Wow..Sensualdragon, did park'n'shop employees accidentally spilled ketchup on your favourite clothing? You sure have a big beef with them.
However, it is actually GREAT that you don't buy into the fact that any profiting company can also care about the environment. Because the bottom line is the environment wins anyway. You hate the company for this so called fakery. And thus won't pay for bags. Which means, you will be bringing your own bags!! And planet earth scores one.
They should implement it all 7 days of the week and if everyone thinks as you do, the world will be a better place.
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29-04-2007, 01:01 AM #41
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08-03-2008, 07:09 PM #42
From: Series of blunders turned the plastic bag into global villain - Times Online
Campaigners say that plastic bags pollute coastlines and waterways, killing or injuring birds and livestock on land and, in the oceans, destroying vast numbers of seabirds, seals, turtles and whales. However, The Times has established that there is no scientific evidence to show that the bags pose any direct threat to marine mammals.
They “don’t figure” in the majority of cases where animals die from marine debris, said David Laist, the author of a seminal 1997 study on the subject. Most deaths were caused when creatures became caught up in waste produce. “Plastic bags don’t figure in entanglement,” he said. “The main culprits are fishing gear, ropes, lines and strapping bands. Most mammals are too big to get caught up in a plastic bag.”
He added: “The impact of bags on whales, dolphins, porpoises and seals ranges from nil for most species to very minor for perhaps a few species.For birds, plastic bags are not a problem either.”
The central claim of campaigners is that the bags kill more than 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds every year. However, this figure is based on a misinterpretation of a 1987 Canadian study in Newfoundland, which found that, between 1981 and 1984, more than 100,000 marine mammals, including birds, were killed by discarded nets. The Canadian study did not mention plastic bags.
Fifteen years later in 2002, when the Australian Government commissioned a report into the effects of plastic bags, its authors misquoted the Newfoundland study, mistakenly attributing the deaths to “plastic bags”.
The figure was latched on to by conservationists as proof that the bags were killers. For four years the “typo” remained uncorrected. It was only in 2006 that the authors altered the report, replacing “plastic bags” with “plastic debris”. But they admitted: “The actual numbers of animals killed annually by plastic bag litter is nearly impossible to determine.”
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08-03-2008, 08:11 PM #43
I will see your "plastic bags aren't to blame" and raise you with "there is a big F'n mass of crap floating in the ocean...".
Do some google searches on it and you find out what it is all about....
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Giant garbage patch floating in Pacific
An enormous island of trash twice the size of Texas is floating in the Pacific Ocean somewhere between San Francisco and Hawaii.
Chris Parry with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco said the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, has been growing a brisk rate since the 1950s, The San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday.
The trash stew is 80 percent plastic and weighs more than 3.5 million tons.
"At this point, cleaning it up isn't an option," Parry said. "It's just going to get bigger as our reliance on plastics continues."
Parry said using canvas bags to cart groceries instead of using plastic bags is a good first step to reducing reliance on plastics, the newspaper said. "
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This thing is massive and is there because it kind of sits in the middle of a whirlpool.
Interesting stuff (or scary, depending on your point of view).
Enjoy.
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08-03-2008, 08:36 PM #44
Crocodile - Hey .. I'm on the side that plastic just does not belong in the oceans.
However, your post brought up an interesting point that I'd thought about the last time someone posted the thing about the garbage patch floating around.
I just cannot find any good satellite imagery which shows how big it is. Folks seem to say that its the size of Texas or larger .. bit I cant seem to find any good aerial / satellite shots showing how big this patch really is.
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11-03-2008, 12:00 PM #45
With this kind of thing, neither corporate responsibility nor consumer action will make any appreciable difference. Companies want to make profit and consumers care a lot about price and little about anything else.
The only way forward is government action. Unfortunate, but true. Much like other forms of environmental harm - it doesn't immediately affect enough people to a great enough degree that people or companies will willingly change their practices, especially when it means less money in your pocket. Hong Kong seems to be a very price-sensitive place anyway.
It's sad that the government doesn't take the lead on these issues. It's afraid of taking bold steps that are in the population's interest. And it's not as if they will be voted out for unpopular legislation...
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11-03-2008, 12:34 PM #46
Hey KIA--
The problem is that the plastic in the North Pacific Gyre is for the most part in small fragments that probably wouldn't show up on a satellite image (microplastic). Larger plastic containers get broken down by sunlight, salt, bacteria, etc., into smaller fragments, and these float around. Microplastic is especially bad because it's really easy for animals of all sizes to eat. The LA Times had a really good series on some of the major threats to the world's oceans; part 4 deals with plastic and has some footage from the gyre. Altered Oceans - Los Angeles Times
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11-03-2008, 12:38 PM #47
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