Re: Plastic Pollution in Our Oceans

[XxShawnRGxX]

Check out my video response and if it's chosen as one of the top three, vote for it on the X PRIZE Foundation's website. The three finalists will be chosen on November 15, 2008. The public voting on the X PRIZE website ends on November 30, 2008. If my video wins, it could become the next $10,000,000 X PRIZE challenge. That means we could have TEAMS of people competing with each other to clean up the Pacific garbage patch. If you really care about this topic, vote for my video.

[dreamerlyn]

Just wondering -- have you made any progress with this so far?

[usenetposts]

No, because nobody cares enough to get on board the project. I can't do this alone.

[lordmoggy]

good luck with that but no-one listens

[godadameve]

Question; Are those 'Bugs Bunny' front teeth real? Or are they a fake prop you use for the Viktor Huliganov character? I haven't noticed them in any of your other videos where you get such extreme closeups in you web cam?

[usenetposts]

My teeth are real, and your only guarantee that I really am ethnically British.

[godadameve]

I believe the word you are stretching for is 'retarded'?

Just thought I'd return the favor for that 'chutzpa' correction, 'professor'? Thanks. :)

[usenetposts]

I would never accuse someone of being anally retarded. I said retarted and I meant it. If a person is retarded, it's not their fault. But if a person tarts out their anal area, and moreover does it repeatedly, then they have to take responsibility for it.

[godadameve]

That's strange...I CANNOT find the word 'retarted' in any dictionary I have!But enough about semantics...I cannot believe you were recently withing just a few miles of my home!

[usenetposts]

You live in the Mid West? Anyway, I don't want to make an issue about "retarted" as it is a neologism, and most dictionaries haven't caught up with it yet. In fact Freud, who initiated anal talk in the first place, talked about being "anal retentive", so I suppose the past participle of that would be "anally retentionalisticalated", or something.

[godadameve]

Yes, Professor. While I do not live in such a glorious place as South Bend, my humble little town is also quite nice. We have a beautiful downtown and a magnificent lake front as well as incredibly rich and ethnically diverse neighborhoods.Yes, my quaint little town is small and humble but very nice. Oh, yes, you might have heard of it...Chicago? :)

[usenetposts]

You've got a treat coming up - My next Huliganov American Experience video is Chicago!

[godadameve]

Please let me know when you will be here so that I might meet you in person!

[usenetposts]

I already went in May, but I am still working through my backlog of videos.

[godadameve]

Viktor, Please stick to singing 'SONKS'. If you were really serious about this ecological issue you would NOT be voicing your concerns through the FAKE guise of a RUSSIAN man.

[usenetposts]

So what's comic relief all about, then?

Of course I am serious. Only anally retarted people can't be funny and serious at the same time.

[enfathom]

Perhaps we could dredge the oceans. Or maybe have volunteer events, where people must swim the seas and recover plastic. All this work might increase emissions though, and kill the planet through global warming.

[usenetposts]

Emissions of CO2 is not so much the problem as where the energy comes from that make it. If it comes from renewable biomass, we are not depleting the carbon sink. The problem with getting people to remove it by hand is that there are too many too little pieces. Some of it is mere dust - and that's the most dangerous. We need a fine mesh in like a tie noose with several kilometres length.

[enfathom]

Something suitable for sifting hay from a needlestack, no? Perhaps if we were to filter the oceans. Have everyone donate one or two water filters, and purify seawater one pitcher at a time.

[usenetposts]

You appear not to be taking the idea seriously. But consider this - getting pol out from deep under the sea and turning it into all these bits of plastic was technologically possible, so why shouldn't collecting the bits from the surface of the water not be possible?

[usenetposts]

But just as we use large scale technological solutions to create the problem, we also need large scale solutions to solve them. You will not clear the sea manually, even if you use up all the unemployed on that, but if you make the non-fishing subsidy go to getting trawlermen to use plastic catching, fish-safe nets, and pay them by the tonne of poly-alu and polymer that they recover from the open sea, then I can't see what would be so wroing with that.

[enfathom]

It seems that my sarcasm was lost on you. In any case, plastic pollution is not a substantial problem in the vast majority of the world's ocean water. And you're never going to be able to filter "plastic dust" from vast amounts of seawater efficiently. The practical solution is to reduce the litter that makes it to the ocean from the coastline, before it even gets to the water. In other words, fines & incentives to get people more interested in ensuring that garbage gets to a landfill.

[usenetposts]

That I agree with, we should certainly do that, but it won't help what is out there already, and if we can get the dust we can at least get some larger particles. I understand your sarcasm, what I don't understand is the reason for it, when all I am doing is raising awareness about something which will impact negatively on the quality of all our lives.

[enfathom]

The reason is this: Currently, even with the pollution problems that the world has, responsible countries are not being impacted substantially - and the likelihood that they ever will be is slim. Similar to the global warming issue. Your concern is no doubt genuine, but the world has far more worthwhile problems to deal with for such a high cost (rogue/tyrannical governments, and the like).

[usenetposts]

I really don't see how the one aspect contradicts the other. I am not asking governments for money to deal with this issue. Governments can keep on dealing with rogue states, I am all in favour. I am asking people of an entrepreneurial bent to look at harvesting marine plastic and to look at its commercial uses

[enfathom]

After much effort, we can't even turn a profit recycling plastics. The only reason it is done is because government forces taxpayers to subsidize it (instead of relegating it to the trash). And you think a scenario in which a company must go *find* the plastic to recycle is feasible? Look, I don't like plastic in the oceans any more than you, but the only way to accomplish what you want is by throwing away money.

[usenetposts]

What about all these new PET recycling schemes? They are not subsidised these days in most cases, although there are countries where the supplier of the good pays as in the case of DSD in Germany.

It is profitable to re-use, at least for burning, the plastic part of poly-alu from tetrapacks separated in the course of reclaiming the more expensive aluminum.

[enfathom]

PET recycling is relatively low cost, but still produces slightly more expensive plastics. This is a cost typically absorbed by companies wanting to appear ecologically and environmentally friendly, who in turn pass the cost to consumers. As fuel prices increase, PET plastics may end up profitable in and of themselves, but that industry still relies on concerned citizens taking the time to separate out their plastics for recycling (thereby providing easy access to recyclable materials).

[usenetposts]

All right, but all that still doesn't mean that with the right approach to trawling for plastic it cannot be done, and done with enough of a commercial as well as ethical angle as to be interesting to business.

[fan1b0z]

I will be part of your initiative! I am neither scientist or boat owner but regularly glean as much plastics from the 2+ miles of beaches I live beside in Scotland, the world is suffocating under a thin layer of plastics!

thank you for thinking about this

[usenetposts]

Glad to hear your support. I was also pleased to hear that the government is taxing plastic carrier bags and insisting on 10 pence per bag as an environmental fee. We need multi-use bags from natural fibers.

[fan1b0z]

I agree, tho plastic bags are still free in my part of the world. I hear about more direct action being taken like taking off all excess packaging and leaving it at the checkout

[dasilva94]

Such brilliance Tovarish Huliganov. I trust your great insights, comparable to those such as Trofim Denisovich Lysenko, will finally remove this environmental threat from the World's ecology!

[usenetposts]

There's nothing Lysenkoist about what I am suggesting. In fact, it is inevitable that we have to clean it up sooner or later. I have nothing against genetics, and genetics has no bearing on this problem, tovarish.