[thedoc (OP)]

Harry Johnson  asked the Naked Scientists:
     
Dear Chris,

I'm really looking forward to Friday's program on what to do about our oceans of plastic waste.

I believe the most important point is to educate the community to adopt a "front end" approach to any waste material, namely to try to minimise the amount of waste material in the first place.Most plastics are derived from oil, a valuable finite resource over which wars may well be fought .Many plastics are extremely durable, long-lived materials. Thus ideally it would be far more sustainable to use durable plastics for very durable, multi-use products such as reusable lunch boxes, wheelie bins, telephones etc. rather than for single-use disposables such as plastic bags or even one-trip plastic beverage containers even if they happen to be recyclable.The general community still appear unaware of all the manufacturing inputs of any product we choose to use be it a multi-use  wheelie bin or a single-use bin liner.The manufacturing inputs are: raw materials, water, energy, air pollution, water pollution, landfill waste generated during the manufacturing process.The above manufacturing inputs are locked into a very durable, multi-use productfor the entire life of the product.But importantly these same manufacturing inputs are incurred every time a single-use product is manufactured.And in our consumer society with its high degree of emphasis on built-in obsolescence,it is the ever growing  volume of waste, a great deal of which ends up in our oceans, as an extremely durable waste legacy for both our children and non-voting marine species.There appears little community awareness of Barry Commoner's "Laws of Ecology":- 'Everything must go somewhere.' 'Everything is connected to everything else. And 'We all live downstream.'So if we burn waste plastic it causes air pollution, if we bury plastic it causes soil contamination and if we toss it overboard or beside a river, it causes water pollution and harms freshwater life and marine life.And as our four vital needs are clean, carbon-constrained AIR, unpolluted WATER, uncontaminated SOIL and SPECIES DIVERSITY.Now Ian Lowe and many others have been banging on about this for decades but still in the community psyche its not as important  as how we do at the soccer match tonight.But thank you Chris for raising this very important topic since minimising waste is something everyone can do on a daily basis through the individual choice of products they choose to use.For the future is what you choose

Yours sincerely,Harry Johnson

Former Co-ordinator, Kingfisher Recycling Centre, Aspley Special School, Queensland.
What do you think?