Cool things we do to the planet

[Grunt]

Use humans do some really horrible things to the planet but this has to be the coolest.

A floating mass of plastic and rubbish half the size of WA, in the north Pacific.

Oceans of Garbage. (http://www.vestaldesign.com/blog/2006/08/oceans-of-garbage.html)

[Sebastiaan56]

Hi Grunt,

Depends on the density of the stuff as to how you define the size of the patch methinks, still its a lot of junk, urgh,

As Buckminster Fuller would have remarked, what a waste, all of those materials and energy no longer available,

Sebastiaan

[bitingmidge]

What do you think Bucky Fuller would have thought of this then?

http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=7

scroll down a bit (reading all the while) till you get to my favourite:

Plastic Bags, 2007
60x72"

Depicts 60,000 plastic bags, the number used in the US every five seconds.

Cheers,

P:cool:

[HappyHammer]

If plastic is that good at resisting the elements why aren't we recycling it into boats and outdoor stuff?

Anyone know how different countries compare when it comes to re-cycling cans and plastic?

HH.

[HappyHammer]

The US does Ok with paper, we don't even rate.
http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/maps/world-top-ten-paper-recycling-countries.jpg
HH.

[HappyHammer]

They do better than us on plastic too.

EDIT: This is packaging only.

HH.

[HappyHammer]

However when you expand it to all plastics the US do not even rate....

These numbers are from 2000 so a little old.

HH.

[bitingmidge]

The US does Ok with paper, we don't even rate.
Interesting, it depends what you mean by does OK. The map shows only production of recycled material against population. To be realistic it needs to show production of recycled material against consumption.

On the map stats, in Aus Visy (http://www.visy.com.au/recycling/) alone claim about 50 tons per 1000 head by my sums, so we can't be far off the map, but it's a bit irrelevant really if it doesn't take into account the percentage of the total amount produced.

There's no getting round it, we just need to use less stuff.

Cheers,

P
:)

[HappyHammer]

We should have a chat to the Fins on how they achieved this with Ali cans...

Full report here if you're interested.
http://www.environment.gov.au/soe/2006/publications/drs/pubs/576/set/hs57nolan-recycling-comparison-report.pdf

HH.

[Bleedin Thumb]

What do you think Bucky Fuller would have thought of this then?

http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=7

scroll down a bit (reading all the while) till you get to my favourite:


Cheers,

P:cool:


Top site BM, the statistics are gob smacking and the art is fantastic.

I like the mobile phone one.

[bitingmidge]

We should have a chat to the Fins on how they achieved this with Ali cans...

It's easy. Both cans sold in that year were recycled, but they lost the ring pull off one of them.

Cheers,

P
:D

[bitingmidge]

I like the mobile phone one.

Depicts 426,000 cell phones, equal to the number of cell phones retired in the US every day

Hmmmm.

P

[Sebastiaan56]

Buckminster Fuller predicted that landfills would be mined in the future because of the abundance of materials that would become scarce. Specifically hydrocarbons and metals. I think it was in his book "Critical Path".

Terrific site Midge, a picture is worth a thousand statistics.

As for recycling, we have a major disadvantage to a lot of other countries. Distance. makes it uneconomic to recycle all sorts of stuff. Specifically from all but the largest towns. Im sure Alice Springs doesnt recycle all that Sydney does. That said we do export higher value paper waste to Indonesia and then buy it back again as cheap office paper. Probably why we loaned them the money (A$500 mil) after the Tsunami, to keep our printers going.

Sebastiaan