Saturday afternoon Tiki Hut Discussion Topic

Listening to the radio this morning about a city wide restaurant promotion occurring here in Texas.

Significant focus was on making sure that participants either did not use "straws" or requested paper ones. All of the buzz lately after the turtle with a straw in its nose... with concerns about straws in our oceans.

Made me ponder 2 questions:

1) How does a plastic straw get from the trash can in a restaurant in North Texas into the oceans? ( I thought it went to the landfill on the north side of town).

2) For those coastal areas where the ocean is nearby, rather than worry about the straw - would it not be better if NO garbage was dumped in the ocean?

Oh well, asked my wife the questions - she thought I was just being difficult...

I would think plasticstraws that make it into the ocean are either left on the beach, dropped onsidewalks and streets, fall off of boats or blow out of trash cans and transport vehicles. All it takes is a gust of wind or rain storm to push these straws into water ways and into the ocean.

Zim said:

I would think plasticstraws that make it into the ocean are either left on the beach, dropped onsidewalks and streets, fall off of boats or blow out of trash cans and transport vehicles. All it takes is a gust of wind or rain storm to push these straws into water ways and into the ocean.

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And then we all die.

What are other countries doing with their garbage? The answer may lie there. The straw thing in a big hoax.

FootballFan said:

Listening to the radio this morning about a city wide restaurant promotion occurring here in Texas.

Significant focus was on making sure that participants either did not use "straws" or requested paper ones. All of the buzz lately after the turtle with a straw in its nose... with concerns about straws in our oceans.

Made me ponder 2 questions:

1) How does a plastic straw get from the trash can in a restaurant in North Texas into the oceans? ( I thought it went to the landfill on the north side of town).

2) For those coastal areas where the ocean is nearby, rather than worry about the straw - would it not be better if NO garbage was dumped in the ocean?

Oh well, asked my wife the questions - she thought I was just being difficult...

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I come to Austin (not north Texas but...) on business and steal plastic straws then I head for Cali....
Seriously, I have no idea. but if this is real, whooly crap.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch

All lies I say! We are all decent, caring, loving humans who care about this planet and other creatures that live among us. We would never litter ...and all our daily trash magically disappears into the black hole developed by scientists or is sent to space towards the sun to be burned.

Zim said:

All lies I say! We are all decent, caring, loving humans who care about this planet and other creatures that live among us. We would never litter ...and all our daily trash magically disappears into the black hole developed by scientists or is sent to space towards the sun to be burned.

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Love that concept...

Better than being loaded on a barge and dumped out in the ocean.

"and if it's true, that plastic is not degradable.... the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm...... the Earth+Plastic...."
5:15

George Carlin

I gotta believe that this current "ban plastic straws" thing is not really going to do any good. It's just there to make tree huggers feel like "finally we're doing something" about the plastic problem.

If they REALLY wanted to do something they would go after the cities who routinely dump raw sewage and trash into the waterways around the country. Or put the in-water equivalent of windmills beneath the surface of Puget Sound and other water ways where there is a tidal flow that changes direction 4 times a day. That could generate a LOT of power and maybe replace a coal fired generating plant.


But noooo, they don't want those in-water generators because they might send out vibrations that would scare the salmon and the orcas.

Well shoot, if they really want to save the salmon, why is there a commercial and sport fishing season for them. I can't go hunting for spotted owl, why can I fish for salmon? Both are an endangered species but nobody gives a crap about the spotted owl.

OK, now I'll step down off my soapbox. Rant over.


Thanks.

Yeah, with everything else going on in the world it’s plastic straws that are going to lead to doom and destruction.

To kind of circle back to my original point.

Plastic in Ocean = bad

Straws would not be in ocean unless all of the garbage is dumped in (I don't think sanitation service sorts the straws out of the trash).

Why is the concern level about straws - and not about dumping garbage in the ocean?

If the goal is to reduce plastic - why doesn't someone start a campaign to outlaw disposable diapers?

Wouldn't that reduce the amount of plastic in the environment? Sure would have to go back to the old way, cloth diapers and washing.

But hey - if you are concerned about our planet - and you have small kids - then dump the diapers...

Went out with a few boating buddies from our dock, where we all tied our boats together and pretended that we were afloat on our magical island adrift in the ocean, hoping from boat to boat and yeeeeehaaaaa ....which, as a new boat owner, I never grasped the idea of everyone from the same marina going out to a local spot to tie the boats together and drink beer or wine...or in my case, water. So, why not just stay at the marina? topic for another night. Anywaaaaay, so ya, wife was like, come on, it'll be fun.....pffffff, as if, rather be in the ocean swimming with da sharks........good lord, refocusing......so, there we are, all tied together, again, my first time, and anchored with buddies from our dock with what seemed like 100's of other boaters doing the same thing, drinking and enjoying the beautiful last few days of summer....so magical, so glad I spent tons of $$$ on a new floating RV so I can be tied next to some yahoo with the IQ of an iguana, and as I pondered why....why am I here with these fine people doing something that 18 year olds do when pop gives them the keys to their yatch....I look down in the water and I see a plastic trash bag....kitchen size, black, 13 gallon I think, so I pluck it out of the water. Said to myself, sweet done a good deed today brother, plus now I have a trash bag for all my trash, saving me 13 cents. That's a good day people. Few minutes later a plastic bag from shop rite appears from between the tied boats, I plucked that out too, then a paper bag from McDonald's.....I was like, what...in...da.......hell.... I was dumbfounded. Wife comes over and sees me holding this crap and says when did I have time to go to McDonald's and shop rite.....COME on! She so naive and didn't realize this crap was floating and came from ( probably) some boaters. So after I told her it was afloat on our magical oasis,.... anyway, my point is that, The trash that was around the sea of anchored boats was truly a amazing site. Should have taken a pic. So magical. Trying to stay positive. Next weekend I'm going out....far out. Sharks don't judge and they don't litter. Sorry, I think I had to vent and in Bad mood. Probably because summers end is approaching.

Zim - keep doing that, plucking the plastic bags.

Not because you are saving the oceans - cause you are saving your own and other boaters in the area strainers.

I see an empty ice bag floating - I am focused on getting it out of the water. That bag will clog my strainer or someone else's strainer.

Thank you for plucking that out of the water - not cause of oceans - cause I might suck that up in my strainer.

Save the boats. Someone need to turn this in a campaign....saving the boats and boaters.

The amount of plastic in the oceans is truly a bad thing. But so is littering....anywhere. Land, sea, lakes or rivers. People who litter really piss me off. But if you didn't watch the George Carli clip that OllieC posted....you should....cuz he's right. In his usual twisted way, but he is right. The planet has been here for 4 1/2 billion years....we're here for a blink.

My point is....do your part to clean up after yourselves but for shit sake....let's not go off the deep end because one sea turtle got speared be a straw. Tragic for sure but, I bet more little turtles have been flushed down toilets than there are straws in the ocean. Watch George....
Shawn

Use paper straws, but then go have yourself 5 or 6 kids, but hey you're saving the planet, right?

The planet is doomed until and unless we, as a species, stop having more babies than we (or the planet) can support. just sayin'

When will they outlaw water bottles, my guess is that there is more plastic in 1 bottle than in 1 straw. They get no better treatment than the straws.

Dump the Diapers!

That would make a fun bumper sticker. Seriously, think about the amount of plastic in disposable diapers. Shouldn't everyone quit using them.? Go back to cloth diapers that are washed and reused.

FootballFan said:

Dump the Diapers!

That would make a fun bumper sticker. Seriously, think about the amount of plastic in disposable diapers. Shouldn't everyone quit using them.? Go back to cloth diapers that are washed and reused.

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Many years ago during my working days I managed a commercial diaper service. It was basically a commercial laundry and we rented cloth diapers to Mommies. But then came the explosion of disposable diapers, and all of the marketing $$$$ thrown out by the big paper companies that made them, touting how bad cloth diapers were for the baby as well as the environment. So we sold them as well and developed a way to recycle disposable diapers.

Disposable diapers are made of plastic (outer liner) paper and cellulose (absorbent material). And a little elastic for the waist and leg holes. We had a process where we took the little ball of joy from the diaper pails, ran them through a leaf shredder to slice the plastic outer liner. We then loaded them into a commercial, 600 lb. washing machine and added a proprietary chemical and washed them for about 30 minutes. At the end of the process the cellulose went to sewer, the paper was de-watered, baled and sent to a paper/fiber broker for recycling and the plastic was collected, baled and sold to an asphalt paving company that used it in their asphalt mix for paving roads.

The process worked. We did not make money on it but at least the little crap collectors were not going to the landfill.

NorCal Boater said:

Many years ago during my working days I managed a commercial diaper service. It was basically a commercial laundry and we rented cloth diapers to Mommies. But then came the explosion of disposable diapers, and all of the marketing $$$$ thrown out by the big paper companies that made them, touting how bad cloth diapers were for the baby as well as the environment. So we sold them as well and developed a way to recycle disposable diapers.

Disposable diapers are made of plastic (outer liner) paper and cellulose (absorbent material). And a little elastic for the waist and leg holes. We had a process where we took the little ball of joy from the diaper pails, ran them through a leaf shredder to slice the plastic outer liner. We then loaded them into a commercial, 600 lb. washing machine and added a proprietary chemical and washed them for about 30 minutes. At the end of the process the cellulose went to sewer, the paper was de-watered, baled and sent to a paper/fiber broker for recycling and the plastic was collected, baled and sold to an asphalt paving company that used it in their asphalt mix for paving roads.

The process worked. We did not make money on it but at least the little crap collectors were not going to the landfill.

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What happened to the Chit?