The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: Fleecewife on January 20, 2020, 07:01:04 pm
-
Today we read in the News that Malaysia has returned to Britain 42 (so far) containers of our own manky plastic waste. I remember seeing on an expose programme (Hugh F-W I think) that the waste found overseas originating from Britain, exported supposedly to be recycled, contained unrecyclable stuff like babies nappies full of :poo: .
# What do you think firstly, of the fact that we exported it in the first place? and secondly how do you feel now that it's been sent back?
I was horrified when I found we were not taking responsibility for our own waste but were waving byebye to enormous amounts for someone else to deal with.
I was horrified to discover that the countries accepting the waste actually had no way to deal with it.
I am horrified knowing that we can't really deal with it here either.
I think it's well past time that we should take responsibility for our own waste products, both as a country, and as a planet. In the past we have just chucked everything into the sea, or into a hole somewhere, or launched it out into space, so we are now recognisable from the other side of the galaxy as the planet with the exosphere made of rubbish in a moon orbit - maybe it will keep the aliens away.
All power to your elbow Malaysia for sending it back :roflanim:
-
Should be dealt with in our own country.
-
I saw that programme too and was utterly disgusted. I posted the link to it on Facebook and the majority of my friends agreed we should get this sorted - we didn't know how. Now that Malaysia has sent it back perhaps it will become more important. I wonder of a petition to the Government might help?
anyone got any other ideas?
-
It might help, but there have been some massive petitions which the gov simply ignores if it suits them. Every option has to be worth a try. Raising it with your local MP might trickle through but it's a very diluted way to make a point and easily lost.
Any petition, or action, would need to include the dumping of waste in the countryside. That seems to have become a monster issue since commercial waste producers had to pay to get rid of their rubbish - it's so much easier to just dump it on someone's land, or on some country lane. It seems to be a feature of human nature to dump rubbish and forget about it - there's quite a lot dumped on the moon - bags of urine, faeces and vomit for example, uneaten sandwiches and bits of equipment not needed on the return journey - sounds like it was a great picnic!
I think expose programmes headed with the usual well-kent faces play a huge part, but then it's how to keep the impetus going once our indignation is fired.
The development of new technologies to allow plastic to be burned to produce power, whilst trapping the toxins and noxious gases given off, should go a long way towards solving our rubbish problems but of course they take time to set in motion.
I had thought that the rubbish sent overseas was going to proper, dedicated recycling facilities, and was a way for the accepting countries to earn a bit of cash - how wrong I was :rant:
They still haven't sorted out how to deal with the vast backlog of medical waste in Scotland which has been lying for months and getting bigger every day.
-
Questions, questions..
"Oh, darn. Harry and Meghan have left. How do we sell papers, what's out next big expose? Check reuters."
"Well there's this bit about Malaysia sending back some waste.""Yeah, well we've known about that for years. Nothing else?""No. It's pretty quiet. No well-known politicians kiddy fiddling or snorting coke and the public are bored with that."
"Right. lets make a big deal out of this, then?""OK. Do you want me to investigate?"
"Investigate? No, make it into a drama."
"But we don't know the truth."
"Who cares, make it sell papers!"
Now was that waste that came back actually British waste to begin with or had the French relabelled some of their stuff as British and sent it over with false papers?
Was it actually Malaysian waste they want to get rid of and it's a con?
If it was British waste then where in Britain did it come from. Was it part of a waste management Mafia conspiracy to sneak innappropriate waste into a rival's export to give them a bad rep and take over?Was the whole thing a plot from the IRA or SNP to discredit Westminster?
If it was genuine British waste genuinely dumped in with waste that shouldn't be exported then was it cheaper to send it knowingly and get it sorted and sent back than sorting it here?
If it came from here because people put it in the wrong type of bin then what was their demographic? Black. white, brown, yellow, red, national or migrant? Sexual orientation? Does it really matter but it'd be a new wrinkle on the story and stir up sales.
What was the intelligence level and personal situation of the folk that dumped it inappropriately? Were they rich folk who couldn't care or some poor single mother who came from a broken home and struggles on inadequate social welfare while living in a damp and mould infested one-room flat rented by a buy-to-rent older person who is a retired banker using his golden handshake to further rip-off the poor underprivileged masses?
Is the real truth that her local authority doesn't have a nappy collection and anyway they only collect rubbish every third week and after havng bin-bags full of the stuff piled in corners the poor waif had no option but to go hide it in Tesco bins in her local area?
If we build a recycling and incineration plant that deals with such waste and electrostatic precipitators to capture dusts, waster traps for the gasses and then chemical conversion to harmless products then will the public be happy to spent £10 or £20 a week out of their wages to finance it? Or do we just expect gov to find the money with no hardship to us? It must be the fault of the elite and rich that this has happened.
Anyhow what proportion of total waste was this? 1%? 50%? 0.001%?
As you see I have a different way of looking at some stuff.I could explain why take-out coffee is the real culprit......
-
There are 17 power stations in France burning plastic waste, so that technology already exists and has done for some time. The reason so much is being burned is because only 9% of what is collected can actually be recycled. One of the problems mentioned is plastic bottles- the cap and label are different types of plastic which can't be easily separated. Since seeing that programme we remove the labels and separate the caps and retaining ring which then go into a separate collection point. Glass in the recycling bins is strictly forbidden- there are separate collection points for glass. Seems the UK is very slow dealing with these issues.
Suppose the answer to the nappy problem is to go back to washable towels.
-
Who should shoulder the recycling costs? The manufacturers? That would immediately be added on to the cost to the consumer. But it would make the manufacturers attempt to make their goods more easily recyclable, surely?
Dividing it up into who foots the bill is really irrelevant in the great scheme of things. Before too long Earth will have shaken off it's human fleas, then we won't be here to worry about it. If we want the human race to survive (not sure why we should, looks like we're a failed side arm of evolution) then we have to start making some very real changes NOW. Offsetting carbon and dumping our effluent in another country is not solving the problem, except on paper perhaps. We live in one world, one Earth, and it's the only one there is. At this rate, the evidence of human existence will consist of a layer of rock known as the Anthropocene, toxic to all future life.
-
There are 17 power stations in France burning plastic waste, so that technology already exists and has done for some time. The reason so much is being burned is because only 9% of what is collected can actually be recycled. One of the problems mentioned is plastic bottles- the cap and label are different types of plastic which can't be easily separated. Since seeing that programme we remove the labels and separate the caps and retaining ring which then go into a separate collection point. Glass in the recycling bins is strictly forbidden- there are separate collection points for glass. Seems the UK is very slow dealing with these issues.
Suppose the answer to the nappy problem is to go back to washable towels.
This is the first link I found...no idea of it's provenance:https://zerowasteeurope.eu/2018/02/9-reasons-why-we-better-move-away-from-waste-to-energy-and-embrace-zero-waste-instead/ (https://zerowasteeurope.eu/2018/02/9-reasons-why-we-better-move-away-from-waste-to-energy-and-embrace-zero-waste-instead/)
It does beg the question, however, whether France's burning of plastic waste is actually a good thing. Note the comments about Denmark's miscalculation.
-
Who should shoulder the recycling costs? The manufacturers? That would immediately be added on to the cost to the consumer. But it would make the manufacturers attempt to make their goods more easily recyclable, surely?
Dividing it up into who foots the bill is really irrelevant in the great scheme of things. Before too long Earth will have shaken off it's human fleas, then we won't be here to worry about it. If we want the human race to survive (not sure why we should, looks like we're a failed side arm of evolution) then we have to start making some very real changes NOW. Offsetting carbon and dumping our effluent in another country is not solving the problem, except on paper perhaps. We live in one world, one Earth, and it's the only one there is. At this rate, the evidence of human existence will consist of a layer of rock known as the Anthropocene, toxic to all future life.
Manufacturers are concerned with profits (AKA what they can get away with) and the gullibility of the consumer.
The obvious answer is not to generate waste in the first place. From the purist viewpoint some cannot be avoided if we want technology but with a society developed on consumerism and decadent lazyness it isn't going to happen in the forseeable. the saddest thing is that it's not goods or 'fame' that creates happiness. So long as folk have come to believe that they are entitled to foreign holidays, out of season and air-freighted foods and goods, some inalienable right to breed this won't change. Nor will the on-going clamour amongst countries for status, power and resources ever stop - and it needs population to give it that. Perhaps the latest Chinese virus can do the job..
-
a friend of mine recently took his silage wrap and net to a recycling centre (as its illegal to incinerate it on site now). unloaded it. a digger then loaded it onto an artic where it travelled 30 odd mile to a sorting centre where it was seperated between incinerator and landfill waste. it was then loaded by digger onto a artic to travel a further 200 odd mile to its final incineration and landfill destination. Thats the way to cut emmisions according to defra
-
a friend of mine recently took his silage wrap and net to a recycling centre (as its illegal to incinerate it on site now). unloaded it. a digger then loaded it onto an artic where it travelled 30 odd mile to a sorting centre where it was seperated between incinerator and landfill waste. it was then loaded by digger onto a artic to travel a further 200 odd mile to its final incineration and landfill destination. Thats the way to cut emmisions according to defra
Oh goodness, I wonder if we'll ever get it right? Having suffered the massive roiling black cloud produced when my neighbour burned a giant pile of tyres and agricultural film wrap in his yard, I think maybe the fuel use is just marginally better. Temporarily at least. I wonder how much got blown off the lorry en route, to festoon the countryside?
-
Should be dealt with in our own country.
Of course it should be but almost all of it is exported all over the world.
Not just Malaysia I'm afraid...
Africa is flooded with our rubbish.
-
Should be dealt with in our own country.
Of course it should be but almost all of it is exported all over the world.
Not just Malaysia I'm afraid...
Africa is flooded with our rubbish.
So what can we do about it? What is happening is that in order to be able to claim that we have reached x% recycling targets, we are sending the junk elsewhere, claiming decidedly disingenuously, that we thought it was being recycled in the countries of destination. I don't usually give a cuss what anyone thinks of me, but I really really don't like the idea of the world thinking I condone this.
Where can we get hold of genuine, non-massaged statistics on rubbish disposal and where it goes?
-
So what can we do about it? What is happening is that in order to be able to claim that we have reached x% recycling targets, we are sending the junk elsewhere, claiming decidedly disingenuously, that we thought it was being recycled in the countries of destination. I don't usually give a cuss what anyone thinks of me, but I really really don't like the idea of the world thinking I condone this.
Where can we get hold of genuine, non-massaged statistics on rubbish disposal and where it goes?
You could start here: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=statistics+on+UK+waste+disposal+and+where+it+goes (https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=statistics+on+UK+waste+disposal+and+where+it+goes)
But remain cynical and cross check. Possibly a freedom of info request to your council??
Everything will be massaged truth. It's the same with CO2 - 0ffsets are a joke when X trees get planted but probably not looked after and the land becomes replanted later - double bubble.We have the nonsense of getting our polluting manufacture bought in from abroad and then dare to accuse the country we buy it from for causing pollution. There's too many vested interests. Trump's latest speech shows how nothing will change.