Done. Thanks again, Rebecca.
Dan Knapp Begin forwarded message: Date: April 9, 2008 8:11:45 AM PDT Subject: RE: [GreenYes] Re: Series of blunders turned the plastic bag into global villain
Dan, sorry again, but I don't see anyone else in the to: line; I think I'm the only one who received this. Good luck Thanks to Rebecca for this correction to my email practice, and hello to everyone that I unwittingly excluded when I hit the wrong button.
I would like to make a small change to my now-forwarded previous post and say "some of the plastics apologists are scientists for hire, etc." Some others are probably just not privy to all the information there is on this subject.
Either way, many thanks to Gary Liss in his earlier post for giving GreenYes participants, including any hack scientists that might be among us, some connections to more recent evidential work on plastic bags and marine life.
If I get time I'll send pictures taken by Carolyn Brooks of fences downwind from Canberra, Australia's hillside megadump, thousands of feet of wire all loaded up with plastic bags.
I also remember a visitor to Berkeley from India showing photos of canals in his city choked thick with plastic bags. I mean deep layers of plastic bags, not quite solid yet, but getting there.
Dan Knapp Urban Ore, Inc. On Apr 8, 2008, at 2:53 PM, Jewell, Rebecca wrote: FYI, Dan, You sent that only to me. If you'd like to send it to the group, I think you'll need to "reply to all."
and as a wee aside, I would simply call my post a question, not a challenge. Hope you're well, Regards, Rebecca In response to Rebecca's challenge, I'd say the plastics apologists are scientists for hire, or contrarian scientists looking for a niche for themselves, or both. Bad science. Sophistry: win the argument even if you have to destroy the truth. It's an intellectual infection that is all over the place, including our field of endeavor. 4,000 year old wasting habits die hard.
Last year a dairy farmer in Marin unlucky enough to be downwind of a major state of the art landfill showed us pictures of her fences stuffed full of plastic bags that become airborne and blow for miles despite the landfill operator's best efforts to control them. She went on to tell us that she had lost cows to the errant bags. If livestock die because of plastic bags, why wouldn't marine life do the same? Is a "minimal" threat so small as to be ignored safely when the species threatened is in danger of extinction?
Everybody has stories about the effects of plastic bags out of place. Telling them to others is a good way to counter the spinmeisters and hack scientists. In good science such stories are sometimes elaborate enough to be called case studies. Business thrives on case studies. Say what you know to be true.
Dan Knapp Urban Ore, Inc., a reuse and recycling business in Berkeley, CA since 1980.
On Apr 4, 2008, at 8:26 AM, Jewell, Rebecca wrote: I'm surprised there hasn't been much response to this on the list... What do people think about these claims??
Rebecca Jewell
Recycling Programs Manager
Davis Street Station for Material Recycling & Transfer
A Waste Management company
510-563-4214 Fun Fact: Waste Management recycled more than 5 million tons of commodities last year; preventing the release of more than 3.4 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions. Extracted from TimesOnLine
Scientists and environmentalists have attacked a global campaign to ban plastic bags which they say is based on flawed science and exaggerated claims. The widely stated accusation that the bags kill 100,000 animals and a million seabirds every year are false, experts have told The Times. They pose only a minimal threat to most marine species, including seals, whales, dolphins and seabirds. Read full article from this link:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3508263.ece
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