For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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By Irv Lee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1858897
In the past couple of days:
-Loads of plastic confetti on the seawall walk right by a wedding reception venue exit door.
-Mothers encouraging kids to run around exploding loads of some new thing that they seem to be calling fun snaps, (which genuinely looks like good fun to me) but every one leaves about 1cm square thin bit of semi-shredded cling-film-like plastic blowing away towards the sea.
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By LowNSlow1
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1858917
Irv, unfortunately it's all part of the 8 million tons of plastic that ends up in the world's oceans every year:https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues-briefs/marine-plastics#:~:text=The%20main%20sources%20of%20marine,industry%2C%20nautical%20activities%20and%20aquaculture.

90% of the plastic in the oceans comes from 10 river deltas, 8 in Asia and 2 in the Americas:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/06/90-of-plastic-polluting-our-oceans-comes-from-just-10-rivers/

Scary stuff and the long term impacts are horrendous.
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By LowNSlow1
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1858921
Propwash, the WHO still recommends using DDT for room spraying in areas with a high prevalence of malaria. I was very surprised to find it was still in use as the statement below is still applicable in 2021. https://www.epa.gov/ingredients-used-pesticide-products/ddt-brief-history-and-status

In September 2006, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared its support for the indoor use of DDT in African countries where malaria remains a major health problem, citing that benefits of the pesticide outweigh the health and environmental risks. The WHO position is consistent with the Stockholm Convention on POPs, which bans DDT for all uses except for malaria control.

DDT is one of 12 pesticides recommended by the WHO for indoor residual spray programs. It is up to individual countries to decide whether or not to use DDT. EPA works with other agencies and countries to advise them on how DDT programs are developed and monitored, with the goal that DDT be used only within the context of programs referred to as Integrated Vector Management.
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By Irv Lee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1858929
I am quite aware of the big problem, but was thinking along the lines that both cases are simple "not thinking" examples that won't make the David Attenborough TV programmes like the huge problems do. I was in Cannes just before the first 2020 lockdown, and by each drain in the street, a little warning sign says "the ocean starts here".
#1859018
I’ve been saying for a long time, plastic is far more a problem than HS2, or Climate change, eating meat etc.

XR, and the new “Animal rights rebellion” (they’re a thread all of their own) sit on top of their bamboo towers, concreted and superglued together, saying we shouldn’t eat meat, drinking from their plastic bottles and leaving their plastic mess.

I too wish plastic had never been invented now.
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By Irv Lee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1859032
@skydriller the following is not quite so true since the 2008 depression, but prior to that it seemed very important that almost all the fruit/veg in a French super/hyper markets didn't travel far to get there.
#1859065
During Canada's Sesquicentennial year, 2017, a CCG vessel did a '3 Oceans' (Atlantic, Arctic via North West Passage, Pacific) cruise, Montreal to Vancouver, with several port stops. Among those aboard were scientists including oceanographers, as well as different groups of local students on each leg.

One of my Canadian relatives, a RCNR Arctic specialist, was on board for part of the Arctic phase. He reported that plastic waste, large and visible to microscopic (found in water samples examined in the on-board laboratory), was found in all the remotest parts of the Nunavut/NWT/Yukon waters. :(