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Most likely manufacturing/processing decisions fall outside of a NEPA EIS mandate. An Environmental Impact Statement is mandated by NEPA for for federal government agency actions that significantly affect the quality of the human environment. An EIS describes the positive and negative environmental effects of proposed agency action - and cites alternative action.
Even if a manufacturing/processing technique were to fall within NEPA EIS in that some government zoning, funding or permitting issues were raised, an EIS is not intended to stop the actions, but it must fully investigate and inform of all potential impacts...
These are very lengthy and expensive documents, and daunting in scope.
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Check out this site
algalita.org
Captain Charlie Moore has been the driving force about this and leader of scientific expeditions to the gyre.
We shop for products with low-impact packaging.
Cafes / restaraunts with plastic cutlery, polystyrene food containers, plastic or polystyrene cups?
They do not get our dollar$.
The ones with re-usable stuff get our business and we often tell them why.
James Weatherford, Ph.D.
15-1888 Hialoa
Hawaiian Paradise Park
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You know what was interesting, while in the Coast Guard we had to conserve water. So we would use plastic forks , spoons, knives, plates, etc for most meals (at least 5 meals a day) during weeks at a time...
On top of that, we had TONS is soda cans etc. But we did not recycle and the cans went straight into the garbage...
Then, when hit 50 nautical miles away from land, guess what, the garbage went over the side and into the ocean! No filtering, no recycling, no nothing...Standard procedure for my ship...
And to top that off, we would dump "grey water" over the side also. Now grey water is everything and anything BUT toilet water/waste...This was dish water, shower water, and sink water...Same thing, over the side, no filtration...
This was still going on last time I was in. And mind you my time in the CG was from 1999-2004...
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50 miles offshore it's legal to dispose of waste with the exception of plastic. Plastic is illegal to discharge anywhere. Of course so is oil, and every marine engine with a wet exhaust blows that over the side too...
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I read about this in an airline magazine (Hawaiian Air maybe). It was about a couple of guys that built a plastic junk boat out of an old small-plane fuselage supported by pontoons made of thousands of sealed plastic bottles. They made the journey twice I think with not many years between trips. I think it was maybe 8 years? According to their story, the size(area) and degree of contamination had increased exponentially in that period of time. They caught fish that had been born/hatched near them during their jouney and schooled close to them their entire life. What they found inside of them was not pretty... lots of these tiny pieces of plastic. Definitely something to pay attention to. The acceleration of destruction of ocean ecosystems is truly scary.
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quote:
Originally posted by tlboyles1
What they found inside of them was not pretty... lots of these tiny pieces of plastic.
And that's why people have to be very careful when legislation is being passed. They need to know what they are really getting.
Case in point is the plastic bag/packaging ban that allows compostable plastic bags/packaging. What many don’t realize is that many of these items are still plastic held together by a biodegradable or destructible binder that holds all those thousands if tiny plastic pieces together. The binder may degrade or break apart and that plastic bag/packaging may no longer be a single item, but those thousands if plastic pieces are still there to pollute and pollute in a way that people can’t see.
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Thanks, Bob, that's completely accurate. However the bulk of the stuff in the gyre is visible and some huge. Abandoned 10 mile long fishing nets and the like.
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I did one of my long walks tonight. In the first 5 blocks I picked up 7 plastic bags and I don't even know how many plastic lids! Gotta keep that crap out of storm drains!
It did have an interesting side affect too. People saw what I was doing and became extremely friendly. And I witnessed one chick start picking up stuff herself! Fabulous!
I did have an overwhelming desire to wash my hands though ;-)
-Blake
http://www.theboysgreatescape.blogspot.com/
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