(12-08-2020, 05:55 PM)mikesez Wrote:

(12-05-2020, 08:37 AM)The Real Marty Wrote: Single-use plastic bags.

I'm talking about the kind of plastic bags you get to carry your stuff out of the store at Publix or Wal-Mart and many other stores.   I am mildly annoyed at myself, actually.  I try to be environmentally conscious, and yet I (and wife of course) cannot wean myself away from these things.  They are so handy.  They fit all our little trash cans, and it's so easy to just tie the trash up in them and put them in the big trash can for the trash people to come and pick up.  

These are the things that wind up out in the ocean to be eaten by marine mammals who mistake them for jellyfish.  They also wind up in landfills where they will be for the rest of all time.

They do get eaten by whales and sea turtles.  That's a big problem.
But that's not because we use too many of them.
That's because we litter.
If those things just end up in the landfill, no harm no foul.  Who cares if they take up space underground? Those petrochemicals were taking up space underground before we extracted them.
We had problems with poorly designed landfills in the 1970s, and a lot of old landfills were all filling up.
But now there are lots of new, much safer landfills with plenty of room.
Plastic in landfills is way way way down the list of environmental concerns.

Once again you are wrong (as usual).  Here's a little experiment for you.  Bury a plastic bag and a few yards away bury a paper bag.  Go back a year later and see which one is still there and intact.

The paper bag (if any of it is left) will have decomposed and added nutrients to the earth.  The plastic bag will still be intact and will still be made of toxic petrochemicals should their composition end up in the water table.

The bottom line is "environmentalists" were wrong when they phased out paper bags.  They wanted to "save trees" which are a natural reproducing resource.  You also see places like California having issues with wildfires every year due to mismanagement of forests.  Thinning trees and burning underbrush regularly would prevent a lot of their problem.

Why anyone thinks that plastic in a landfill is "no harm no foul" is beyond me.

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