordinary people. Arguably, most of the blame should be directed at governments that stood idly by watching the horror unfold and to plastic producers whose financial greed subsumed their environmental responsibilities. Marine biologist Professor Edward Carpenter now of San Francisco State University was the first scientist to start ringing the alarm bells back in 1971. His significance is trumpeted in a current BBC video "story" shown at the bottom of this blogpost.

Here in Sheffield, Yorkshire you may be pleased to learn that Phoebe's second birthday event in "The Greystones" public house went really well and everybody had a nice time.

On three or four occasions, Phoebe slid off the bouncy castle and came running to the arms of her besotted Grandpa or marvelled at his ability to knock balloons up to the ceiling. I was hoping to post pictures but I am reliant upon smartphone snaps gathered by my son and daughter. They haven't sent them yet. Maybe tomorrow.

33 comments:

  1. Since I live inland on a prairie, I haven't see this plastic mess but I can easily imagine what it looks like. Lakes and rivers here , have enough junk to alarm me.

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    1. And humanity never got to vote on plastic pollution. We were hoodwinked.

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  2. This is a pet project of my father's, educating people about the ocean gyres--there are five around the globe--that rotate and act like shower drains collecting tons and tons of plastics that have been thrown away over the decades.

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    1. Good on him for caring and raising his voice!

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  3. We are all responsible for the disaster and by continuing to use plastic bags, even though the figure has dropped a substantially, and especially absurd are so many things available in supermarkets that are now plastic wrapped and not loose. We are getting there in many ways but we aren't even close.

    Good to hear the one doted on had a happy birthday.

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    1. Yes we are "getting there" but we are far too late. The party is almost over.

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  4. I despair at the thought of what we as a species are doing to our planet daily, hourly, every second really. To buy groceries, I could go to the farmer‘s market and get everything directly from the farmer instead of the plastic-wrapped items in the supermarket, or my muesli from the packaging-free shop in town. But laziness and convenience let me do this far too rarely. At least I don‘t buy bottled water but get all my drinking water directly from the tap, and I have neither a car nor a tumble dryer, and have not been contributing directly to overpopulation. Still, I know I could do loads better.

    Phoebe at her birthday party - sounds lovely, and she has no idea yet of the many issues that plague us.

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    1. You are right. She is innocent. Fortunately, there will be lots of good stuff to learn about too. We used to buy bottled water but not now. Like you all of our water comes from the tap. Should sales of plastic bottles filled with water even be allowed? There's an argument for banning this business.

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  5. It does make me wish plastic had never been invented. It's convenient and versatile, but so wasteful with people just throwing things away and buying new. When recycling became popular still not enough people did this. What is made of plastic these days that we can do without or have one made in a different material? Toys, shopping bags, garbage bags? It would all cost more, so people would be less inclined to throw away.

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    1. I separate all of our plastic packaging for recycling but I have little confidence that it actually gets recycled.

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  6. I think a bouncy castle should be compulsory for all birthdays. I want one for next year.

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    1. Don't wear your stilettos... Judith!

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  7. Happy Birthday to Phoebe. Pleased to hear that her party went well, and Grandpa was able to impress with his prowess to knock balloons all the way up to the ceiling!
    Plastic is a problem everywhere. It's doubtful the inventors could foresee the immense destruction it would cause to marine life. At the time it was seen as a cheap product for use in many things.
    I could weep when I see the harm it's caused to innocent animals both on land and sea, and the threat it poses to future generations.

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    1. Now we know better but still the plastic keeps coming and the marine environment that took millions of years to evolve continues to cry for help. Like you, I could weep buckets... but not plastic ones!

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  8. We humans are certainly complicit if not outright guilty in destroying our oceans with plastic. I mean we've known about the harm of plastic for decades and still insist on buying things made and wrapped up in it. It is impossible to avoid it completely but we do our best not to contribute our "share". We aren't big consumers of plastic goods and use reusable shopping bags. But we are the minority and so the message hasn't yet gotten through to manufacturers.

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    1. Like many of my friends and neighbours I am pretty careful with any plastics we use - putting the stuff into our recycling bins. However, I would love to see what happens to it when it has left our house.

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  9. It's one tide that will never turn. Forklifts, pallets and plastic all part of the manufacturing process especially food and drink for supermarkets.

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    1. "Why should we care about our children's children's children when we won't even be here?" - Humphrey Nobhead, Chair of The World Plastic Manufacturers Association.

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  10. Our addiction to plastic is going to kill us all without a doubt.

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    1. It is already lowering sperm counts across the planet - human and animal. Micro-plastics get everywhere.

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  11. What's astonishing is that some of this plastic washing up on our beaches is DECADES old. Just think how much is floating around out there, and how long it's been riding the waves.

    I saw an article about how coastal landfills in Britain, many of them old and long-closed, are threatened by climate change and rising tides. So even garbage that we thought we buried long ago might eventually wind up in the ocean!

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    1. It's like the worst horror film you could think of.

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  12. I mourn the shift from paper shopping bags to useless plastic. It was sold on the idea of saving the trees - a renewable resource - by shifting to petrochemicals that are toxic when burned and take centuries to break down. I don't know why we have a generation with a permanently attached plastic water bottle - even in places with plentiful drinkable tap water. We were sold a harmful lie.

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    1. Plastic bottles of water should be banned (except in Flint, Michigan). For the vast majority of westerners the water from our taps is perfectly potable.

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  13. What a shameful image !
    A beautiful sea turtle, its neck noosed in a hideous plastic bag !

    Hemingway wrote an essay on the rubbish bobbing in his beloved Gulf Stream, off the coast of Cuba.
    Rachel Carson followed with her prophetic book, Silent Spring.

    To think it was only last year that President Biden was here in Glasgow for the Climate Summit.
    I can still see the over-the-top police presence, all the way along Argyle Street.
    You would have thought the Martians were landing.
    If only ...

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    1. I hope all those who attended the climate conference in Glasgow had a great time and ate good food before flying home on their bicycle-driven aeroplanes. Who said it was just one big jolly? Surely not Sir Alok Sharma! After all, he got a knighthood out of it.

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  14. I am glad that Phoebe's birthday went well. I love they way they look at you as if you are the greatest magician in the world when you are doing some ordinary thing. My Iris looks at me when I am teaching her how to make a capital A into a witch!

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    1. You didn't see how high that ceiling was Debby!

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  15. It haunts me to think of all the plastic I've used in my lifetime. I am so careful with plastic now but I also know that most people don't seem to care which is disheartening. What's the old saying? Don't shit in your nest. Seems humans never learned that one.

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    1. Lots of us care now. I try to recycle everything I possibly can but I am not confident that the recycling people are as dedicated as I am. Where does it all REALLY go?

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  16. I am glad Phoebe enjoyed her birthday party!
    What a mess we have made of the earth. Hope things can change so there will be a safer future for our children and grandchildren. I don't know what the change will be tho...

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    1. Ironically, perhaps there should be no more bouncy castles - unless manufactured from recycled materials.

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  17. It's good that you remember this Jon - but tragic too. I once blogged about Henderson Island. Go here:- https://beefgravy.blogspot.com/2017/11/plastic.html

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Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

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