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September 14, 2012 / australianpoliticstv

Australian Greens: Senator Whish-Wilson talks about plastic pollution in our oceans

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Filed under Australian Greens, Daily Fix, Political Parties

One Comment

  1. Jude Simpson / Sep 14 2012 7:46 pm

    I don’t think the Senator went far enough in telling the parliament about the problems of plastic pollution:
    - There isn’t just one gyre of plastic in the Pacific, at last count there were five;
    - This will not be a big problem in the future, it’s an enormous problem now.

    The sad fact is that every piece of plastic that has ever been – or ever will be – produced will be on this planet until the end of time. It does not break down; the pieces just get smaller and smaller over the years, decades, centuries and millennia and on the way down in size they pollute, poison and starve smaller and smaller creatures that mistake the plastic for food. This is particularly true in the oceans and EVERY ocean is affected.

    There is no such thing as a biodegradable plastic bag; it is not the plastic in the bags that biodegrades, rather it’s the cellulose that binds the plastic pieces together that biodegrades. In fact so-called biodegradable plastic bags are adding to the problem rather than reducing it.

    What’s the solution? We stop making plastic products from oil and instead start to make them from cellulose and other appropriate, renewable, biodegradable (in the true sense of the word) and non-toxic materials. We have the technology, however the people making squillions of dollars from oil and plastic production are powerful influences over where and how society moves and they will actively resist any moves to stop using oil-based plastics.

    So it’s up to us, each one of us, to stop using plastic as much as we possibly can and to make sure that any plastic we do use is recyclable – and then recycle it!

    For an excellent overview of this problem I can recommend the book The World Without Us by Alan Weisman and, in particular, Chapter 9 – Polymers Are Forever.

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