UK Plastic Waste Being Dumped and Burned in Turkey, Says Greenpeace (bbc.com) 130
UK plastic waste is being exported to Turkey and then illegally dumped and burned, according to a report. From a report: Greenpeace said about 40% -- or 210,000 tonnes -- of the UK's plastic waste exports were sent to Turkey last year. But rather than being recycled, investigators saw some of it dumped by roads, in fields and in waterways. The UK is a "global leader in tackling plastic pollution," the government said - after Greenpeace called for it to "take control" of the problem. Greenpeace's report warned Turkey was becoming Europe's "largest plastic waste dump."
The charity said it had investigated 10 sites across southern Turkey and found plastic bags and packaging from UK supermarkets and retailers at all of them.
Might get attention (Score:2, Insightful)
They must know exposing where the USA does it wouldn't do any good; smart move trying countries that might care instead of always going after the top polluters.
Re: Might get attention (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe, maybe not.
Many leftie towns un Massachusetts that banned plastic grocery bags recently have unbanned them and at one point even banned reusable bags because covid.
Environmentalism is quite popular in the abstract until its cost *to you* becomes apparent. But when the lights go out or the gas station is empty or there ain't no packaged foods no more, every one is Don Draper at the end of a picnic again.
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The Reusable bags have been relaxed, within a few weeks.
During that period stores gave us Paper Bags, the Plastic Bags, were often older bags still in inventory.
Environmentalism isn't a 0 sum game. It is looking at the tradeoffs, understanding them and then pick options that solve the biggest problem at the time, while making a new problem, it is hopefully not as big as the original.
The Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) was an Environmental improvement to horses. As the CO2 and other toxic vapors were sti
Re: Might get attention (Score:3, Insightful)
The issue isn't whether reusable bags or internal combustion engines or horses cause big problems or small problems *right now.* The issue is whether or not you introduce irreversible or near-irreversible problems down the line, when you do something at scale, that aren't apparent at the outset when you do things here and there a little bit at a time.
If, for example, banning plastic bags en masse, rather than in a few blue towns or states, makes domestic plastics manufacturing unattractive overall, are you
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I"d use them to line the pulp catch receptical in my juicer with the plastic bags.
Years back when I worked in an office, I'd always use the plastic bags from grocery shopping to bring my lunch to work and also to take back my empty containers back home.
There's lots of uses for those things.
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They must know exposing where the USA does it wouldn't do any good; smart move trying countries that might care instead of always going after the top polluters.
I'll bite. Where does the USA do it? Links please.
But you are right about trying countries that might care instead of the biggest polluters, like China.
https://phys.org/news/2021-04-... [phys.org]
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They must know exposing where the USA does it wouldn't do any good; smart move trying countries that might care instead of always going after the top polluters.
I'll bite. Where does the USA do it? Links please.
But you are right about trying countries that might care instead of the biggest polluters, like China.
And don't forget the Philippines. They are the source of some 37 percent of the ocean plastic pollution.
These sort of reportings always show the level of loathing against some countries. It takes a special level to claim that Britain is at fault because Turkey apparently decided to scatter rubbish around.
The guy you challenged for proof will likely cite that China at one time bought old plastic from the USA, then for some unknown reason, instead of turning it into new plastic things, they decided to j
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Wealthy nations are the biggest problem and they dodge their responsibility by blaming the peasants which they outsource their problems to. The USA consumes the most and trashes the most. BOTH play their part but one has far more of a choice and actively avoids the consequences. WE are the drug addicts who won't admit we have a problem and blame the dealers for selling us the drugs.
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You investigate it yourself (you must be forgetting the news about big problems in the USA when China stopped taking our trash.) My own city switched after finding out we were shipping our trash to China cheap because they just wanted to pay for the return fuel (since we don't export much to them) they just dumped or burned most the stuff. Not that we didn't flip flop over the years due to changes in politicians.
Then we have the electronic recycling which went to a company in Malaysia that had children pul
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You investigate it yourself (you must be forgetting the news about big problems in the USA
Nope. You brought it up. You don't get to do a hit and run piece, then fluff it off when called out. I put up my sources, so put yours up or shut the fuck up.
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Not all plastic is recyclable. In fact the worse, like one use plastic bottles, are not recyclable.
Trees that are cut down to make paper are farmed for that purpose and are a renewable resource. The oil that plastic is made from isn't. Paper that is recycled into "new" paper doesn't use the chemical process any more. That is why recycled paper is brown and not white.
An disposal of paper is far more environmentally friendly than plastic. While not the ideal situation you can just burn paper and it
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Said the guy/gal using a machine comprised of plastics and rare metals with many parts from China. You for banning those? Or are there extenuating reasons it's OK for you to use those things?
So let me get this straight. It's wrong if we sell things to China and it's wrong if we buy things from China? Which is it? You can't have it both ways.
Here is the difference. I buy something from China. When I'm done with it I'm going to recycle it in a environmentally sound manner. I'm not just going to toss in the ocean and walk away.
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https://www.nationalgeographic... [nationalgeographic.com]
in the 1st few search results on duck duck.
Oh, and my local high schools have the garbage truck collect the recycling along with the trash! The kids haven't even noticed after decades of the practice... and I bet they yell at the kids who put trash in the recycling...
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Pay wall. Try again. Not submitting my name or address to read one of your hit pieces. That link doesn't count.
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The link works fine, but I use uMatrix with JS turned off for the site.
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They must know exposing where the USA does it wouldn't do any good; smart move trying countries that might care instead of always going after the top polluters.
I keep wondering what the business plan is to buy plastic off a country, then take it and just toss it around in your country.
Now if a country were to recycle the plastic, it might make some sense.
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We probably need to return to more glass and aluminum containers.
This is what we need to do. Glass is far more environmentally friendly than any kind of plastic. While it's not the idea solution to disposing of a glass bottle, even if you just tossed it out the window it will eventually return to sand in a short span of time. Plastic bottles will never do that. They will degrade but the molecules that make it will be in the environment for eons. Also a glass bottle in the environment won't poison anything, where plastics will.
Glass, like metal, is infinity recy
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I agree with most of what your points but the bigger culprit is the plastic bottles of water. People are consuming more bottles of water than they are of soda. It's insane how many cases of water I see people buying every week at the store compared to soda!
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I believe you have one important misconception. My understanding is that companies/countries get paid to take delivery of waste plastic. The profit motive creates a perverse incentive for companies/countries to accept too much, and when they run out of storage then bad things happen.
There is a huge amount of money to be made in plastic recycling if you have the capital and are willing to risk it developing the technology. Real time picking plastics accurately lets you recycle into specific colors and com
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(I am not an expert on this topic.) What I've read says this seems to be working well in Sweden. They now import plastic waste streams because they don't produce enough waste domestically.
Tax the manufacturers (Score:5, Insightful)
The most meaningful way to combat this problem is to make sure the manufacturers of plastic goods must pay for the cost of recycling the product. Too many plastics are not economically recyclable. That is an easily solved problem by just making sure the manufacturers are paying the cost. Then far more plastics could be recycled, but more importantly the use of plastics would actually go down.
The whole recycling push was started so chemical companies could keep producing plastic products and make consumers think they had the responsibility to recycle. That mentality needs to change.
Task the manufacturers (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, it will just make them pay for shipping it oversea themselves.
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Task the manufacturers ... with actually performing the recycling themselves. That'll motivate them to make more recyclable materials and objects, and optimizing the recycling process.
No, it will just make them pay for shipping it oversea themselves.
Just ban plastics and make it clear to the manufactures that they have 5 years to adapt and that they'd better find a significantly environmentally sounder alternative to plastics if they don't want to be ban hammered again. I have every confidence in the ability of industry to find environmentally sound plastic substitutes when told that their profits are at stake if they don't.
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Just ban plastics and make it clear to the manufactures that they have 5 years to adapt and that they'd better find a significantly environmentally sounder alternative to plastics if they don't want to be ban hammered again.
The properties of plastics make them useful for many applications, and it is very likely that any new product created to replace plastics would have similar environmental problems. One of the biggest problems with plastics is just that it's cheap. Take that away, and the industry will only use it when plastic is the best option for the application, not just for cost reasons.
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And VW would have come up with something better than emissions test cheating software in response to Martin Winterkorn's order to make it pass or they're fired.
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To where? Manufacturers of plastic relied on that, then China pretty much killed it all a few years ago. Most everywhere else has decided to reject the shipments.
The whole thing with plastics was reliant on China to do something with the used plastic, then they killed it. It's more economical to landfill the plastic than recycle or ship it anywhere.
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Task the manufacturers with actually performing the recycling themselves
That is ideal, but I'm not sure how it would work. Not every country would have control over overseas manufacturers to force this, but they can tax imports. I'm not opposed to your idea but probably just taxing and then setting up a non-profit to perform the recycling would work better in practice.
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Re:Tax the manufacturers (Score:5, Informative)
This is old news...
'Vast Quantities' of Recycled Plastics Are Actually Burned Or Dumped In Landfills [slashdot.org]
As Costs Skyrocket, More US Cities Stop Recycling [slashdot.org]
The most meaningful way to combat this problem is to make sure the manufacturers of plastic goods must pay for the cost of recycling the product. Too many plastics are not economically recyclable. That is an easily solved problem by just making sure the manufacturers are paying the cost. Then far more plastics could be recycled, but more importantly the use of plastics would actually go down.
Manufacturers would just pass the cost on down to the consumer. It would still be left to the consumer to recycle. If charging the consumer a tax on items like soda bottles and cans isn't enough to motivate them to recycle, what's the solution?
Then there's the use of different types of plastics (1 through 7) where some cannot be mixed or they're not easily recycled (e.g. 6 and 7). We need to replace these with something else to make it less confusing [slashdot.org] and to prevent contamination [slashdot.org].
Possibly the bigger issue though is that recycling is not profitable [slashdot.org] compared to making new plastic [slashdot.org].
Re: Tax the manufacturers (Score:3)
As long as there are local collection points deposits work really well even in the US AFAICS. But there is more money to be made in the sorting industry ... so collection gets the shaft.
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As long as there are local collection points deposits work really well even in the US AFAICS. But there is more money to be made in the sorting industry ... so collection gets the shaft.
It used to work great. Inflation has cut into the deposit though, and now you don't get much money from each can/bottle returned. To the point that now even homeless people won't take a bag of cans.
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Manufacturers would just pass the cost on down to the consumer.
Why is that a bad thing?
Higher costs to the consumer mean less demand for one-time-use plastics.
I don't buy drinks in plastic bottles. I don't use plastic straws or plastic sporks. I don't use plastic grocery bags. Neither should you.
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Manufacturers would just pass the cost on down to the consumer.
Why is that a bad thing?
Higher costs to the consumer mean less demand for one-time-use plastics.
I don't buy drinks in plastic bottles. I don't use plastic straws or plastic sporks. I don't use plastic grocery bags. Neither should you.
I just burn my own plastics out in the California woods. So what if there's an occasional forest fire? /s
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Manufacturers would just pass the cost on down to the consumer.
Why is that a bad thing?
Higher costs to the consumer mean less demand for one-time-use plastics.
I don't buy drinks in plastic bottles. I don't use plastic straws or plastic sporks. I don't use plastic grocery bags. Neither should you.
I just burn my own plastics out in the California woods. So what if there's an occasional forest fire? /s
The 'what' would be the thirty plus people killed in California forest fires in 2020.
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If charging the consumer a tax on items like soda bottles and cans isn't enough to motivate them to recycle, what's the solution?
Two things:
1. Charging consumers does work, as we have seen with plastic bags where there was a reduction of 86%. The problem with a soda tax is that it's not visible enough (just adds a few pence to the price, where as bags went from free to 10p). The only solution on the consumer end is to make the tax huge and force it to be printed on the bottle in big numbers.
2. If you put the responsibility on the manufacturer they will make the bottles easier to recycle and find ways to claw them back from consumers.
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Re: Tax the manufacturers (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is not money, the problem is corruption and globalization. Globalization allows companies and countries to import foreign corruption and pretend they are obeying local obligations.
There can be no comparative advantage for most recycling, simply don't allow export of waste. Problem solved.
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LOL no.
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Ultimately the problem is the boundary conditions of the universe ;)
It's not that I disagree that nationalism causes problems ... but I don't think cultures are fungible. Some cultures can create a semi-functioning modern democratic state, some can't. What if democracy simply refuses to work on global scale and instead of something western it collapses into something akin to China or one of the many fragile states in South America and Africa?
The Biden global tax plan is not globally redistributive, it's jus
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Even under global governance, you will probably have independent nations. Nothing like the US federal government, and probably not even as strong as the EU central government. But certainly something stronger than the current UN is possible and even likely.
Unless global surveillance technology enables a global authoritarian government, any global governance organization will require buy-in from all its participants. The United States is already showing how hard it is for a strong democratically elected fede
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You mean stronger militarily or morally? Never mind, both of those a pretty friggin' low bars.
Just going on their track records, piss on that idea.
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Getting rid of plastics would reduce life expectancy by a noticeable margin.
Human lives have to matter more than fish lives but even if you dont care about humans more spoilage means more food needed means more rainforests converted to farmland and you probably do care about rainforests.
Also glass and metal packaging is way heavier than plastics driving up fuel expenses for transportation making global w
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Incineration needs more consideration as one solut (Score:5, Insightful)
I get that incineration of plastics cause CO2 emission, but I think that energy reclamation by incineration is way more preferable than the alternative, which will by default always be dumping into the environment. There is no question that countries that receive waste the furthest downstream will not have the ability to recycle plastics meaningfully
(even the upstream waste management in wealthy countries fail to recycle adequately).
While effective incineration facilities require capital investment and create CO2 emissions, I believe the climate change fighting legislative efforts of world governments should provide allowances for incineration of waste despite its problems, because the alternative is, in my opinion, much worse.
Re:Incineration needs more consideration as one so (Score:5, Interesting)
Incineration for dirty, unsorted plastic is far better for the environment, because the effort needed to wash it alone would spend more CO2 on things like heating the water needed. We recently got the plastics recycling in the domestic recycling bins, and they have elaborate instructions on what is recyclable, and what belongs in the burnable trash bin.
General rule of the thumb, if you have to wash it with warm water, it's better to toss it as it is in the burnables. If you can clean it with cold water, or it's already clean, it's probably good enough to recycle.
This is because of energy needed in recycling process vs just burning the plastic waste.
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In case of dirty unsorted plastics, a good deep landfill is a better solution. Incineration of these doesn't only release CO2 - the stuff that comes from burning them is *nasty*. And who knows, maybe in 500 years these will be valuable deposits to be mined and processed. Or they'll just sit there for another billion years.
Re:Incineration needs more consideration as one so (Score:4, Insightful)
Problem with landfills is that plastics don't really break down for millenia, but they are energetic carbohydrates if burned. We're not burning them in open pits so "nasty stuff" is collected and that is what we actually landfill. It's a tiny percentage of total volume of original plastics.
Landfills should be reserved for unburnable trash.
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Who do you mean by "We" in " We're not burning them in open pits"? "We, the Turkish, the Indians, the Chinese?"
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We the people who are being bitched at by Greenpeace in the headline. Developed world like UK.
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Ah, of course! You're not burning it in open pits. You're just sending it to other countries so they could burn it in open pits for you!
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No, we're burning it in specially designed plants. More and more as these plants go up. You know, since time is linear and all, and we can't go back in time and build more plants early.
"Other countries" overwhelmingly don't burn their trash either. They just dump it into rivers and oceans. Unlike us developing countries, environmental caremeters in developing world are between "zero" and "who gives a fuck about this, I got money to make to uplift my family out of poverty".
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Landfill space is cheap (Score:2)
So is land in general outside urban cores. Landfills (PROPERLY MANAGED) are fine and can be mined then recycled in future when tech for doing that effectively becomes available.
Burial of basically inert items simply isn't a problem.
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Land is not infinite, and PROPERLY MANAGED landfill isn't cheap to maintain that management.
Re:Incineration needs more consideration as one so (Score:5, Informative)
Landfill solutions never really work well for future mining. Most likely outcome is chemicals leach into soils for the next 500 years as cities build up around those sites and it will never be economically viable to stripmine areas like that. Hell, 10 miles from me a landfill was used to fill in water and a city with 30K people live on top of it now. That's very common in coastal areas with parts of SF and NYC built up like that and nobody is ever tearing that down.
Burning CO2 isn't the worst option for it, it still releases energy and burning fossil fuels to release energy is still going to be in demand for decades to come. If coal plants can be retrofit to burn plastic instead, that's a solid win for reducing the coal mining requirements. Plastics have a similar calorie density to fossil fuels https://www.researchgate.net/p... [researchgate.net] so the estimated 400M tons of plastic we produce each year would translate into close to 200M tons of reduced coal consumtpion if we burned it. That's a third of the US entire coal production for comparison.
Re: Incineration needs more consideration as one s (Score:1)
Plastic incineration is finicky, can those coal plants reach the required temperature or would this become another dioxin scandal?
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Its a solved problem, maybe not for current plants as is but the required equipment can be retrofitted.
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They stopped building on top of landfill in the UK because they kept having problems with gas escaping and making the are unsafe.
Re:Incineration needs more consideration as one so (Score:4, Insightful)
The "nasty" stuff can be quite easily scrubbed. And if anyone bothered CO2 could be captured from the process as well. Throwing plastic in the landfill is a horribly wasteful to say nothing of microplastics breaking down slowly and working their way throughout the ecosystem (there's no such thing as a good deep landfill).
Re: Incineration needs more consideration as one s (Score:3)
Sort it as well as you can at reasonable cost and landfill it. Then when energy gets cheap enough you can use pyrolysis.
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Again, landfill land is at a premium. Especially when you consider transport costs away from biggest sources of plastic waste, the large cities.
This is why we nowadays have trash burner plants not too far from cities in developed world.
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Or better yet just don't make it in the first place. Do we really need disposable plastic bottles in many cases? Are there alternative materials we could use?
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> Do we really need disposable plastic bottles in many cases? Are there alternative materials we could use
Yes, glass. People who care about CO2 are generally against switching because overall energy consumption is higher for glass.
Another problem solved by atomic energy.
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Glass is also much heavier to transport, but if you have electric trucks being charged from a non-fossil power source like nuclear that's another problem that can be overcome.
recycling (Score:1)
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Burning plastic isn't recycling.
That depends entirely on how you define 'recycling'. Case in point: Sweden which incinerates 50% of their waste and calls it 'recycling'.
Slightly better than dumping it in the ocean (Score:2)
Burning it is slightly better than dumping it in the ocean where most of the plastic recycling exported to China ended up.
First world countries need to stop exporting their environmental problems to other countries which can't be trusted to responsibly deal with it. When China stopped accepting plastic recycling, in Australia many complained about the government putting the plastic into landfill, in truth putting it into landfill in Australia was probably more environmentally responsible than shipping it t
I doubt this will change anytime soon with... (Score:2, Insightful)
common problem. (Score:2)
Greens and nimbys partly to blame (Score:2)
There is an easy way to get rid of plastic waste - incinerate it. As an added bonus the heat can be used to generate electricity so cutting down on use of other fossil fuels so little or no net gain in emissions but it does get rid of an enviromental blight. But no - the greens and a lot of nimbys here in the UK made damn sure hardly any of these combined incinerators got built. I hope they're proud of themselves.
Composite waste (Score:3)
While it is technically possible to recycle composite materials (fiberglass, carbon fiber, etc.), the economic reality is that it isn't feasible to do so beyond grinding them up into bits that then get stuffed into concrete or so. This has been an issue with composite material boats for a while now, and is about to get much worse.
Prepare for landfills and burn pits 'taking care' of this waste problem as well. It's like nobody ever works through or cares about what happens at the end of any product chain.
Re:Composite waste (Score:5, Informative)
They have, in fact, worked through what happens at the end of the product chain. You just weren't paying attention.
Wind generation has one of the lowest composite waste rates, because the blades just don't make up that much of the total amount of the waste a dead turbine generates. 85-95% of the turbine can be recycled. The composite blades are a small part of the overall materials. Here are some industries that generate more waste composite material than wind generation: construction, electronics, transportation and shipping industries all produce more composite waste than the wind industry. In addition, by using ground up blade composite in cement, the need for a variety of other materials with greater environmental impact, is reduced.
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/02/23/wind-turbine-blades-can-be-recycled/ [cleantechnica.com]
https://www.ge.com/news/press-releases/ge-renewable-energy-announces-us-blade-recycling-contract-with-veolia [ge.com]
Is there anything else I can help you with?
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Sorry, I don't engage with trolls. Thanks for the effort, though.
Big lie strategy (Score:1)
This current government is a pack of liars, this has been exposed countless times, but they continue to use the big lie propaganda strategy [wikipedia.org] with the full cooperation of the right wing owned news and a BBC controlled by a Conservative party funder. America managed to do away with Trump, we have our own little Trumpet.
Who is Surprised? (Score:2)
This isn't news. Same in Germany for decades. (Score:1)
We have the same problem originating in Germany. In the early 90ies eco was fashionable so the conservative German gouvernement came up with a sort of semi-privatized tax-payer funded make-them-busy solution ("The Green Point" - a German recycling system with own Icon and all ...).
The result is a neat planned psychological effect, that we are all huge on recycling these days. You see recycling bins everywhere in Germany and every citizen at just about every level is quite diligent on doing his part and sepa
Re: This isn't news. Same in Germany for decades. (Score:2)
Plastic absorbs odors & substances in ways that can't be effectively undone. For a single-use container, it's not a problem. For one that has to be reused, it's a huge one. Would YOU want to buy a 2-liter bottle of ANYTHING that spent 2 years in a dirty mound in somebody's garage before someone threw it into a recycle bin and it got superficially washed & reused? If it's literally one bottle in a million, that makes it even WORSE, because THEN the food company won't BOTHER to rigorously inspect ever
I can't take Greenpeace seriously (Score:5, Insightful)
Any person or organization that opposes the use of nuclear fission power to reduce the impact of human activity on the environment is one I cannot take seriously. I keep hearing from these idiots that we need to "follow the science". I did follow the science and it lead me to the need to use nuclear fission power to lower CO2 emissions, lower the need for mining of materials for energy, and lower pollution in the air and water.
This does not mean we need to use nuclear fission power to the exclusion of all other energy sources. It means nuclear fission power needs to rank up there with onshore wind, hydro, and geothermal as sources of energy. So long as Greenpeace opposes nuclear fission power they are a bunch of unscientific ignorant morons on how to lower the impact humans have on the environment.
For as long as humans have had the written word there have been a number of cultures that described utopia as a garden, not a forest. A garden is an environment managed by humans, not some wild and untouched place. Humans are not separate from the environment as Greenpeace seems to think, humans are a part of it. We can remove ourselves as much as possible from the environment. We can destroy the environment. Or, we can create as best we can the Garden of Eden on Earth by managing the environment responsibly. Greenpeace thinks that cutting down trees are bad. As in any tree cut down for any reason is bad. Without cutting down trees we can't manage the land to protect the forest from wildfires.
Greenpeace quite literally can't see the forest for the trees.
Is the burning of plastic in Turkey bad? Maybe. There's likely better and worse ways to manage the plastic. If Greenpeace says it is bad then I'm inclined to support it as they have a very poor history of finding good ideas on protecting the environment.
Utopia is not a wild forest, it is a garden. A garden is a forest tamed and managed by humans. Greenpeace doesn't want a garden, they want a forest, and that makes them fools, ignoramuses, or both. Ignorance can be rectified, and being ignorant just means someone didn't learn something yet. A fool is someone that chooses ignorance when given the opportunity to learn. Greenpeace has had ample opportunity since it was founded to educate itself, to "follow the science", but instead took foolish positions based on their willful ignorance. Greenpeace is such a foolish organization that they wanted to ban chlorine. Chlorine, as in the element. An element vital to life.
I'll take what Greenpeace has to say seriously when they start showing they have a basic understanding of science. Given how little information is in the article there's no telling what Greenpeace thinks people should do instead or just how bad this problem really is. Burning plastic as a means of disposal has long been held as a viable means of disposal. I can recall my chemistry professor advocating for the burning of plastic, as opposed to even recycling it, to address the problem of plastic in the environment. Recycling plastic is an energy intensive process that produces a low quality product. Burning plastic destroys it, produces useful energy, and when done properly emits no pollution. Does burning plastic produce CO2? Yes, it does. We can close that carbon loop in any of a number of ways. One way is to sequester carbon with trees, trees that we cut down and use as lumber in durable products.
Greenpeace can go to hell. What it looks like is Greenpeace is paving a path to hell with their ignorant intentions.
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They oppose nuclear fusion too, which just goes to show how nutty they can be.
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Considering that nuclear fusion energy has yet to be shown as viable that's not anything to hold against them. That's like opposing puppy dog kisses as an energy source, we can't get energy from that either so opposing it in an energy policy makes sense. I'm quite certain that their reasons for opposing nuclear fusion power is based on a failure to understand science. Getting the right answer for the wrong reasons still means they got the right answer on nuclear fusion.
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Sure, nuclear is great! now go live near Chernobyl! or near a nuclear waste dump and take all your family with you!
Nuclear is only great when you forget about the future, on what to do with the waste, with the nuclear plant after end of live and how much all this cost. Not even talking about any accident, that make the problem 1M times worse.
Renewable have a cheaper cost, both building and operating and end of live is small, WAY lower than nuclear dismantle and cleanup
That nuclear cost is probably better us
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Sure, nuclear is great! now go live near Chernobyl! or near a nuclear waste dump and take all your family with you!
1986 called, they want their nuclear fear mongering back.
Notice that small and safer nuclear reactors do exist, but that will not fix existent old reactors problem, nor the waste and end of live management... and being smaller, they usually can't compete with other cheaper energy sources
Actually newer and smaller nuclear reactors do fix the problem of existing reactors. These reactors being smaller and capable of being mass produced on an assembly line means old nuclear power plants can keep operating. The new small reactors can fit within the boundaries of nearly every existing nuclear power plant, small enough to not interfere with the decommissioning of the old reactors while the plant continues to produce power. Since these ne
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>>Sure, nuclear is great! now go live near Chernobyl! or near a nuclear waste dump and take all your family with you!
>1986 called, they want their nuclear fear mongering back.
Sure, you can joke, but the problem is there, the half live of most nuclear fuel and waste isn't a few years, it is many thousands of years. Chernobyl was 35 years ago, the area is still with high levels of radiation. Again, even if everything works well and you have no accident, nuclear waste is a problem that everyone try to
Re: (Score:2)
Frankly, this is the end of this discussion. Goodbye.
I'm quite certain reality will have the last word. And the reality is that the Biden administration is continuing the nuclear power projects started with the Trump administration.
Wishing and waiting for solar power to save us is not a viable energy policy. An "all the above" energy policy is the path with the least risks. If the Biden administration shared your optimism then they would not be developing next generation nuclear power right now.
Standardized, reusable packaging is the solution (Score:2)
In the old days, you got your beverages in glass bottles which were then collected, washed and reused. While the containers were bottler-specific, it achieved a high degree of reuse, and since they were glass there was a low environmental impact for those that made their way into the environment.
We're actually WAY better about litter than we were back then. Aside from homeless encampments and slums, waste collection has never been better. The Pitch In campaign, while a cynical ploy by the packaging and plas
Credibility Question (Score:3)
This is very interesting reporting, and I wish that GreenPeace had any modicum of credibility remaining so I could trust it.
You can't spend three decades lying and then expect me to believe you. The smart thing to do is to spin off your investigative work into a separate organization, make them fully independent, and try again.
So many benefits to the UK. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
If the most harmful products of burning plastic weren't lighter than air and completely non-biodegradable, I would almost agree with you. Except that the Turkish people probably aren't really happy about this either and this isn't really what we paid them for anyway.
Same planet though (Score:2)
And same enviroment which makes it everyones problem. HTH.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you wash your containers? Yes
Do you remove the labels? Sometimes
Is there ANY food residue on the materials you attempt to recycle? No
But you are correct, every time I look in the recycling bin in any of the apartment blocks I've lived in I always wonder why I bother doing any of the above, because no one else does.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Al Gore needs to get on that fast. Maybe he and John Kerry can go piss on the flames while wielding smoked turkey legs!
If you think you have a bright future as a comedian you are wrong.