What are you doing to save the planet ?
- Thread starter Spanglerdoo
- Start date
You're not nuts...and I admire what you want to do. But I think it is important to pick on things that are real and important problems. Some of those you cite are not really much of a problem, or are not problems at all.
Some plastics do not degrade quickly, but many that are in use do degrade, especially in sunlight, and do so within a months and at the most a few years. There are micro-organisms that thrive on almost anything "hydrocarbon", plastics included. There are still problems with plastics, yes for sure. But not something to stay up at night worrying about.
And glass is really just fused sand. Put is in the surf for a while and it is sand again. In weeks, not years, not decades, and not millions of years. At the bottom of the ocean undisturbed it may be there for a long time, but so are rocks. And glass is no worse (unless you step on it perhaps).
If mankind disappeared it would not take very long at all for all traces to disappear. The pyramids have lasted a lot longer than any modern building would..concrete and steel would decompose in a few hundred years at most. I would be surprised if you would find any traces of manmade compounds within a few thousand years at most, and you would probably need to be an archeologist to find that.
But then, why am I bothering to reply to this. People believe this sort of sky-is-falling stuff no matter what the facts are.
Some plastics do not degrade quickly, but many that are in use do degrade, especially in sunlight, and do so within a months and at the most a few years. There are micro-organisms that thrive on almost anything "hydrocarbon", plastics included. There are still problems with plastics, yes for sure. But not something to stay up at night worrying about.
And glass is really just fused sand. Put is in the surf for a while and it is sand again. In weeks, not years, not decades, and not millions of years. At the bottom of the ocean undisturbed it may be there for a long time, but so are rocks. And glass is no worse (unless you step on it perhaps).
If mankind disappeared it would not take very long at all for all traces to disappear. The pyramids have lasted a lot longer than any modern building would..concrete and steel would decompose in a few hundred years at most. I would be surprised if you would find any traces of manmade compounds within a few thousand years at most, and you would probably need to be an archeologist to find that.
But then, why am I bothering to reply to this. People believe this sort of sky-is-falling stuff no matter what the facts are.
O.K., I will answer this one.
I used to do R&D in hydrogen fuel cells and alternative energy. I also own a fuel efficient and ultra low emissions vehicle, and have done so for a decade. Each Drive Clean test proves that the vehicle is maintained in optimum condition. Now, I commute to work on public transit because I can and do out of choice. I also recycle all I can and avoid upgrading electronics just for the sake of being at the 'leading edge'. In fact, my cell phone is 8 years old with the original battery and works just fine, thank you. Does this make you happy? I hope so!
