Comments on: TimesUK: Plastic Bags are Not a Problem?

By: Ahmen Staull

Ahmen Staull — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 12:20:43 +0000

I think the point is that Marine Mammals are really not the important issue, but people get emotional at the site of a turtle chomping down a plastic bag and that emotion has been the basis of this issue. But there are a zillion bigger reasons to get rid of these wasteful bags. So the Times guy is correct, but the fact that he fails to state that this still matters is troubling for sure.

By: Beth aka Fake Plastic Fish

Beth aka Fake Plastic Fish — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 03:17:21 +0000

I think any move that gets people thinking about alternatives to plastic is beneficial. Agreed -- nurdles are a huge problem and therefore anything made from plastic contributes to the nurdle issue. Other small pieces of plastic (like bottle caps, for instance) get eaten by marine animals as well.

In fact, ALL products made from plastic will degrade into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic. So even if you did something about the nurdle problem, you'd still have small pieces of plastic floating around from all the disposable plastic products that have broken down into the environment.

When I say "degrade" I don't mean "biodegrade." Plastic doesn't biodegrade but degrades into tiny particles of plastic that then concentrate toxins the same way nurdles do.

Since the middle of last year, I've been working on significantly reducing my plastic waste and plastic consumption and documenting the journey on my blog, Fake Plastic Fish. Here is an ongoing list of plastic-free changes I've made so far:

http://www.fakeplasticfish.com/thelist

Hope some of these alternatives might be useful to you.

Beth

By: Dale

Dale — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 20:07:04 +0000

I think this guy is trying for the di-hydrogen monoxide angle. Which is fair enough. If you don’t know what on talking about google it

By: valerie

valerie — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:51:20 +0000

Oops, I had the size on nurdles wrong. They’re really between 0.1 and 0.5 cm in diameter. But the point is the same … they’re small and they blow into the sea.

By: valerie

valerie — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:48:29 +0000

It sounds to me like nurdles are the greatest plastic litter threat. Nurdles are the plastic pellets that serve as inputs to the manufacturing of all things plastic (plastic bags, the bin liners that are replacing them, the keyboard I'm typing on, plastic water bottles, ...). If a plastic bag ban leads to a commensurate increase in bin liners then that ban has accomplished exactly nothing. I can see at least two options for improving the situation. Apparently one of the problems with nurdles is that their small size (0.5 to 1.0 mm) makes it easy for them to blow away and get washed into the sea and be confused as food by marine species and seabirds. Could nurdles be redesigned to make escape less likely and to facilitate retrieval of those that do escape? The preferable option is to replace all plastics with materials that biodegrade safely into our environment. That is likely a few years out, but one way to accelerate the process would be to charge people extra for their use of non-biodegradable plastics and use the revenue to fund development of alternatives and to fund cleanup of the plastic mess that we have created.

By: tale farrok

tale farrok — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 19:35:30 +0000

aye, yet it’s suspicious that the author seems to imply that plastic bags are not a problem. Looks like we need to see a lot more info on this.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 18:47:51 +0000

I think it’s important to note that the article wasn’t saying that plastic bags were good, just that it isn’t right to sloppily use research to support one agenda or another–or to do no research whatsoever–and that there are probably much bigger priorities here to focus on (than plastic bag). We already know that plastic bags are better than paper bags when it comes to carbon emissions (in the aggregate) and the article does site a 400% increase in bin liners (essentially, plastic bags), as result of the shopping bag ban. Clearly, this isn’t what was intended to happen by the bag bans.