The plastic bag is the latest useful item to fall victim to a factually challenged campaign aimed at achieving a world-wide ban in the false name of being ‘green’ or ‘saving the planet.’ Australia has to take much of the blame for this, due to a 2002 report misinterpreting the original 1987 Canadian Study in Newfoundland claiming that 100,000 marine mammals and birds were killed by ‘plastic debris.’ In a 2002 report commissioned by the Australian Government into the environmental effects of plastic bags, ‘plastic debris’ became ‘plastic bags.’ The report became known as the Nolan-ITU report. In 2006 the report was updated. The same sentence was repeated but ‘bags’ was changed back to ‘debris’ with an explanatory note stating that the original article actually referred to ‘fishing nets.’ The damage to the reputation of the plastic bag was already done.
Read the excellent 8th March Times article, ‘Series of blunders turned the plastic bag into global villain’ online
or see a pdf version here.
The carrier bag industry is attempting to fight back and swim against the tide using the Carrier Bag Consortium website:
The following myth-busters are copied from ‘Useful Soundbites for the Media:’
SPEAK THE SCIENCE
BIN THE SPIN
1: OFFICIAL VIEWS
• A levy on plastic bags in Ireland only made matters worse… people underestimate how many plastic bags are used to put out recycling or are substituted for plastic bin bags. “We have got to remember that taxes and levies can have perverse effects – such as making people use more plastic not less” … Liz Goodwin, Chief Executive WRAP (Government’s Waste Resources Action Programme) The Daily Telegraph 28 Sept 2007
• “This (voluntary) agreement is working – with retailers offering shoppers reusable bags-for-life. We don’t think a ban or levy is the right way to go. In Ireland, people just bought more bin liners to replace free carrier bags, so the volume of waste stayed the same.” … DEFRA, The Guardian, 3 October 2007
• “But until supermarkets reduce the energy used in their stores, minimise food miles and treat farmers better, saving a few plastic bags is just window dressing.”…Tony Juniper, Friends of the Earth, Daily Mail, 28 January 2008
• “There have been unforeseen consequences in the Irish Experience … increase in the use of paper bags which are actually worse for the environment …” … Ben Bradshaw, UK Environment Minister, 4 August 2006
• “A number of unintended consequences appear likely to be connected with the proposed levy … the net environmental impact is an issue of considerable dispute … the Committee therefore recommends that Parliament does not agree to … the Bill” … Unanimous Conclusion (including the Green party) of the Scottish Parliament, Environment and Rural Development Committee, after two years of investigations, 2006
• “0.2% of the average household dustbin is plastic carrier bags … hence a tax on plastic carrier bags alone would be unlikely to have any significant impact on volumes of waste” (Plastic Bag Tax Assessment, HM Treasury, December 2002)
• Because so many plastic bags are re-used for domestic waste disposal, the following increase in bin liners and refuse sacks occurred after the tax in Ireland:
o Tesco – 77% increase in pedal bin liner sales
o SuperQuinn – 84% increase in nappy disposable bag sales
o SuperValue/Centra – 75% increase in swing bin liner sales
Evidence to Scottish Parliament, Environment and Rural Development Committee Hearings 2005
• The use of plastic bags in Ireland (including substitute bin liners) analysed through HM Customs figures shows the amount of plastic bags imported into Ireland has actually gone up after their bag tax from 29,846 tonnes in 2001 to 31,649 tonnes in 2006… HM Customs statistics (analysed by Mike Kidwell Associates/PAFA 2007)
• “They represent a fraction of 1%* of waste going to landfill. Retailers of all types are well on the way to reducing the environmental impacts of bags by 25%. They are doing that with the cooperation of customers by rewarding re-use, giving away sturdier bags-for-life, enabling and encouraging recycling and reducing the amount of plastic in bags” Kevin Hawkins, Director General, British Retail Consortium, 13 July 2007
• *The fraction of landfill represented by plastic shopping bags is 0.05%. This is based on domestic waste being 17% of landfill and plastic bags being 0.2% of the average dustbin. Packaging and Films Association 2007.
• 59% of people re-use ALL their lightweight plastic bags and a FURTHER 16% say they re-use MOST of them. … WRAP Survey 2005
2: THE SCIENCE
• The manufacture of plastic bags uses one third of the energy, results in half the pollution and one eighth of the raw material requirement of paper bag production (Winnipeg University Studies)
• Paper bags weigh 6 times more than plastic on our roads and are 10 times the volume in storage. Switching to paper as result of plastic bag bans or taxes will put an extra 32,000 lorries on London’s roads. Extrapolated by CBC from Simpac Ltd Studies presented to Scottish Parliament ERDC Hearings, 2006
• The average round trip to the supermarket is 12 miles, the petrol equivalent of 210 plastic bags (typically one year’s usage of bags per person in the UK) … Dr Gerard McCrum, Oxford, The Daily Telegraph 24 July 2007
• “(plastic bags) contribution to climate change is miniscule. The average Brit uses 134 bags a year, resulting in just (2.6) kilos of the typical 11 tonnes of carbon dioxide he or she will emit in a year. That is one five thousandth of their overall climate impact.” George Marshall, The Guardian, Thursday September 13 2007
• In Scotland alone, taxing plastic carrier bags would have created an EXTRA 13,500 tonnes of (largely paper) waste going to landfill. (This would mean an EXTRA 150,000 tonnes of waste created in the UK) Extrapolated from Scottish Executive Impact Assessment Studies 2005
• Taxing plastic bags will send more paper to landfill where it will degrade to give off greenhouse gases in direct contravention of the EU Landfill Directive. Plastic remains inert and will not give off CO2 or Methane in landfill. Packaging and Films Association 2002.
• Plastic has a higher calorific value than any other element of waste. The energy released in clean-burn municipal incineration by a single carrier bag keeps a 60 watt light bulb burning for one hour. APME/Plastics Europe 2006
• No other shopping container can carry 2,500 times its own weight and stay strong when wet. CBC 2001
• A typical plastic carrier bag uses 70% less plastic today than 20 years ago. No other industry has a better track record in material reduction. Packaging and Films Association 2003
• Plastic bags do not waste oil, they are derived mainly from oil refining by-products (naptha, ethylene, etc) which would otherwise be flared off. So plastic bags are an excellent use of otherwise waste products. All plastic packaging of all types uses no more than 2% of total oil extraction compared with 29% for transport and 35% for heating/industry. Plastics Europe 2007
3: THE RETAIL EFFECT
• The Irish tax has cost small to medium retailers an estimated €24.3m (after the first year of operation) mostly as a result of theft plus additional theft of €10m in “push out” thefts (where unbagged and unpaid for goods are wheeled through the doors due to absence of carrier bags as evidence of purchase) (Note: This is more than the income “generated for the good of the environment” and includes the theft of trolleys and baskets) … RGDTA – Irish Grocers Association and Irish Trade Journal “Shelf Life” estimates 2003,
• A 10p tax per carrier bag represents a tax level of 1400% on cost price. If applied equally across popular goods, a can of Coke would cost £8 and a packet of crisps £5. Simpac Ltd Study for CBC 2005
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
More fraud from the environmental movement! It’s too bad – there are many legitimate environmental problems that need to be dealt with. No need to make them up.
No need to make them up.
Looks more like they mucked them up.
“The damage to the reputation of the plastic bag was already done.”
I think that images of marine animals choking on plastic bags was more likely to damage any reputation plastic bags have.
For example see images at http://www.plasticbagfree.com/iframe_facts.php .
A couple of weeks ago a representative from the IPA was on ABC radio sprouting the virtues of plastic bags. He publicly claimed that plastic bags have never harmed any animal. Having witnessed a number of marine mammals in captivity and in the wild that had died as a result of ingesting plastic bags I thought his comment was disgusting. How could he so blatantly mislead the public at the expense of animal suffering?
Sure the “typo” is inexcusable, but so is a slow, painful death from a plastic bag.
So what percentage of marine mammals die from plastic bags vs other causes, Libby? Like baby seals having their heads ripped off or being eaten still alive by polar bears. Please take your emotional, green, blithering idiocy elsewhere.
So, is the 100,000 deaths from ‘plastic bags’ true or false? We need the truth instead of exaggeration from ‘ban everything environmentalism.’ Plastic ‘debris’ rather than plastic ‘bags’ is the main problem, from ships.
From the Times article:
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.
Lord Taverne, the chairman of Sense about Science, said: “The Government is irresponsible to jump on a bandwagon that has no base in scientific evidence. This is one of many examples where you get bad science leading to bad decisions which are counter-productive. Attacking plastic bags makes people feel good but it doesn’t achieve anything.”
Campaigners say that plastic bags pollute coastlines and waterways, killing or injuring birds and livestock on land and, in the oceans, destroying vast numbers of seabirds, seals, turtles and whales. However, The Times has established that there is no scientific evidence to show that the bags pose any direct threat to marine mammals.
They “don’t figure” in the majority of cases where animals die from marine debris, said David Laist, the author of a seminal 1997 study on the subject. Most deaths were caused when creatures became caught up in waste produce. “Plastic bags don’t figure in entanglement,” he said. “The main culprits are fishing gear, ropes, lines and strapping bands. Most mammals are too big to get caught up in a plastic bag.”
Regardless, the erroneous claim has become the keystone of a widening campaign to demonise plastic bags.
David Santillo, a marine biologist at Greenpeace, told The Times that bad science was undermining the Government’s case for banning the bags. “It’s very unlikely that many animals are killed by plastic bags,” he said. “The evidence shows just the opposite. We are not going to solve the problem of waste by focusing on plastic bags.
“It doesn’t do the Government’s case any favours if you’ve got statements being made that aren’t supported by the scientific literature that’s out there. With larger mammals it’s fishing gear that’s the big problem. On a global basis plastic bags aren’t an issue. It would be great if statements like these weren’t made.”
A 1968 study of albatross carcasses found that 90 per cent contained some form of plastic but only two birds had ingested part of a plastic bag.
Professor Geoff Boxshall, a marine biologist at the Natural History Museum, said: “I’ve never seen a bird killed by a plastic bag. Other forms of plastic in the ocean are much more damaging. Only a very small proportion is caused by bags.”
IMO , both Libby and Pauls have a point….plastic bags are known to cause marine animals death and according to a research previously conducted in the Noerth Sea 19 out of 20 seabird stomachs contained plastic debris, including plastic bags or pieces of plastic bags , and other plastic stuff. I have heard numbers that over a million sea birds die in the North Sea of plastic junk.
Personally I’m not a friend of plastic bags, I always recycle mine or carry o own bag to shops!
It’s not only a problem what is thrown from the ships , plastic junk will blow away from land to sea as well….
No point using more plastic bags than necessary, which is why I bought 5 strong, long-lasting shopping bags ( 4 fit in the trolley when full)- but I still have a use for plastic bags. A ban is completely over the top.
The fact remains that ‘plastic bags’ are only a small part of the ‘plastic debris’ problem.
Please take your medication Eyrie.
The ignorance reflected in some of the statements in Paul’s last comment is amazing. These people obviously have not talked to any wildlife carers or even done some background research.
It is very true that entanglement is a huge problem for marine animals, particularly in fishing gear. However, to deny that animals are killed by plastic bags is fanciful and misleading.
(I’m referring to your 07:15 comment Paul, with quotes from others).
Libby, where is the evidence to support the claim that plastic bags are as big a problem as you claim? The 100,000 claim/basis is false.
Paul,
Please read what I wrote. I am not supporting the claim of 100,000 deaths as true. To get any estimate of real deaths is almost impossible. I wrote “Sure the “typo” is inexcusable”.
My point is that some are claiming that no animals are harmed/killed by plastic bags, and this is simply not true. Why dismiss one lie but accept another?
I can speak from my own experience of what I have seen. I can also relay what others working in the field have told me.
Nowhere here have I said to ban plastic bags.
So essentially what you’re saying is that there are no environmental problems in the world at all, there never has been and never will be. And we have Mottsa’s testimonials too. Aynsley – Goklany – the IPA – they’ve all told us clearly.
OK Libby – we can’t argue against that. I think they have us.
Libby,
I have fixed the link from your 6.35am post. It wasn’t working – but is now.
And I think it provides some good evidence that there is an issue.
And I might have to disagree with Paul on this one.
One issue here seems to be plastic bags vs plastic debris issue. But we must also remember that plastic bags are breaking down to smaller pieces of toxic waste that are ingested by sea birds and sea mammals.
Plastic bags and debris are also a esthetic issue . It’s so ugly with all the debris in the environment….
Thanks Paul for this blog – one can be sure that this info would NEVER appear in our media.
I am heartily sick and tired of having my life micromanaged by green idiotarians.(Garrett for instance)
Especially when they resort to half truths and downright porkies to promote their “superior” moral stance.
I think this is more than a typo, but an example of how the environment movement uses and reuses figures that are convenient, and are then not questioned by a media (or even Government) that wants to report on how to ‘save the world’.
The Australian Department of Environment states in relation to this report at http://www.environment.gov.au/settlements/publications/waste/plastic-bags/analysis.html
In September 2006, the report was revised to correct an error on page 30. The sentence:
‘A figure of 100,000 marine animals killed annually has been widely quoted by environmental groups; this figure was from a study in Newfoundland which estimated the number of animals entrapped by plastic bags in that area from a four-year period from 1981-84’
Has been replaced with:
‘A figure of 100,000 marine animals killed annually has been widely quoted by environmental groups; this figure was from a study in Newfoundland which estimated the number of animals entrapped by plastic debris in that area from a four-year period from 1981-84’
The study referred to is Piatt, J.F.; Nettleship, D.N. (1987). Incidental catch of marine birds and mammals in fishing nets off Newfoundland, Canada. Mar. Pollut. Bull. 18(6): 344-349. The abstract of this paper states:
“Summer surveys of the incidental catch of marine birds and mammals in fishing nets around the east coast of Newfoundland indicated that over 100 000 animals were killed in nets during a 4-year period (1981-1984).”
Yet the Green political movement has continued its attack on the humble plastic bag:
Such as Tasmanian Deputy leader of the Greens Mr McKim told school children that Australia uses 6 billion plastic shopping bags every year, with only 1% being re-used by Australian households.
“Plastic bags are lethal to whales, birds and turtles, with over 100 000 of these creatures killed worldwide by plastic bags every year.” He said
His claim on reuse was also wrong according to the Departmental report that showed of the 6.9 Billion bags then used, 60% were reused, 3 % recycled and 36% disposed in landfill. (Only 0.8% entered the litter stream).
The campaign continues in Australia as recent media told of a leaked report for the Australian Federal Government shows more than 4 billion plastic bags were used in 2007.
A spokesperson for the national bag campaign and Green politicians said the government must introduce a levy on plastic bags to reduce the number being produced. (Totally ignoring the 40% reduction already achieved!)
Let’s have some hard facts rather than anecdotes. Numbers, figures, percentages, proof.
Over to you Ann, Libby, Luke, Jen???????????
Sure, some are claiming no deaths, many others claim 100,000.
The point is a lie persisted for 4 years until it was corrected, yet the the lie is still used as evidence. The plastic debris problem will not be solved by banning platic bags. Period!
Plastic bag lies:-
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2004/05/25/1115686.htm
Plastic current:-
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2004/05/25/1115686.htm
More on plastic ocean dump:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
But despite the ‘typo’, Australian are using more plastic bags than ever, (http://australianetwork.com/news/stories/asiapacific_stories_2195043.htm) so it has obviously not done the consumer or companies involved any harm. And of course there is no difference between ‘baby seals having their heads ripped off’ and a Californian sea lion pup being strangled over a number of weeks by a plastic bag.
Paul,
The anecdotal – as Libby has provided – can be useful.
It can generate a working hypothesis.
Proving or disproving that hypothesis with data is a different undertaking.
But lets start by teasing apart this issue a bit.
“Sure, some are claiming no deaths, many others claim 100,000. The point is a lie persisted for 4 years until it was corrected, yet the the lie is still used as evidence.”
So what makes it more acceptable for these spokesmen to claim that no animals are harmed when this is obviously not true? Why is this “evidence” ok? Why are you not jumping up and down about the fact the porkies are being told to highlight another porkie? IMHO claiming that no animals are harmed is as bad as claiming that 100,000 are.
“proof”
The proof is in the images and in autopsy reports from stranding and rehab centres, zoos and aquariums, veterinarians, wildlife agencies…
As I wrote before, to get any estimate of the number of deaths is almost impossible, when you consider that (as Ann pointed out) plastic bags break down into plastic pieces, which are consumed by smaller animals out in the middle of the ocean. If there are decent figures out there, hopefully one of us can find them.
“The plastic debris problem will not be solved by banning platic bags. Period!”
Nope, as there are other forms of plastic out there too. However, reducing usage of plastic bags and trying to prevent them from entering into the environment where they can do harm can make a difference. Whilst everyone here (myself included) may feel they reuse their bags and dispose of them properly, we can not trace what happens to them once the garbage trucks take them away.
More standard green bollocks from the usual sources. Libby’s link to the video, and Travis’ link to wikipedia focussed on the north Pacific Gyre. They took a 100km transect in the very place where debris will accumulate. It is completely unrepresentative of the rest of the ocean because it is the centre of the circulating currents.
Note also how the video concentrated on “nurdles”, the small bead like plastic particles that constitute the source material for plastic manufacture. It is all very well to talk up the concentrations of PCBs etc that can accumulate on these nurdles but that is not the point.
The actual presence of these nurdles is likely to be very low because the plastics industry, like all industry, is not in the business of dumping valuable raw materials if they can help it.
My first job was as a raw material controller at the ICI factory at Botany, Sydney. And I can advise that in any plastics manufacturing process, both the production people and the cost accountants regard raw material waste in the order of even 1% as a variance to be hunted down and fixed. Generally, these variances have more to do with process issues rather than spillage in transit etc. Indeed, spillage in transit would seem to be the only way nurdles could get into the ocean at all.
So there is very little room for doubt that these nasty, scary, nurdles make up a very small portion of the total oceanic debris.
It is also worth noting that the sampling method used may be able to compare plastic debris with krill sized organisms but there is major room for doubt as to whether the smaller species would be captured. So the claimed ratio of 6 parts plastic to 1 part plankton must be regarded as highly dubious.
Furthermore, the central pacific gyre is not well known for its abundance of krill and plankton so, once again, the sample is entirely unrepresentative.
It also appears necessary to point out that the other important thing to remember is that fish and birds that might ingest bits of plastic will still, regularly, vent their bowels. And these fish and bird turds will generally include any undigested matter that went in the other end.
It should also be mentioned that the video of dead bird carcasses did not point out that the assortment of rocks and debris being pointed to was not the contents of the stomach, but, rather, the gizzard. And both birds and some fish deliberately ingest hard objects like gravel, pebbles, bits of shell, and, no doubt, bits of hard plastic, to assist in grinding their food.
So where does that leave us?
1. The usual unrepresentative sampling by greens to exaggerate a threat,
2. The usual sloppy methodology that obscures the true proportions at play, and
3. The usual ignorance and misrepresentation of natural processes.
A quick google found a link to an old paper on odontocete (toothed whales, dolphins and porpoises)ingestion of foreign objects (including plastic bags)
http://swfsc.noaa.gov/publications/TM/SWFSC/NOAA-TM-NMFS-SWFSC-154_P747.PDF
(There is also literature on plastic bags killing human infants and used in suicides.)
My link was provided for interest’s sake Mott. Libby’s link provided more than the North Pacific Gyre. Regarding your ‘nurdles’:-
‘Virgin plastic granules or pellets have been found in varying quantities on all shores, adjacent to populated and industrialized areas of both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Examples include the United States, the Mediterranean, South Africa and New Zealand. In some instances the numbers recorded are so great that they have been recorded as TNTC (“too numerous to count”). These granules are also present, often in significant numbers on the shores of isolated oceanic islands lying distant from possible manufacturing and processing sources as well as afloat in remote surface waters. Plastic and other persistent synthetic macro- and megalitter materials are similarly widely distributed from Alaska to Antarctica. It is evident these materials have long since effected a global distribution and are now broadcast across all oceanic waters.’
From ‘Plastics in the Marine Environment’, Gregory and Andrady in Plastics and the Environment by Andrady, 2003.
As usual Mott, you are saying nothing, just mud slinging and losing your nurdle.
I think Motty made some good points.
But I am going to agree with Libby again, particularly this comment:
“So what makes it more acceptable for these spokesmen to claim that no animals are harmed when this is obviously not true? Why is this “evidence” ok? Why are you not jumping up and down about the fact the porkies are being told to highlight another porkie? IMHO claiming that no animals are harmed is as bad as claiming that 100,000 are.”
Let’s start by considering ‘the plastic bag equivalents’ in the ocean?
Paul’s piece that initiated this thread indicated that fishing nets were confused with plastic bags. Do we have any stats on fishing nets (as debris and fishing nets in use) in the context of killing birds – but not fish?
And Libby did mention the radio interview by John Roskam (Exectutive Director of the IPA). I don’t know whether she accurately represented what he said or not, but I don’t agree with John on this issue either. And its OK – we often agree to disagree on issues within the IPA family.
Hi Jennifer,
I thought the fellow from the IPA was an Alan someone, but I am trying to clarify this now. I missed his name at the start if the interview. I believe I accurately represented what he said, as I contacted the radio station with regards to the comment made.
Well look at the upside on this. If they ban plastic bags based on falsehoods, at least it shouldn’t cause the millions of deaths that resulted when they banned the use of DDT.
I’m just waiting for the zealots to call for a ban of windshields. Think of the billions of bugs that would be saved each year. Going for a drive in the country is going to be really nasty though!
My problem with the Plastic Bag argument is the erosion of civil rights in Capitalism and the lies used.
Why do people say I have to do something to save any animal at all costs. If this argument keeps getting extended, then I wont be allowed to eat meat. I will live in a humpy made of tree fall, my family will die because of lack of medicine and society benefits and poor diet because of unsustainablility.
I am happy to recycle, but I am not going to be fanatic about it nor will I be whipped because of someone’s Greentopia.
By the way at my local shop now, they have enviro bags for sale, 99cents at the users discretion and that is fair and that is the market at work, not legislation, not taxation just plain old democratic capitalism.
I already pay enough for the Keep Australia Clean mob to lecture me. My missus has enviro bags but they dont get used she forgets them sometimes. I have to listen to idiots Like Koche Doyle thje Nine mob and every idiot with an agenda in the morning. Iam nagged morning noon and night by people with opinions on what I should do.
I am so over Nazism or Fascists. Make a case prove a case and if you can’t then tough. I live in a bloody democracy and I like it that way so pardon me, the plastic bag discussion is precisely the argument about some of the green movement, their way or the highway.
This info from the New Scientist that is often quoted in Europe:
Seabirds ingest bellyfuls of plastic pollution
Published 8 January 2005
Discarded plastic has become a potentially dangerous staple in the diet of seabirds.
The stomachs of 95% of all fulmars that researchers found washed up dead around the North Sea contained fragments of plastic. One dead bird from Denmark had 20.6 grams of plastic in its belly, equivalent to about 2 kilograms in a human-sized stomach.
Fulmars (Fulmarus glacialis) like to feed on fish and offal discarded by trawlers. Any floating debris they accidentally ingest is retained in their stomachs, and this turns them into ‘flying dustbins’, says Jan van Franeker, the Dutch marine biologist who led the research.
Over the past two years, his team at the Alterra marine laboratory on the Dutch island of Texel has analysed 560 fulmars from eight countries. The birds’ stomachs contained an average of 44 plastic scraps, weighing a total of 0.33 grams per bird. One fulmar found in Belgium contained 1603 bits of plastic. Although it was not possible to establish what killed the birds, van Franeker says the plastic may have contributed to some of their deaths by damaging the stomach lining, inhibiting food intake or releasing toxic chemicals.
To be continued….
Can’t we just use hemp?
Part II :
“He suspects that chicks may also suffer by ingesting plastic. In a sample, he found that adults in December, just after the breeding season, had considerably lower levels in their stomachs than fledged chicks in September. Levels were also much less than in pre-breeding adults in April, suggesting that when they regurgitate food for their offspring a lot of plastic comes up with it.
In earlier studies, van Franeker found tiny scraps of plastic in the chicks of Wilson’s storm petrels in the Antarctic. He also recovered cigarette lighters, a toothbrush, a golf ball, a toy robot and a tampon applicator from Laysan albatross chicks that died on Hawaii”
To be continued…..
Part III:
” In the latest study, the most contaminated fulmars were found alongside the busiest shipping lanes. Contamination of the birds throughout the North Sea was two to four times as bad as that of birds from the more isolated Faroe Islands, for example, while fulmars from the shores of Germany and France had twice as much plastic in their stomachs as those from the Scottish islands of Orkney. Van Franeker says that this points to illegal dumping from fishing boats, ships and offshore installations as a major source of the problem.
He also found pieces of balloons, bags, bottles and packaging in the dead birds, suggesting that some of the offending plastic is swept down rivers into the sea, or blown off the land. The new survey was funded by the European Union’s ‘Save the North Sea’ project.
Environmental groups are horrified by the extent to which seabirds have been polluted, and fear that other marine life has been similarly affected. There should be tougher controls on litter, they say, with Friends of the Earth Scotland calling for a reduction in the unnecessary use of plastic.
The plastics industry stresses that it does not condone marine pollution. ‘The issue calls for more responsible waste management practices for all materials on the part of the shipping industry,’ says Matt Clements from the British Plastics Federation.”
Hold on. The original article has no claim that there is zero impact from plastic bags. The article is quite clear that the subject of the original report was “plastic debris” which can obviously include plastic bags but the meaning was clear that the majority of this debris was not plastic bags.
Libby has set up her own little convenient straw man of a claimed zero impact and Jen fell for it.
There is also another very serious flaw in the research covered in Libby’s video link. Who can find it?
Travis, of course the nurdles would be classed as too numerous to count. They are only 3-5mm in diameter so even a single handful would be classed as too numerous to count.
The facts is that nurdles are not a discarded waste product like all the other plastics. They are a raw material that has been lost to the manufacturing process by accident or omission. And this, by definition, makes it highly unlikely that they form a very significant part of the total volume.
The video was highly misleading in its failure to provide information on the proportion of total plastics that nurdles account for.
Those who talk about the plastic found in dead birds stomachs must explain why they are assuming this stuff is there permanently. In particular, exactly why is it that this plastic does not go out in their $hit?
Discarding the bits that cannot be digested is, after all, what the whole point of waste venting is all about, isn’t it? Most parents can confirm that anything from plastic soldiers to marbles will come out the other end of human children so why are we being told that all plastic is retained in sea and bird life?
So some clown found a bit more roughage in a few dead birds. Big deal.
” In particular, exactly why is it that this plastic does not go out in their $hit? ” – Ian
PLEEAAZEE IAN, the sea birds REGURGITATE their food to the chicks, in doing so they regurgitate the plastic debris!!!!
I cannot believe that this tired old argument is still around. When are we going to start looking at real solutions such as modifiying our behaviour, altering our waste management practices etc, rather than demonising yet another inanimate object. If plastic bags are having an effect on sea life, the plastic bag is not the culprit, we, humans are. For the carless manner in which we treat waste. This is all about finding management solutions to the waste stream and modifying human behaviour. Primarily the propensity to litter. Surely we can better manage the waste stream without resorting to throwing things out into the environment without a care for the consequences?
I’m surprised that there isn’t a dollar or two to be made here somewhere and that some entrpreneureal type hasn’t spotted it.
” Most parents can confirm that anything from plastic soldiers to marbles will come out the other end of human children so why are we being told that all plastic is retained in sea and bird life?” – Motty
PLEEAZE Motty….most vet surgeons have found lots of objects in the stomach of their patients. When I visited the Swedish Veterinary Institution they had a whole collection of debris that had been in the animal’s stomachs.
Re the sea birds and chicks. The plastic debris is toxic and it TAKES A LOT OF SPACE IN THE STOMACH so the birds die of malnutrition as one cause. One might also wonder if the debris may cause obstruction in the gastointestinal tract….
“Hold on. The original article has no claim that there is zero impact from plastic bags. The article is quite clear that the subject of the original report was “plastic debris” which can obviously include plastic bags but the meaning was clear that the majority of this debris was not plastic bags.
Libby has set up her own little convenient straw man of a claimed zero impact and Jen fell for it.”
Any excuse eh Ian? Go back over what has been written here and you will find what I have been referring to. But that is not as easy as going straight for the smear is it? And poor Jennifer- now she can’t think for herself.
Pandanus67,
You are right, it is about behavioural changes, but I think you can see from this discussion alone that for many ‘I’ comes before ‘we’ and ‘them’ doesn’t enter into the equation.
Libby that last statement of yours is fairly intolerant. You say we as in everyone agrees with you. This is the royal green “we” without a vote or decent argument, anyone who doesn’t agree doesn’t get a vote.
AGW skeptics know the royal “we” very well we also know the”oh you are one of them” comments as well.
Emotive garbage, what floats your green emotional boat does not necessarily float everyone else’s environmental boat without proof.
Make the case for behavioural change, which is what the thread is about, the case made for society change is being tested for fallacy.
Not we or I, the truth and the cost and the reality.
Interesting that Ann quotes a North sea study on Seabirds, but by her own quote (III) the major source of plastic found is debris from fishing boats, ships and marine installations not the humble shopping bag (although mentioned in comment upon the report no figure is given in the report for its minor impact) downloadable at http://www.alterra.wur.nl/Wever.Internet/Templates/Standard.aspx?NRMODE=Published&NRNODEGUID=%7bF51EB133-87D4-451D-8C38-2A492801EC6D%7d&NRORIGINALURL=%2fUK%2fpublications%2fAlterra%2bReports%2f&NRCACHEHINT=Guest . This was the point of the original post that whilst plastics are a pollution problem and do kill sea birds and animals it is incorrect to use research related to marine debris to justify bans or levies on plastic shopping bags.
As stated ealier most of these bags are reused prior to disposal, and are disposed of in authorised ways. Very few (less than 1%) plastic bags end up in the litter stream, and are also a very small percentage of the litter stream.
” Friends of the Earth Scotland calling for a reduction in the unnecessary use of plastic.”
Hi Cinders,
Methinks an emphasis should be pointed out by this statement. We should reuse our plastic bags when shopping , or even better use our own bags. Thinking about not buying new plastic bags every time we shop and asking for an entrepreneural spirit to take care of old plastic bags/ debris
So sea birds don’t, ever, take a crap, Ann? Give us a break.
This whole bird guts plastic story has the stench of an eco-scam. Sea birds swallow whole fish and their alimentary systems presumably have no problem crapping out larger bones and any other non-disolvable solids but somehow, we are expected to believe they cannot crap out bits of plastic?
And what about the baby birds? If they normally get regurgitated stomach contents then they obviously get a few undigested solids that subsequently pass through them as well. And have been doing so for millions of years.
And remember, only the nurdles are reported as collecting toxins. And surprise, surprise, they forgot to mention how rare they actually are and in what concentrations they actually occur.
The same goes for Dolphins? There was the famous dolphin with a gut full of plastic bags story doing the rounds but no-one can explain why it is that this stuff can go in one end but cannot go out the other end.
And as no-one picked up the flaw in the methodology used by the guys in Libby’s video link I will explain. The sample was taken at the surface and they compared a surface sample of plastic (it floats) with a surface sample of plankton (they use the entire water column) So of course there was 6 times more plastic than plankton. Indeed, what proportion of krill occupy the top metre of ocean? Diddly squat.
This sampling technique could only produce a highly misleading data set because of its surface bias. The proportion of plastics in any sample taken below the surface would obviously be close to zero.
But of course, that would be one of those “inconvenient truths” that don’t get any air, wouldn’t it?
There’s no epidemic of pussy cats or puppy dogs dying from having their guts choked with plastic bags, despite their living at the source of the pollution, human habitation. Nor does urban wildlife seem to be suffering from the problem. For some reason it’s only species living miles from anywhere that suffers.
Hi Paul,
Found this quote from BBC : ” John Summers of Keep Scotland Beautiful said: “Vets treat thousands of cases of animals hurt by rubbish each year and amongst those are cases where horses, cows and even domestic pets have choked on plastic”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3959607.stm
That’s an unsupported anecdote, Ann. I can give you the opposite, in 27 years of veterinary practice, I never saw one animal die from ingesting plastic shopping bags.
Let’s get back to the bottom line – provide a varifiable figure for the number of birds/mammals killed by plastic bags, no heresay, no anecdotes, no ‘New Scientist,’ which is a source of BS, not science.
Are we going to ban ships and fishing nets?
We know 100,000 is incorrect. I’m gonna keep asking until I get a verifiable figure for plastic bags deaths.
So your 12:46 comment is tolerant John van Krimpen? I am in no way saying everyone should agree with me. I do not believe in everyone being only for themselves, hence my comment, if you care to get off your high anti-green horse.
“Indeed, what proportion of krill occupy the top metre of ocean? Diddly squat.”
From web – “The archetypal Antarctic animal (at least to biologists) is krill Euphausia superba, this is the source of food for all sorts of animals such as whales, seals, penguins and a whole host of other birds. Krill feed on phytoplankton by filter feeding at the surface where the phytoplankton are found, but this puts them at danger from predation. It has long been known that krill migrate to the surface and then to deeper levels in the ocean when not feeding to put themselves out of the line of danger unnecessarily.”
Krill swarms are seen at this time of year at the surface in the Bonny Upwelling off Victoria.
Diddlysquat?
“The same goes for Dolphins? There was the famous dolphin with a gut full of plastic bags story doing the rounds but no-one can explain why it is that this stuff can go in one end but cannot go out the other end. ”
“The”? So tell me Ian, the orca calf that washed up on an Eden beach with plastic bags in its gut was another possum from the freezer? Maybe the Bryde’s whale in QLD was too. And the fur seal, who had 3 bags in his stomach? The leopard seal with 5 hats and numerous whole and broken plastic bags? Do you really not know how a plastic bag could block an animal’s intestinal tract, wrap around and cause ulcers and constrictions, stop faeces from passing, make the animal sick and not feed? I don’t understand why you don’t google ingestion of foreign objects in marine mammals- or you could even read the link I provided earlier on the topic. Educate yourself on what actually happens instead of arguing for the sake of smear not substance. Your comment only highlights your refusal to actually learn anything but persist in presenting falsehoods.
Domestic, farm and zoo animals ingest foreign objects, including plastic bags and pieces of plastic, as Ann has pointed out. Because you are not aware of it or it is not in the media, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Most pussy cats and puppy dogs that live with people in the western world don’t tend to have plastic bags floating around their garden, and if a stray eats a piece of meat wrapped in a plastic bag, it is hardly going to be reported to anyone. Marine animals ingest bags and other articles when they mistake them for food (eg turtles, whales) or play with them and swallow them (eg dolphins and seals).
Plastic bag threat to sea life ‘exaggerated’
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23438890-2,00.html
CONSERVATIONISTS campaigning for the elimination of plastic shopping bags have been accused by Australia’s leading authority on sea turtles of exaggerating their impact on marine life.
Queensland Environmental Protection Agency scientist Colin Limpus said that although plastic waste was a hazard to turtles and other marine animals, the singling out of shopping bags was not justified.
“This has been picked up by the conservation community, but these bags would only account for a small proportion of plastic-related injuries,” Dr Limpus said.
As he helped release into Moreton Bay 13 sea turtles that had recuperated after being taken sick or injured to Sea World on the Gold Coast, Dr Limpus identified boat strikes as the biggest threat to turtle populations in coastal waters.
About 100 large turtles are killed each year by boats in southeast Queensland compared with an average of 20 boat-related deaths in the late-1980s.
“These animals are mainly adults which take 30 years to reach breeding age so the losses are substantial,” Dr Limpus said.
Conservationists have used sea turtle and other marine animal deaths as a key argument in their campaign to eliminate plastic shopping bags.
The campaign has often cited a Canadian study to demonstrate that 100,000 animals are killed annually by the bags, although the study identified discarded fishing nets as the cause.
Clean Up Australia chief executive Kerrie-Ann Johnson yesterday insisted the impact of plastic bags on marine life had not been exaggerated. “It is a very big issue,” Ms Johnson said.
Asked to identify studies supporting her claim, Ms Johnson said one by the Australian Marine Conservation Society had concluded that 90 per cent of albatross chicks had bag remnants in their gullets.
AMCS national campaign manager Craig Bohan said his organisation had not conducted any such study.
Dr Limpus said that, shopping bags aside, plastic waste was a threat to turtles, mainly by blocking their guts. He said turtles had been killed by plastic gladwrap used to seal lunches that was thrown overboard from boats.
Autopsies by Sea World identified plastic as the cause of death of four of the 41 turtles examined between 2003 and 2007. Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett has signalled he will push for the phasing-out of plastic shopping bags by the beginning of next year.
Dr Limpus said state authorities should consider limits on boat speed in areas frequented by turtles, dugongs and other vulnerable marine animals in the same way that car speed was restricted.
“The problem is that the boats are moving so fast that the animals don’t have time to get out of the way and below the propeller,” he said.
The loggerhead was the main sea turtle species under threat; its Queensland breeding population had fallen from 3500 in the late 1970s to 500.
The issue re phasing -out plastic bags or reducing the usage of plastic items should be a very easy environmental issue. This is an issue where every INDIVIDUAL can take a positive step that really makes an improvement or impact.
It’s not an issue that needs international summits etc, every single person can do a difference for the environment/ animals and it should not be a political issue, greens vs anti-greens.
There isn’t currently a total replacement for plastic bags – nor is there a case for banning them. Bans have resulted in an increased usage of black bin liners. Reducing unnecessary usage of plastic bags is already happening, and is a good idea, but no ban please.
A delegate from an African country came over to the UK, to an exhibition, to find a cheaper replacement for plastic bags which had already been banned in his country. He was shown a starch based bag that is simailar to a plastic bag, but costs 3 times as much, a cotton bag – not recycleable, or a paper bag which has limited use, is worse for the environment and harder to recycle. Plastic bags are easy to recycle. All plastics can be recycled, as far as I know.
There isn’t currently a total replacement for plastic bags – nor is there a case for banning them
Cellophane is biodegradable but has a polluting manufacturing process that needs to be improved upon there are other alternatives but they are not as cheap to produce. There is no case for banning them but there is a case for disposing of them properly along with the rest of our waste.
Libby who said I was anti green, did you decide this with your FBI profile skills. I actually said some parts of the green movement. I just happen to believe that plastic bags are neither here nor there in a debate about the environment, I think the big part is over, I dont see plastic bags on seashores but I see green wheelie bins everywhere.
Most Australians are green, they have been for decades. That war has been won and no ones bitching.
If I was anti green, my recycle bin would be at the tip. My advice was drop the EMO stuff.
The far left and the far right need tags, most people just want to live and let live.
Make a scientific case that doesn’t kill jobs or in the case of say EMO DDT kill a lot of people unnecessarily, and that was animal EMO carried far too far.
So, will those alarmist greenies at IKEA refund all those nickels that they have been charging for plastic bags? Nah, it’s easier to call rational people bad names than to admit that many steps to “save the Earth” are worthless.
” many steps to “save the Earth” are worthless” – Woody
With that kind of attitude it seems like the Earth and youself are lost, you got to be more positive about your own power! 🙂
BTW, Ingvar Kamprad , the owner of IKEA, a self made man , is among the 5 or 10 richest people in the world, ” despite” that IKEA is quite green. The furniture is FSC certified , they collect money to save rain forests, they have approval of the green NGOs etc.
Ann – the power of nature v man – there is only one winner!
H0 – Plastic bags are harmless.
Proposed experiment – we feed Mottsa and Woody a plastic bag each and some glad wrap and observe that they are unaffected, thereby proving H0.
QED
Well John, I don’t know where you live, but it must be nice if you don’t see plastic bags on sea shores. When I swim at my local bay it is with the plastic bags, and this is one of the greener areas of Sydney. When I look in my block’s green recycling wheelie bins I don’t see an effort to recycle, and I wonder about “most” Australians being green. And we don’t have the FBI here but I have experience with our equivalent.
As for EMO, I am not into teenage fads. One thing that sets us humans apart from animals (so they say) is our capacity to feel and express emotion. I have had animals in my care get sick and die as a direct result of plastic bag ingestion. It was an unnecessary and painful way for them to go. So I will not take up your “advice”, sorry.
BTW, Ingvar Kamprad , the owner of IKEA, a self made man , is among the 5 or 10 richest people in the world, ” despite” that IKEA is quite green. The furniture is FSC certified , they collect money to save rain forests, they have approval of the green NGOs etc.
It is called advertising, Ann. He’s trying to appeal to yuppies who can then feel better about themselves by participating in mindless and ineffective green symbolism.
Libby, when I go to Perth I like to go swimming in the mornings in summer at Port Beach. Never seen a plastic bag there nor come to think of it at any of the places I used to surf on the WA coast. Maybe you live in the wrong place.
I have seen plastic litter washed up on the shore – at the base of the cliffs along the Bight when helping fly a light aircraft from Perth to South Australia more than 20 years ago. There wasn’t a lot of it and what there was appeared to be plastic containers of the tens of liters size obviously dumped overboard from ships.
I haven’t seen anyone here calling for a ban on plastic bags. There have been calls for recycling and reducing – so what’s wrong with that? There have been no calls for killing jobs, despite bags and debris killing wildlife, but supposedly ‘most people just want to live and let live’. Just so long as it doesn’t involve job loss in the wealthy western world. But we want to let live, and so we don’t want to have animals choked by plastic? Yeah, right.
>Most Australians are green, they have been for decades
Where does this fact come from?
Well, clean seas and beaches where John and Eyrie live. No flooded storm water drains either I would guess. Maybe they are just some sort of gutless jellyfish I am seeing on my trips to the shore, but I certainly see a lot of ’em.
But what of women in the Maldives who are organised into cleaning up their beaches of marine debris (including plastic), or the South Pacific islands who hand over everything to you in plastic bags yet have no means of recycling them except into ash or flushed out to sea, or the drains and streets of Jakarta where you tread on asphalt blended with discarded plastic and this well-behaved rubbish is as much a part of the landscape as the heavily-laden motorbikes? Yeah, some of us have it pretty good, so let’s just keep on using ’em like there’s no tomorrow and be grateful our lives are not negatively affected.
“Maybe you live in the wrong place.”
I’ve often thought that, although it is now considered a millionaire’s location. Money can’t always buy clean water. Reasonable snorkelling but lots of rubbish.
On cetacean surveys I have done there have also been debris surveys. Visual scans and trawling for samples. Ian’s nurdles were found across the Indian Ocean, but everything from hundreds of plastic bags to huge crates, dead sheep and beach balls were in middle of the the Mediterranean. A couple of dissected flying fish had blue plastic beads inside. I think some of this stuff got written up somewhere.
” On cetacean surveys I have done there have also been debris surveys. Visual scans and trawling for samples. Ian’s nurdles were found across the Indian Ocean, but everything from hundreds of plastic bags to huge crates, dead sheep and beach balls were in middle of the the Mediterranean. A couple of dissected flying fish had blue plastic beads inside. I think some of this stuff got written up somewhere” – Libby
Thanks for this comment Libby!
Article from BBC Friday:
“But researchers are warning that the risk of hidden contamination could be more serious.
Dr Richard Thompson of the University of Plymouth has investigated how plastic degrades in the water and how tiny marine organisms, such as barnacles and sand-hoppers, respond.
He told the BBC: “We know that plastics in the marine environment will accumulate and concentrate toxic chemicals from the surrounding seawater and you can get concentrations several thousand times greater than in the surrounding water on the surface of the plastic.
“Now there’s the potential for those chemicals to be released to those marine organisms if they then eat the plastic.”
Shoreline mess
Once inside an organism, the risk is that the toxins may then be transferred into the creature itself.
“There are different conditions in the gut environment compared to surrounding sea water and so the conditions that cause those chemicals to accumulate on the surface of the plastic may well be reversed – leading to a release of those chemicals when the plastic is eaten.”
It is as if the plastic particles act as magnets for poisons in the ocean.”
To be continued….
Part II :
” In an experiment involving plastic carrier bags immersed off a jetty in Plymouth harbour, he is assessing the time taken for them to fragment.
In related projects, he and colleagues have also added plastic powder to aquarium sediment to establish how much is ingested by marine life. Research on stretches of shoreline has shown that, at the microscopic level, plastic pollution is far worse than feared.
In a typical sample of the sandy material gathered at the high tide mark on shorelines, one-quarter of the total weight may be composed of plastic particles.
Studies have found that plastic traces have been identified on all seven continents.
Here on Midway, Matt Brown of the US Fish and Wildlife Service echoes the warnings of a long-term threat from plastic waste.
“The thing that’s most worrisome about the plastic is its tenaciousness, its durability. It’s not going to go away in my lifetime or my children’s lifetimes.
“The plastic washing up on the beach today – if people don’t take it away it’ll still be here when my grandchildren walk these beaches.”
Plastic bags – what about the plastic our food is wrapped in to make it hygenic? Which group initiated that policy? Our loonie Lefty consumer groups.
So would this be another unintended consequence of political silliness?
Ann – the plastic bag experiment is worthwhile and interesting, but the question remains how much of the plastic debris problem is related to plastic bags, which weren’t implicted in the 1987 report that was corrupted in 2002.
From the Oz article I quoted above:
Clean Up Australia chief executive Kerrie-Ann Johnson yesterday insisted the impact of plastic bags on marine life had not been exaggerated. “It is a very big issue,” Ms Johnson said.
Asked to identify studies supporting her claim, Ms Johnson said one by the Australian Marine Conservation Society had concluded that 90 per cent of albatross chicks had bag remnants in their gullets.
AMCS national campaign manager Craig Bohan said his organisation had not conducted any such study.
Clearly Ms Johnson is a LIAR.
Seems then Paul there are lots of lies being told by BOTH SIDES.
Interesting information Ann. Without doubt plastic bags contribute to plastic marine debris, whether whole or fragmented. The true extent of plastic debris’ effects on the marine environment will never be known, unfortunately.
“The Times has established that there is no scientific evidence to show that the bags pose any direct threat to marine mammals” and “It’s very unlikely that many animals are killed by plastic bags” and “On a global basis plastic bags aren’t an issue.”
Clearly these people are LIARS.
From the Australian March 28 th:
”
GREG Roberts correctly identifies that the Australian Marine Conservation Society has not conducted a study of the impact of plastic bags on albatross chicks (“Plastic threat to sea life exaggerated’’, 27/3) but also incorrectly suggests that Clean Up Australia claims it did.
Had Roberts referred to Clean Up Australia’s website, he would have read that the study was by the United Nations Environment Program. The study reported that 90 per cent of Laysan albatross chicks had somesort of plastic debris in their upper gastrointestinal tract. “- Chairman Clean Up Australia
Full article the Australian :
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/letters/index.php/theaustralian/comments/infection_starvation_death
From Fish update 🙁 not a green NGO)
“Marine charity welcomes carrier bag charge
Published: 29 February, 2008
A MARINE charity has today welcomed UK retailer Marks and Spencer’s decision to charge for plastic food shopping bags and said it hopes others will follow suit.
Marinelife said it welcomes any move to reduce the impact discarded plastic bags are having on the oceans.
The charity, which conducts year round whale and dolphin research in the English Channel, North Sea and Bay of Biscay, has also been working closely with Aberdeen University for over two years to record all plastic rubbish along its research route.
“This is an issue close to the charity’s heart, having been concerned with the ever increasing sightings of plastic throughout its research area for a number of years, especially around major ports, so it was delighted to be involved in the valuable research,” a statement issued to the press said.
Marinelife said it believes this issue poses both a short and long term threat to marine wildlife, and as well as recording sightings of plastic rubbish, has also provided sponsorship for a PhD. The research is focused on some of the rarely seen beaked whales – species such as the Cuvier’s Beaked Whale and Sowerby’s Beaked Whale, which have increasingly been found dead, with stomachs filled with plastic bags.
To be continued ….
Part II :
The plastic bags are eaten by the whales and become lodged in their stomach and intestines which can at best interfere with normal food update and at worst completely block the digestive system – death being an inevitable consequence, the charity added.
Marinelife researcher, relief wildlife officer and PhD student Jackie Smith commented: “We have recorded plastic bags in the Bay of Biscay over 120 miles from shore in waters over 4000 metres in depth. Beaked whale species in particular are highly susceptible to swallowing plastic bags as they are believed to strongly resemble their target prey, squid. Other species of large whales, which take large mouthfuls of water during feeding, also take in plastic bags by accident and hence are also at risk. The fact that beaked whale species whose natural habitat is deep waters where they catch prey at depths in excess of 1000 metres are being found dead with high concentrations of plastic in their stomachs, highlights how widespread the problem of plastic is.”
Part III:
Marinelife researcher, PR & Publicity Officer, Adrian Shephard added: “It is only when you actually start recording the number of bags you realise how much of a problem this is and while Marinelife praises any action which could reduce the pollution of our oceans and the threats to our wildlife, it hopes the steps taken by a leading high street store will be built upon by other supermarket chains.”
Marinelife’s unique long term monitoring project, the Biscay Dolphin Research Programme (BDRP) has been conducting scientific monthly whale, dolphin and seabird surveys through the English Channel and Bay of Biscay for the last 13 years, using the P&O Cruise Ferry, The Pride of Bilbao, as a research platform. In addition, a BDRP full-time Wildlife Officer collects daily data on whale and dolphin abundance. The BDRP surveys have detected more than 20 species of whale and dolphin in the Bay of Biscay and counted over a hundred thousand animals.
Paul,
It was very unfortunate that the original report pointed out that the direct cause to the 100 000 marine animals death was plastic bags.
Incorrect statements only undremine different causes.
Re the Times article. You can hardly believe this was not anything else than sensational or tabloid , sloppy journalism.
Actually , there are lots of independent science out in the field/ internet re the harmful impact of plastic material on different animals and organisms.
As an humble ordinary person , who has taken part of sea bird stomach contents, I can tell you that they do contain plastic debris and including a variety of items.
Another problem with this plastic debris is the plastic that wrappes around the sea bird’s beakes , and they starve to death. This is not only anecdotes, I can provide photographic evidence from the widlife center.
So Ann, it seems the only thing Ms Johnson lied about was who did the study. Not very professional of her admittedly. It seems though that the figures for Layson albatross chicks and plastic bags still stand. Will this be acknowledged? Most certainly not! Much like some of the other claims here regarding krill surface swarms and how animals like dolphins should be able to pass plastic bags.
Plastics were also found in beaked whale stomachs from Japan (link provided previously). But with no stats matching 100,000, it’s just not newsworthy here. You have to have those black and white figures, not carcases sinking to the abyssal plain unseen, and certainly not anecdotal reports from two emotional women who actually have worked with animals that have ingested plastic!
Regarding the resin pellets again (‘nurdles’) “The actual presence of these nurdles is likely to be very low because the plastics industry, like all industry, is not in the business of dumping valuable raw materials if they can help it.” There is an Australian group that did surveys in Western Australia.
The website says: * Tangaroa Blue Ocean Care Society first detected plastic resin pellets while conducting a survey of small plastic fragments at Quarry Bay in early 2007.
* Since then they have been found on all beaches we survey from Cape Naturalist to Cape Leeuwin.
* Their observed distribution has ranged from being lightly scattered along strand lines on open sandy beaches to a concentration greater than 6000 per square metre in a site which traps debris moving along the coast.
* Plastic resin pellets are largely out of site or buried during summer but become very mobile and more visible during winter onshore conditions. (http://oceancare.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=89&Itemid=168)
It also makes the connection between nurdles and PCBs, which it was said above “It is all very well to talk up the concentrations of PCBs etc that can accumulate on these nurdles but that is not the point.”
The website says: * Persistent organic pollutants are now proven to be Endocrine Disruptors – synthetic chemical compounds which interfere in differing ways and rates, with the hormonal functioning of organisms. http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/
* Growth, development and reproduction all can be affected in organisms from plankton through to humans.
* The concentration of persistent organic pollutants magnifies as they are passed up through the food chain.
* Plastic resin pellets with these absorbed chemicals pose the potential of injecting far greater concentrations into the food chain at particular (trophic) levels.
* All marine plastic debris carries some level of these persistent chemicals and in that sense plastic resin pellets stand out as a marker for this marine pollution process.
The results of one Western Australian clean up were:
In 2007, 274 volunteers spent a total of 863 hours removing more than 19,081 individual pieces of marine debris from 47 stretches of coast covering over 107km of coastline. The debris weighed over 1,190 kilograms and filled more than 244 bags with many other items too large and heavy to be placed in bags. Debris items included 5,395 pieces of small plastic, 1523 lids and bottle tops, 1,459m of rope, 566 pieces of packing tape, 613 plastic bottles, 149 plastic bags and 649 cigarette butts. 83% of all debris found was made of plastic.
There is a whole heap of information regarding plastics in the environment available to people who want to take the time to look and learn. But that magical figure of 100,000 remains as elusive as a bag blocking an Indo-Pacific beaked whale’s oesophagus (who knows, the figure could be higher, not lower, but that doesn’t matter), so I guess the bags stay and we only remember the evil typo.
More vague reports from Libby and Ann. Krill may feed at the surface but how many metres of the water column constitute “the surface layer” in the quote you gave? Is it 2 metres, 5 metres, 50 metres? And the fact that krill spend a lot of time diving to avoid predation makes it clear that a sampling of the top 1 metre layer will not provide a realistic sample of relative proportions of plastic and marine organisms.
Only 149 plastic bags in 1.19 tonnes of debris, from 107km of coastline, Libby? Thats one bag every 718 metres of beach. The beach is clearly a place where bags will get caught on so we can easily conclude that bags are less prevalent in the ocean. And as we can be certain that 149 plastic bags weighs less than 1kg, we can be certain that plastic bags made up less than 0.08 of 1% of that debris.
And all these quotes about the sightings of nurdles in the indian ocean, and all the guff about the threat from PCBs, are consistent in their failure to actually tell us how relevant this information is. That is, how many nurdles were found in the average square kilometre of ocean surface? And at the concentrations of PCBs being claimed as typical for plasic particles, how much plastic must be swallowed, for how long, to pose a threat?
And it is incumbent on these people claiming the bags get stuck in the digestive system to explain what it is, in these long tubes (sausage skins) that the bags get caught up on.
Presumably the bags don’t just stick to an intestinal wall because that would only be possible if the pressure of a passing liquid kept it there. And if liquid was still passing then clearly, the intestinal tract is not blocked. They must get snagged on something, so what is it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_resin_pellet
“A nurdle, (noun) is a pre-production plastic pellet, also called a “mermaid’s tear.” These resin pellets can be polypropylene, polyethylene, polysterene, or another type of plastic,”
“Nurdles are tiny, usually between 0.1 and 0.5 cm in diameter. (The tapioca pearls in Thai iced tea, for example, are about 0.6 cm in diameter.)”
According to the usual partial information from greenfarce there are 20,000 to 25,000 per pound (45,000 to 55,000/kg) but this range seems to be based on the upper end of the size scale only. the difference between a kg of 1mm diameter nurdles and 5mm diameter nurdles would be much greater. Some 48,000 x 5mm nurdles would occupy a volume of 6 litres while 48,000 x 1mm nurdles would only occupy a volume of 0.048 litres (48cc).
At http://grapevine.abe.msstate.edu/~fto/tools/vol/sphere.html you can get the actual volumes of these spheres calculated for you. But for the record, the volume of a 5mm diameter sphere is 0.06545cc (15.27 in 1 gram at RD1) while a 1mm diameter sphere is only 0.00052cc (1923 in 1 gram at RD1).
What it tells us is that the 6000/m2 that Libby has reported in a few isolated concentration points is likely to amount to 125 grams at a density of 48,000/kg. If they were at the 1mm diameter scale then they would occupy a total of 6 cubic centimetres, the volume of my forefinger. If they were 5mm diameter then they would occupy a volume of 0.75 litres.
But remember, this is the yield from a specific collection point after at least 12 months of accumulation (between clean-up Aus days) from movement along the coast.
Clearly, if they are a serious problem then these collection points must represent a very high proportion of the total volume in circulation. And it follows that regular removal from these sites would be a far better way to address the issue.
But of course, that would be a practical solution and the green movement gets far more mileage by talking about the problem than actually fixing the problem.
“More vague reports from Libby and Ann.”
LOL!!
“Krill may feed at the surface but how many metres of the water column constitute “the surface layer” in the quote you gave?”
Are you that desperate to recover from what you wrote?! Weren’t you going to supply us with a post on krill ages ago, being the expert that you so obviously are?!
“Only 149 plastic bags in 1.19 tonnes of debris, from 107km of coastline, Libby?”
Yup, knew you’d pick that up. Knew you’d also ignore the fact that plastic bags break down, contributing to “5,395 pieces of small plastic”. If you cared to see the ocean you would have an idea of what bags do when they get there. I hope it’s a comfy armchair.
“And it is incumbent on these people claiming the bags get stuck in the digestive system to explain what it is, in these long tubes (sausage skins) that the bags get caught up on…They must get snagged on something, so what is it?”
“Incumbent”!!! I see you have bothered to read stuff for yourself in favour of smearing! You have chosen to continue to be ignorant. Odd, but consistent. A good look.
“failure to actually tell us how relevant this information is.”
Yup, no “relevent” information in what was provided. Smear.
“But of course, that would be a practical solution and the green movement gets far more mileage by talking about the problem than actually fixing the problem”
Yup, the green movement does nothing and leaves it up to people like you do all the work Ian. Thank goodness you exist. Smear. Yawn.
I am 100% in favour of more science. Let’s get some facts happening here. Ian doubts that bags can possibly block an animal’s gut. It obviously can’t happen, but let’s just do an experiment to find out for sure. The tricky part will be to ensure we don’t dislodge Alex in the process.
So, let’s get Luke’s suggestion happening and stuff a Woolie’s plastic bag down Ian’s gullet. No chewing now, you have to pretend it is a squid. We’ll isolate him in a room, but provide him with regular food and water. No medical treatment is allowed, but it would be interesting to do some blood tests, maybe some x-rays. We’ll leave him that way and see how he goes. Pretty sure he’ll just pass the bag out in his faeces along with Alex and we’ll all see that animals dying from plastic bag ingestion is a myth. And I’m sure it wont hurt a single little bit Ian. When can we get this started????
Travis: ” So, let’s get Luke’s suggestion happening and stuff a Woolie’s plastic bag down Ian’s gullet”
Why bother drug smugglers do this sort of thing on a regular basis with apparently no ill effects. Occasionally a bag bursts and causes a major problem for the smuggler stopping him dead in his tracks but a minor one for the rest of us.
Hmmn, so no substantive response to how many metres constitute the surface layer. No substantive response to how these bags actually get caught in the stomach. It is a simple and entirely reasonable request, how do they get caught?
No indication of how many square metres actually had 6000 nurdles/m2, nor how far apart these collection points were. Just the usual scare stories and exaggeration but very short on information that would indicate character, scale and intensity.
So what was it, Libby, 6cc of nurdles/m2 or 750cc/m2, over a total of 5m2 or 50m2, every 5km of coast or every 50km of coast?
That is one heck of a broad range for the truth to be obscured in, sweetie?
And how many “pieces” of plastic constitute an equivalent amount to a plastic bag? Must be quite a few if they are also counting nurdles from 1mm to 5mm diameter. Now lets see, that might make it a whole 0.1 of 1% of the total volume collected. Shock horror.
And if Travis was a scientists armpit he would recognise that if a plastic bag can go down a throat with relative ease then it will probably also go out the other end with similar ease.
Jan & Motty,
Why do ya think that on some plastic bags its written ” Keep out of reach of children” and on a plastic item I have in front of me right now it’s written “Not suitable for children under 3 years old, contains small parts that can be swallowed and long cord which can pose an entanglement hazard” ????
There was a suffocation problem with plastic bags, hence they have had air-holes for many years. There’s lots of things an unsupervised small child can swallow. I don’t think a plastic shopping bag is one of them, and we can’t and shouldn’t ban everything that is mis-used.
There still seems to be (deliberate?) confusion over plastic debris and plastic shopping bags.
No-one has provided a figure for deaths that can be attributed to ‘plastic bags’ rather than unrelated ‘plastic debris.’ From the outset, the 100,000 figure was related to ‘plastic debris,'(fishing nets) not plastic bags. I haven’t noticed anyone calling for the banning of plastic fishing nets.
Ann: Why do ya think that on some plastic bags its written ” Keep out of reach of children” and on a plastic item I have in front of me right now it’s written
The risk is suffocation by sticking bags over their heads they like to wear them as hats. As for the other small plastic items like lego which are no suitable for children under three you can add all the non plastic items like coins, bottle tops snails and dog poo that can find the way into young children’s mouths. Why restrict your concerns to children I’d like a dollar for every cigarette butt that I’ve pulled out of little demented old ladies’ mouths.
The issue with plastic bags is not their existence but the exercise in proper care in their disposal and of course keep them out of reach of children.
” There still seems to be (deliberate?) confusion over plastic debris and plastic shopping bags.” – Paul
” Deliberate” confusion? Oh , come on Paul, as Libby and I have already pointed out , shopping bags will also break down / defragment into smaller pieces = plastic debris.
As for banning plastic fishing nets. It’s very difficult to influence fishermen, there use to be a big outcry when you try to limit / decrease quotas etc. Reducing/ reuse your plastic bags is a VERY EASY individual step…..( contrary to ban plastic fishing nets)
BTW Paul , thanks for posting this thread, it’s a good one with robust discussion….
Ann – there is a need to identify the sources of ‘plastic debris’ and you haven’t demonstrated that ‘plastic shopping bags’ are the bulk of the problem.
The original 1987 report, corrupted in 2002, didn’t identify ‘plastic shopping bags’ as the main problem.
How long does it take a ‘plastic shopping bag’ to break down?
“Why bother drug smugglers do this sort of thing on a regular basis with apparently no ill effects.”
Yes, a condom is the right size for me to put my groceries into. Of course there would be no medical records ANYWHERE of people ingesting these things and needing surgery.
“Hmmn, so no substantive response to how many metres constitute the surface layer. No substantive response to how these bags actually get caught in the stomach. It is a simple and entirely reasonable request, how do they get caught? ”
You have to be kidding! You have been provided with links and information and yet you still want others to do all the work for you?? So lazy and so deliberately out to smear. Otherwise you would find the information yourself (like everyone else here does) and realise you have been wrong – but then you would also have nothing to hang on to in your attempt to sound knowledgeable. Don’t you realise that whether you are proven wrong or continue to sprout idiotic points as facts that you still look stupid?
“That is one heck of a broad range for the truth to be obscured in, sweetie?”
Ah, will we start getting more sexist comments Ian? The truth exists but all you care about is smear.
“And if Travis was a scientists armpit he would recognise that if a plastic bag can go down a throat with relative ease then it will probably also go out the other end with similar ease.”
So rather than reading what has been provided, understanding the facts, even looking at the pretty pictures, you keep denying that it happens. You are stupider than I could possibly ever imagine…Worse than that, you want to deliberately present wrong information to readers because you have an agenda to push and some sort of ego problem.
“There still seems to be (deliberate?) confusion over plastic debris and plastic shopping bags.”
There is certainly no “deliberate” confusion from me Paul, and it is not from Ann. That’s a pretty strong comment, insinuating that we are trying to mislead. There does seem to be a deliberate refusal to acknowledge that plastic bags kill – humans and non-humans – and are a problem in the ocean, storm water drains, etc. You are actually doubting two people who have direct experience with the problem. You have failed to acknowledge that Ms Johnson had correct figures but from an incorrect source. As has been written before, no one here is trying to ban plastic bags.
“No-one has provided a figure for deaths that can be attributed to ‘plastic bags’ rather than unrelated ‘plastic debris.'”
Plastic bags contribute to plastic debris, either in whole or fragmented form. As I have written numerous times here, you will not get a figure. The original typo was misleading and wrong, however it is also possible that the figure of 100,000 is correct. What makes 100,000 deaths that much more significant than 10,000? If you have ever been at sea you will understand that the ocean is a big place and there is lots of non-biological crap in it. If an animal dies at sea from ingestion, sonar, fishing nets, a bullet they do not necessarily wash up on a beach for all to see and an autopsy to be performed. Beaches would be littered with dead animals if every time they died they washed up. If you have ever been to second or third world countries you will realise that they do not necessarily dispose of their rubbish with the same measures that westerners do. There is a world outside the affluent self-obsessed one you and I live in.
“I haven’t noticed anyone calling for the banning of plastic fishing nets.”
That is an incredibly ill-informed comment. Ann pointed out the reason for this. I don’t think people make a living out of plastic bags to the same degree they do out of fishing, and given the cries of neo-nazism and green micromanagement here, what would be the use of suggesting any ban or change to plastic fishing nets? In areas such as New Zealand and the Gulf of California, where Maui’s dolphin and the vaquita respectively are seriously endangered with extinction due to fishing practices, it’s obvious that although there is evidence fishing is causing the declines and changes to fishing practices are needed (and they are limited areas) no one cares about two species of dolphins. NZ has set about some bans, but more needs to be done if these animals are to continue to exist. As for the vaquita, it will follow the baiji.
“How long does it take a ‘plastic shopping bag’ to break down?”
Obviously this is going to depend on a number of factors. Google may be able to help.
>And if Travis was a scientists armpit he would recognise that if a plastic bag can go down a throat with relative ease then it will probably also go out the other end with similar ease.
You’re right Mott. How can I produce acceptable results with one specimen? How about I use you and your family and relatives and feed you all a plastic shopping bag each?
So tell me Mott, if the animals can pass the bags, why do they die? Can you tell me what the photos and literature is on about when they say the animals die from swallowing plastic bags?
Ann has skilfully chosen to ignore Mott. Libby, you are being baited, just like you are correctly saying he is out to smear. Ignore him. He wont go away, and none of the administrators will ever do anything about him, but he does a very good job of looking like a complete jackass and his true colours are on display for all to see.
>I haven’t noticed anyone calling for the banning of plastic fishing nets.
No one is trying to ban plastic fishing gear? Are you serious? Why don’t people here ever read stuff first before making claims like this? What is the point of people providing information and links if no one here bothers to use them? Paul you are providing lies just like your headline, but continue to do so and not even apologise when caught out. Shame on you. We can probably all accept it from epsilon-semimorons like Mott, but you tend to be held in higher regard.
So on each main point Libby declines to answer questions that reasonable men and women seeking to be properly informed would ask. In each case she claims it has already been answered in the links and that my failure to find this information is a sign of my supposed stupidity. And in each case she launches into a diversionary personal attack on the person asking the question.
Long term blog readers will recognise this as her standard exit strategy when cornered. So it is appropriate to ask, once more, What part of the digestive tract do the plastic bags get caught on?
Could it be that the “researchers” have presented all the plastic found in a digestive tract as something trapped there when, in fact, it just happened to be passing through at the time of death?
Those with a knowledge of green modus operandi would suspect this was the case. And Libby’s conspicuous avoidance of the issue would tend to support that suspicion.
Sure, Travis, but you will need to provide documentary evidence of your true identity before you can have any contact with my family. Oh, and when we have your real name and address we might also deal with some of those outstanding legal issues in respect of defamation, shall we?
And Paul might like your details as well. What a piece of work. Anyone who asks inconvenient questions is branded a liar and subject to abuse.
Is this some sort of intergenerational response? Maybe handed down from when people asked how your grand daddy got the clap?
Libby: “Yes, a condom is the right size for me to put my groceries into.”
Wouldn’t surprise me a bit.
>Oh, and when we have your real name and address
Travis is my real name idiot. As for addresses, my email address is provided here each time I post.
Ahh Ian. The only way you can respond is with insulting my family again? Sweet. It’s nothing to do with loyalty to your wife Grott, it’s because no one would want you anywhere near them!!! But you can continue to dream and use your hand. How’s Alex going?
>deal with some of those outstanding legal issues in respect of defamation, shall we
Be my guest Mott! Bring it on.
>Anyone who asks inconvenient questions is branded a liar and subject to abuse.
Nope. Anyone who outright refuses to read what has been provided to them is stupid and a troll. You are both.
So we have an answer then Mott?:-
>Could it be that the “researchers” have presented all the plastic found in a digestive tract as something trapped there when, in fact, it just happened to be passing through at the time of death? Those with a knowledge of green modus operandi would suspect this was the case.
So the animals died from something else but it happened right when plastic bags were blocking their gut? Well, there’s nothing more I can say about that. You are obviously right.
“How long does it take a ‘plastic shopping bag’ to break down?” – Paul
Rough estimation, between some decades to 1000 years.
An excerpt from LA Times :
“Of the 500,000 albatross chicks born here each year, about 200,000 die, mostly from dehydration or starvation. A two-year study funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency showed that chicks that died from those causes had twice as much plastic in their stomachs as those that died for other reasons.”
“Nearly 90% of floating marine litter is plastic — supple, durable materials such as polyethylene and polypropylene, Styrofoam, nylon and saran”
” Ireland instituted a 15¢-per-bag tax in March 2002, which led to a 95-percent reduction in use.”
” Each year, Americans throw away some 100 billion polyethylene plastic bags. (Only 0.6 percent of plastic bags are recycled.)”
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/1499
” “Every little piece of plastic manufactured in the past 50 years that made it into the ocean is still out there somewhere,” Andrady said, “because there is no effective mechanism to break it down.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-ocean2aug02,0,3130914.story?page=2
Probably Paul will once again point out the difference between plastic debris and plastic shopping bags.
The whole thingy with this plastic bag awareness issue is to make people concerned about that their plastic litter will harm living animals/ humans / organisms. ( unless you don’t want to live in an environment full of litter , then you better move into a garbage bin or a ghetto).
Interesting that you should mention defamation Ian. My solicitor loves receiving the latest from you and has used terms to describe you much along the same lines as some here. Only problem is he has expressed interest in the weblog administrators too. He will be particularly interested in your latest, so thanks for that.
So with vets, wildlife carers, researchers, etc ALL saying that animals can ingest plastic bags and die (based on actual examples), Ian Mott still disagrees and puts it down to the animals dying of something else whilst they just so happen to have a plastic bag in their stomach. I agree with Travis – there is not much you can say to that. It’s stupid beyond belief, so at least a new low has been reached. It’s a bit like the sonar thread and how the NGOs, researchers, cetologists, bioacousticians, government bodies, US Navy and US courts agreed that it is a problem to cetaceans, but Ian Mott says it isn’t.
“Foreign Body Consumption
Although the ingestion of foreign objects is thought to be a problem primarily of captive marine mammals, we do see the problem in wild individuals. In free-living cetaceans, it is not uncommon to find the presence of large numbers of foreign materials which apparently have been picked up from inshore waters…materials commonly found include plastic bags and other natural –and human –derived objects types of refuse which are found in urban harbor areas. In captivity, consumed foreign objects include plastic bags, hats, towels, and many different forms of human debris, some of which can cause gastrointestinal obstruction, trauma and intoxication. All foreign objects should be considered a dangerous health risk to the animals.
“As large and potentially traumatic as some foreign objects can be, symptoms associated with foreign body consumption are often extremely vague if existent at all. This makes diagnosis extremely difficult…
“…objects can remain in the animal’s stomach for literally months before any symptoms of gastric inflammation, obstruction, or intoxication might occur. By this time, the pathology associated with the foreign object is often advanced and not only is the object often difficult to retrieve but the pathology caused is often difficult to resolve.
“…The presence of a foreign object in the stomach is often associated with the accumulation of rotting fish, resulting in a foul odour to the gastric juices. Additionally, there commonly is an abundance of white blood cells and sometimes red blood cells associated with the erosion of the gastric mucosa.
“…Because of the difficulties associated with the diagnosis, pathology, and removal of foreign materials, efforts at prevention are much more economical than attempting to deal with the object once it is within the gastric lumen.”
From “CRC Handbook of Marine Mammal Medicine: Health, Disease, and Rehabilitation, by Leslie A. Dierauf. Dr Dierauf is a vet. She is also a woman, so I guess she doesn’t count.
From the Marine Mammal Center website-
“When plastic debris are swallowed, they remain in the animal’s stomach, so that it may not be able to feed or feel hungry.”
From another website, http://www.chemgapedia.de/vsengine/vlu/vsc/en/ch/16/uc/vlus/marinelitter.vlu/Page/vsc/en/ch/16/uc/pollution/casestudies/litter/litteringestion.vscml.html
You actually have to click on the link, read it and comprehend it, and I understand how hard this is for you Ian. I’ve tried to make it easy for you master, honest.
So let’s recap – I provided you with a link right on this thread, you have proven that you can use the internet when it suits you, and there has been a lot of evidence here from Ann and myself. Yet you still write “So on each main point Libby declines to answer questions that reasonable men and women seeking to be properly informed would ask….
…Those with a knowledge of green modus operandi would suspect this was the case. And Libby’s conspicuous avoidance of the issue would tend to support that suspicion.”
An apology is in order Ian. You are a troll who deliberately tries to discredit me and mislead other readers. I still haven’t figured out why, but that will maybe come to light the day I get a “sorry” from you.
So now Libby is claiming misogyny, what a classic. Both Libby and Ann post quoted opinions as if they were fact. They are merely opinions, not evidence.
And the post above lists general foreign objects, and includes plastic bags amongst those foreign objects. Thats fine but the added opinions are all generalised statements that fail to qualify in respect of particular species and the relative size of their digestive tract and the particular objects that may cause the harm.
So a dead minke whale had a chip wrapper and a shopping bag in its guts, so what. What was the actual cause of death?
Ann gives a very lose association between plastics in Albatross chicks but this is not evidence. It is pure supposition.
And still no word on exactly how plastic bags get caught in a stomach. If either of you actually know, then tell us. If you don’t know then do us the courtesy of admitting you don’t. It won’t hurt.
Nice bluff on the lawyer bit Libby but your ignorance of the law betrays you. Travis, I need a full name and street address to initiate action so if you are so gung ho, as you claim, then why not forward it to Jennifer? Or is this just more of your bluster?
“Both Libby and Ann post quoted opinions as if they were fact.”
We wrote about direct experiences. Would you like copies of the pm reports Ian? What do you do again?
“Thats fine but the added opinions are all generalised statements that fail to qualify in respect of particular species and the relative size of their digestive tract and the particular objects that may cause the harm.”
Oh, you wanted the relative sizes of particular species’ digestive tracts too? You keep on changing those goal posts Ian. LOL! So the vet has only opinions too? Damn that woman.
“And still no word on exactly how plastic bags get caught in a stomach. If either of you actually know, then tell us. If you don’t know then do us the courtesy of admitting you don’t. It won’t hurt.”
Well Ann, how’s that? You can explain it to an 8 year old and they understand, but it is just beyond Ian. Everything manages to seamlessly pass through all the time Ian. You’re right. The photos in the very first link I provided were set ups. All those websites, vets, rescue/rehab centres, NGOs, wildlife agencies, even Jennifer’s “opinions”…..and most definately and certainly Ann and I…we are all so wrong and you are so right. LOL!! Anything else Ian?
I DON’T bluff Ian Mott.
Well its good to see that you can go away for a week and some things remain constant. Like the bulldust on this blog. We get a post on lies which is bad, bad, bad, but it contains lies, which is good, good, good. We crucify people who have dealt with animals that have swallowed bags and also some poor woman who got her facts right but said the wrong organisation involved. We’ve got blind arrogance when it comes to suggesting reducing plastic bag use and people who deny ever seeing plastic bags on beaches. Then we’ve got this real piece of work who makes it his business to disrupt every single post, particularly ones on animals. His ridiculous denial that plastic bags cant cause animals to die when swallowed shows he has a tiny brain. His continual harrassment of women posters shows he has a tiny dick. Now he is threatening defamation? No one could defame this stupid creep – he comes across as such a bozzo with what he writes that anything anyone says about him is a compliment. What a bloody full on joke.
Libby,
Methinks Motty is amazing. Methinks as well that Motty and IceClass are afraid of women, that’s why they are so aggressive !:)
Quote that I found in a magazine : “The future : People still love shopping. And all guilt has been removed ; plastic bags are now vintage collector’s items ; all cotton is fair trade!”
Wishful thinking!
“Both Libby and Ann post quoted opinions as if they were fact.” – Ian Mott
To quote Mr T on another post “You seem to have formed an opinion as well. And for some reason have decided that people without your opinion are denying the empirical data.”
Pffft!!! How have I defamed you Mott? It looks like you may have other issues of defamation to be concerned about! Does anyone here take you seriously??? At least you provide comic relief for everyone.
I cant believe the rot some people here are trying to get away with. Ian Mott is saying that animals dont die from swallowing plastic bags. I have written to a marine animal list for further information to supoort Ann Novek and Libby who are clearly telling the truth. I will hope to post this separately to Jen. I have already received many replies from around the world saying plastic bags can kill marine animals. I dont understand why the likes of Mr Mott and some others must continualy produce lies based only on his opinion of who wrote the comment.
Winston:” I dont understand why the likes of Mr Mott and some others must continualy produce lies based only on his opinion of who wrote the comment.”
Same could be said for a number of folks around here on a number of issues it’s a fact of life I wouldn’t spend much time being confused by it.
The issue really is one of hygiene and proper disposal of waste, actually producing plastic bags is a form of waste disposal since it is produced form material that would otherwise be flared of. Putting it into land fill is then a form of sequestering carbon.
Getting back to the hygiene I don’t many people at all want to see our foreshores as rubbish dumps although there are enough people around to make a difference who simply don’t care. This goes for all sorts of rubbish not just the plastic.
As for the tax that’s mentioned (10p above) that is about the cost of producing a printed bag, and the shop gives it away for free. Why not just charge the economic cost of the bag it will have the same effect as the tax without removing the money from the economy.
Surprise, surprise, along come the cavalry of imaginary posters who only appear when the girls get in a corner. As if a few extra insults from the rent-a-crowd can outweigh the truth. But it is hard not to notice how they all seem to repeat the same themes.
From my reading, Motty did not say bags never get caught in stomachs. He DID ask how they get caught and all Libby and Ann have done is send links to sites that claim bags are getting caught but don’t explain how.
So can we just simplify this to remove ambiguity? If bags are being caught in stomachs, then what are they being caught on?
The questions about fragments of plastic in bird stomachs also needs explanation. Many bird species collect hard objects in their gizzard. To get these objects into their gizzard they must first swallow them. And in some way these objects are diverted from the rest of the digestive tract. In fact, anything that is not easily digested is diverted to the gizzard where it is ground down by the pebbles and other hard objects. It also seems to be the case that this sack of hard objects can be vented by either regurgitation or in the stools.
So I dont think it is unreasonable to ask, what does the plastic get caught on?
I agree Alex. This is a post about the misreporting of the impact of plastic bags and the marine researchers were quite content to allow the public to be misled for many years. None of the web sites that were provided as links to evidence have ever bothered to correct this blatant error. So it is time someone explained exactly how these bags get caught and how long they stay there.
Alex, “Libby and Ann have done is send links to sites that claim bags are getting caught but don’t explain how.”
This is not quite true Ann did mention they regurgitate to feed their young so there is a mechanism which does not exist in most mammals. Furthermore what Ann does not mention is that fowl generally don’t aggregate waste as mammals do in order to expel it in a larger mass than can be swallowed. So for birds I quite happily accept that plastics can get stuck. There are actually two mechanisms. For most mammals though the story is a little different. Regarding fish I haven’t a clue.
In humans and many mammals ingested indigestibles pass through though I can see people carrying groceries in shopping bags I can’t see them swallowing whole bags even if they tried (drug bearing condoms are a different matter being tailored to size). It’s difficult see how fragments that can’t pass through entirely might get into the mammalian gut in the first place.
” So I dont think it is unreasonable to ask, what does the plastic get caught on?” – Motty
A short medical explanation.
In the digestive tract from the mouth to colon there exist enzymes to break down food. The enzymes don’t work on plastic , so they get caught in the digestive tract , causing for example ileus.
Ileus,A condition in which the muscles of the intestines do not allow food to pass through, resulting in a blocked intestine. The reuslt may be sepsis, vomiting,etc. It’s a life threatening condition.
Ileus –is also EXTREMELY painful
Ann: “The enzymes don’t work on plastic”
Our enzymes don’t work on cellulose either yet we are told to eat that.
Ileus doesn’t allow food to pass through because peristalsis has stopped. This causes obstruction rather being caused by it as I understand it. The patient with ileus doesn’t usually experience the colicky pain associated with mechanical obstruction.
Jan,
There are many kinds of ileuses, some are caused by volvules. Dogs get ileus from ingesting foreign particles , for example plastics. It is as well a very common condition in humans to get ileus from eating too much oranges. ( cellulosa).
Ann: What you say is true about many causes of ileuses. However it does not detract from the fact that a diagnostic distinction is drawn between ileus and mechanical obstruction or that I’ve had patients die from unsuspected ileus related obstruction because they did not complain of pain and no-one had thought to ask them if they had been regular or noticed they stopped going.
I can assure everyone reading this blog that the mere presence of plastic does not stop the writhing of the intestinal tract which conveys all contents towards the bowel. The length of the tract in various species is defined by the time taken to digest and absorb the nutrients in the material they consume. And in most cases, some of it cannot be absorbed or digested and is passed out as solids, some of it in suspension. So why are we being asked to believe that plastic solids cannot be passed out in the same way?
At least two of my three children have passed solid plastic items. I know this because I was the unlucky one who discovered them in the nappy. And as a past resident of Oxford St Paddington, I can confirm that many species along the food chain that do not normally regurgitate, are certainly capable of vomiting out substances that their stomachs do not agree with. And as a past traveller to India and Nepal, I can also confirm that the human body, at least, is also very adept at flushing out disagreeable items from the other end.
And still, Ann has jumped past the part where she should explain what the plastic gets caught on. She said, “The enzymes don’t work on plastic, so they get caught in the digestive tract, ..”
The mere presence of plastics in a digestive tract does not automatically mean that those items are trapped there. Like public servants who claim they are there to help, they are just passing through.
So please, Ann, explain.
Jan,
Good of you to explain the difference between ileus and mechanical obstruction. You are right about the pain in your example , but there are other cases as well that include pain. Here’s an example :
“The main symptoms of ileus caused by ingested foreign bodies noted in70% of patients were anorexia, vomiting, dehydration, depression, apathy,absence of faecal discharge, abnormal appetite and increased abdominalwall tension. BÖHMER et al. (1990) andKOIKE et al. (1981) mention similarsymptoms. In addition to these symptoms, ÜBERREITER (1932)mentionedpainful manifestations and back humping, increased heart and respirationrate, elevated temperature, retracted abdomen, unpleasant smell of theanimal, while LEHR (1929)also mentioned howling, groaning, colics, andprofuse diarrhoea characterized by a small amount of foetid and blood-stained faeces.The diagnosis was based on anamnesis and clinical examination.
” The mere presence of plastics in a digestive tract does not automatically mean that those items are trapped there. ” – Motty
Might has well got to do with the form of the objects.
I was doubtful about Travis claiming Alex is Ian Mott, but not any more. You could at least make him sound a bit different Ian. Sounds like Tom Melville has joined the club too, and he sounds just the same!
The girls backed in a corner sounds like a position you would be happy about Ian Mott, but the way I see it, you are hanging from the ceiling by a noose.
But there are a whole lot of different “forms of the objects” Ann. And you still have not explained whether you think all plastic gets caught or just all plastic bags, or just some of them.
If you don’t know then for pity sake just say so. This weaseling about is really tedious.
Ian Mott wrote:
>From my reading, Motty did not say bags never get caught in stomachs.
Ian Mott wrote:
>It also appears necessary to point out that the other important thing to remember is that fish and birds that might ingest bits of plastic will still, regularly, vent their bowels. And these fish and bird turds will generally include any undigested matter that went in the other end.
>1. The usual unrepresentative sampling by greens to exaggerate a threat,
2. The usual sloppy methodology that obscures the true proportions at play, and
3. The usual ignorance and misrepresentation of natural processes.
>Those who talk about the plastic found in dead birds stomachs must explain why they are assuming this stuff is there permanently. In particular, exactly why is it that this plastic does not go out in their $hit? Discarding the bits that cannot be digested is, after all, what the whole point of waste venting is all about, isn’t it? Most parents can confirm that anything from plastic soldiers to marbles will come out the other end of human children so why are we being told that all plastic is retained in sea and bird life? So some clown found a bit more roughage in a few dead birds. Big deal.
>So sea birds don’t, ever, take a crap, Ann? Give us a break.
>The same goes for Dolphins? There was the famous dolphin with a gut full of plastic bags story doing the rounds but no-one can explain why it is that this stuff can go in one end but cannot go out the other end.
>And it is incumbent on these people claiming the bags get stuck in the digestive system to explain what it is, in these long tubes (sausage skins) that the bags get caught up on. Presumably the bags don’t just stick to an intestinal wall because that would only be possible if the pressure of a passing liquid kept it there. And if liquid was still passing then clearly, the intestinal tract is not blocked. They must get snagged on something, so what is it?
>Could it be that the “researchers” have presented all the plastic found in a digestive tract as something trapped there when, in fact, it just happened to be passing through at the time of death? Those with a knowledge of green modus operandi would suspect this was the case. And Libby’s conspicuous avoidance of the issue would tend to support that suspicion.
>And the post above lists general foreign objects, and includes plastic bags amongst those foreign objects. Thats fine but the added opinions are all generalised statements that fail to qualify in respect of particular species and the relative size of their digestive tract and the particular objects that may cause the harm. So a dead minke whale had a chip wrapper and a shopping bag in its guts, so what. What was the actual cause of death? Ann gives a very lose association between plastics in Albatross chicks but this is not evidence. It is pure supposition.
>Libby and Ann have done is send links to sites that claim bags are getting caught but don’t explain how.
>I can assure everyone reading this blog that the mere presence of plastic does not stop the writhing of the intestinal tract which conveys all contents towards the bowel…So why are we being asked to believe that plastic solids cannot be passed out in the same way?
>The mere presence of plastics in a digestive tract does not automatically mean that those items are trapped there.
So it would appear that Ian has denied that plastic bag ingestion can kill an animal, but has to have his alter-ego make a long-overdue but convenient appearance to try and back track! Didn’t work. These are archived too.
Ian Mott wrote:
>Libby and Ann have done is send links to sites that claim bags are getting caught but don’t explain how.
From this thread I have gathered the following relating to how plastic bag ingestion can kill animals:-
>Plastic bags can be mistaken for food and consumed by a wide range of marine species. Ingestion of litter such as plastic bags can cause physical damage and mechanical blockage of the oesophagus and digestive system, resulting in a false sensation of fullness or satiation, as the litter may remain in the stomach. This can lead to internal infections, starvation and death. (MCS) (environment.gov.au)
(plasticdebris.org) – From link by Liby.
>The data presented in this report are limited to gross observations on the acute effects of ingested debris (gastrointestinal impaction, ulceration) – From link by Libby.
>Any floating debris they accidentally ingest is retained in their stomachs…plastic may have contributed to some of their deaths by damaging the stomach lining, inhibiting food intake or releasing toxic chemicals. – Posted by Ann.
>PLEEAAZEE IAN, the sea birds REGURGITATE their food to the chicks, in doing so they regurgitate the plastic debris!!!! – posted by Ann.
>The plastic debris is toxic and it TAKES A LOT OF SPACE IN THE STOMACH so the birds die of malnutrition as one cause. One might also wonder if the debris may cause obstruction in the gastointestinal tract…. – Posted by Ann.
>”Vets treat thousands of cases of animals hurt by rubbish each year and amongst those are cases where horses, cows and even domestic pets have choked on plastic” -Posed by Ann. Mentions choking. Interesting that Paul Williams dismissed it as ‘anecdotal’, providing his own anecdotal evidence as a rebuff! Bit like Roger Grace’s/Mr T’s comment re Mott’s ‘opinions’!!
>Do you really not know how a plastic bag could block an animal’s intestinal tract, wrap around and cause ulcers and constrictions, stop faeces from passing, make the animal sick and not feed? – Posted by Libby.
>Dr Limpus said that, shopping bags aside, plastic waste was a threat to turtles, mainly by blocking their guts. – Posted by Paul Biggs.
>The plastic bags are eaten by the whales and become lodged in their stomach and intestines which can at best interfere with normal food update and at worst completely block the digestive system – death being an inevitable consequence, the charity added. – Posted by Ann.
>”Of the 500,000 albatross chicks born here each year, about 200,000 die, mostly from dehydration or starvation. A two-year study funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency showed that chicks that died from those causes had twice as much plastic in their stomachs as those that died for other reasons.” – Posted by Ann.
>In captivity, consumed foreign objects include plastic bags, hats, towels, and many different forms of human debris, some of which can cause gastrointestinal obstruction, trauma and intoxication. All foreign objects should be considered a dangerous health risk to the animals. – Posted by Libby.
>“…objects can remain in the animal’s stomach for literally months before any symptoms of gastric inflammation, obstruction, or intoxication might occur. By this time, the pathology associated with the foreign object is often advanced and not only is the object often difficult to retrieve but the pathology caused is often difficult to resolve. …The presence of a foreign object in the stomach is often associated with the accumulation of rotting fish, resulting in a foul odour to the gastric juices. Additionally, there commonly is an abundance of white blood cells and sometimes red blood cells associated with the erosion of the gastric mucosa. – Posted by Libby.
>Marine mammals and seabirds also suffer as a result of the ingestion of marine litter. Plastic items ranging from plastic resin pellets to plastic sheeting are often mistaken as food, and once ingested can cause starvation, poisoning and internal tissue damage. Whole plastic bags and gallon drums have been mistakenly identified as food items by some marine mammal, turtle and shark species. Leatherback sea turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) feed on large jelly fish and have been known to mistake floating plastic bags for prey items. Once ingested, these bags can cause intestinal blockage leading to death by starvation. – In link posted by Libby.
>In the digestive tract from the mouth to colon there exist enzymes to break down food. The enzymes don’t work on plastic , so they get caught in the digestive tract , causing for example ileus. Ileus,A condition in which the muscles of the intestines do not allow food to pass through, resulting in a blocked intestine. The reuslt may be sepsis, vomiting,etc. It’s a life threatening condition.- Posted by Ann.
>It’s difficult see how fragments that can’t pass through entirely might get into the mammalian gut in the first place.
Jan, this has been explained here too. It is mistaken as food, played with, etc. if you are a Bryde’s whale which swallows schools of fish in one gulp and there are bags in the water, it is not hard. If you are a turtle that eats jellyfish and see a balloon or plastic bag, it’s not hard. If you are a beaked whale and eat squid and see a plastic bag at depth, it’s not hard. If you are a seal pup playing with kelp and there is also a plastic bag flapping around in the breeze, it is not hard.
And Mott, just reply yourself. Seems there are a few now who are tiring of Alex the tapeworm coming out when you start to squirm in your seat!
“The mere presence of plastics in a digestive tract does not automatically mean that those items are trapped there.”
http://www.earthocean.tv/series/whalesmed_part2.html
“What you say is true about many causes of ileuses. However it does not detract from the fact that a diagnostic distinction is drawn between ileus and mechanical obstruction or that I’ve had patients die from unsuspected ileus related obstruction because they did not complain of pain and no-one had thought to ask them if they had been regular or noticed they stopped going.”
Jan, from what the vets and I observed and interpreted from seals which had ingested plastic bags is that these animals appeared to be in pain. Symptoms included frequent rubbing of the stomach with their flippers, resting curled up quite tightly, listlessness, dull eyes and high sensitivity when touched on the abdomen. Cetaceans also exhibit listlessness, are hunched over in the water and sensitive to touch around the abdomen.
First a big thanks to Travis, Libby, Winston and Jennifer B for your support.
You seem to be a doctor and I just asked my father who is a doctor as well re ileus. He told me that plastic objects may cause obstructive ileus and that is very painful.
The above post was meant for Jan!
Thats ok Ann.
I know its a fact of life Jan Pompe that people play the man and not the ball, but this blog is in the public domain. What sort of info are we trying to present here? What do we want to achieve? If facts are deliberately being ignored or twisted then what does that say about the blog owners and those who conribute? Should the blog be hijacked by people with an agenda of discrediting and misleading and not be presented as a worthwhile place for enviro/politics discussion?
Sorry but I find it frustrating and disillusioning. That is why I have done my own investigating with asking marine animal experts even though we have some here who are clearly not being believed.
Ann: He told me that plastic objects may cause obstructive ileus and that is very painful.
I’m an RN got my degree in physics while working in hospice and aged care units. Just to clarify that.
No one is disputing that ileus can be caused by foreign objects the point is it’s not always the case and of course some ileus may be the result of spasm or cramp an that will be painful but it isn’t the norm.
The difficulty is in seeing how something can get through a pipe of a certain size but not through a larger more flexible pipe after. Also why is it much plastic can pass through in some and cause ileus in others just how much more or less prevalent is the latter.
You don’t often hear of people choking on sausages but I had the occasion to save the life of one young girl who had a sausage stuck in her throat and was already turning blue when I got to her. Do we ban sausages then? Of course not.
Of course there is also the cigarette butts that I’ve seen in the excreta of some of my patients (mainly demented or developmentally delayed) so do you think a campaign to make cigarette filters digestible will gain any traction?
What we need is hard data on how of the animal deaths are caused by plastics (and other misplaced wastes) not just how many dead animals had plastics in them.
Personally I would like to see a move to biodegradable plastics being used for disposable items. Such degradation might actually not be fast enough to make a difference to the danger to animals but at least won’t be a century long term problem.
” some ileus may be the result of spasm or cramp an that will be painful but it isn’t the norm. ” – Jan
I checked the Internet and found that the only ileus that didnt cause panicky pain was mechanical ileus BUT it caused abdominal discomfort.
And according to my father who is a clinician and a PhD. M.D , the norm with ileuses is experience of pain
You must also differ between colon and small intestine ileus. Colon ileus might be without pain , but you might feel uncomfortable
Oops ! I meant of course colicky pain!
Ann: “And according to my father who is a clinician and a PhD. M.D , the norm with ileuses is experience of pain”
Fair enough those on my wards were the odd ones out then not a hint of trouble until there was some faecal vomiting just before they died and until that time quite articulate and mobile and too cuddly to notice any abdominal distension. However from:
http://www.merck.com/mmpe/sec02/ch011/ch011g.html
Symptoms and signs include abdominal distention, vomiting, and vague discomfort. Pain rarely has the classic colicky pattern present in mechanical obstruction. There may be obstipation or passage of slight amounts of watery stool. Auscultation reveals a silent abdomen or minimal peristalsis. The abdomen is not tender unless the underlying cause is inflammatory.
So there are differences of opinion I guess we will just have to live with that.
Now back to the real issue how many of the animals found with plastic in the gut actually died from it? These are the sorts of numbers needed to get action to help bring about change that will actually target the problem.
It’s pretty difficult to get governments to put in a set of lights at even an obviously dangerous intersection unless one or two people have been killed on it. People who have the chequebooks who don’t want to open them or have to get off their backsides and want to stay seated will ask just the sort of questions Ian has been asking and and then some.
The key word in Ann’s quote from he supposedly MD father is “may”. Plastic MAY cause ileus but in many other cases it clearly does not.
And yet again we have this sidestep of the issue. We now get references to the plastic being “lodged” in the intestinal tract but no mention of how it gets lodged/caught, and no mention of how frequently this lodgement takes place and the frequency of it being dislodged.
And the fact that what appears to be the greenpeace rent-a-crowd might be rounded up for some orchestrated abuse of dissenters merely confirms that this is an issue that needs to be resolved.
And I am curious as to how one might make multiple posts under different names. How do you do it, Libby?
” ” Generalized abdominal discomfort
Colicky pain of Mechanical Ileus is usually absent ” – Internet
You might be right Jan re this , as English is NOT my first language . Note it was not my father who stated this!
Jan ,
It’s very difficult to discuss patients sympthoms over a discussion on the Internet,and
Ian,
Plastics MAY cause ileus , but an ” ordinary” obstruction is the first stage / phase . And a little piece of plastic ( as in your children , usually don’t cause any harm).
My Internet link:
http://www.fpnotebook.com/SUR63.htm
I’ll probably be back tomorrow again guys and discuss ! CIAO!!!
Ann: “You might be right Jan re this , as English is NOT my first language .”
How many English speaking boys (first language) named “Jan” do you know?
” Oops ! I meant of course colicky pain”
I knew that. Don’t worry about it. Interesting though it might be it’s not the real issue here is it?
What exactly is the problem I don’t like seeing garbage about but then I have some obsessive compulsive traits (most nurses do) and my obsession is not good enough reason to get everyone to dispose of garbage properly – as if anyone would care what I thought. If I want to get people to dispose of garbage properly I need evidence to sow there is a need beyond personal obsession.
Anecdotal or emotive evidence will simply not cut it, photos unless accompanied with statistical data of actual direct cause of death is no better than anecdotal though it may be more emotive. All useful to garner volunteers but to get governments to assign resources/legislation that are not unlimited takes a little more.
Finally, I will stand by the statement that ileus cause generally pain , but this statement in my above post:
“I checked the Internet and found that the only ileus that didnt cause colicky pain was mechanical ileus BUT it caused abdominal discomfort.” This was slightly wrong ( check my link).
Jan Pompe , sounds quite Swedish!!!! Actually my brother’s dog is called Pompe!!!! LOL! Named after the warrior king ‘s Karl XII dog….
“but no mention of how it gets lodged/caught, and no mention of how frequently this lodgement takes place and the frequency of it being dislodged.”
I am not sure why you can’t fathom how it can get lodged Ian. And now you are asking for frequency? Will you be asking for origin and colour next? Will the hoop be on fire next time?!!LOL!
“And the fact that what appears to be the greenpeace rent-a-crowd might be rounded up for some orchestrated abuse of dissenters merely confirms that this is an issue that needs to be resolved.”
That is your opinion, which is logical, as you are the only one posting the denials. On the other hand, it would be reasonable to assume that people out there feel strongly about this issue, which of course wouldn’t sit well with you, would it now?
“And I am curious as to how one might make multiple posts under different names. How do you do it, Libby?”
Cute Ian, but I am not the one accusing you of posting as Alex et al. There goes that victimization again…Keep it coming!
>And I am curious as to how one might make multiple posts under different names. How do you do it, Libby?
Classic Mott. Apparently others engage in behaviour that he is actually guilty of. Tell me Mott – why do you do this? It’s a mirror syndrome with you. About as attractive and mature as the face that would be looking back at you!
So Mott, still denying that plastic bags get stuck in marine mammals and cause them to die?
>no mention of how frequently this lodgement takes place
There has been mention of this Mott, but as usual you have chosen to ignore it.
Jan Pompe , sounds quite Swedish!!!!
‘Pompe’ means pump but is only a small part of the surname my full family name is Pompe van Meerdervoort.
Still sound Swedish?
Sounds Dutch to me.
To the Flying Dutchman,
So we can end this discussion on ileuses and conclude that mechanical ileus is due to obstruction by for example a foreign plastic object , and this is very painful.
There exist also non mechanical ileuses.
“If I want to get people to dispose of garbage properly I need evidence to sow there is a need beyond personal obsession.” – Jan Pompe.
Thankfully not everyone is as self-obsessed as you appear to be. Some do see a problem, whether it be aesthetics, hygiene or detrimental effects on animals. Some also don’t see it as their right to trash the planet.
“Anecdotal or emotive evidence will simply not cut it, photos unless accompanied with statistical data of actual direct cause of death is no better than anecdotal though it may be more emotive. All useful to garner volunteers but to get governments to assign resources/legislation that are not unlimited takes a little more.” – Jan Pompe
So a report containing stats from various veterinary post mortems is satisfactory, but the pm photos alone are not? All the pictures and videos of dead animals just don’t count in the real world? What an interesting way of looking at things. It’s a wonder any medical or scientific advances have been made. I wonder why we got MARPOL then? Maybe just a whim.
” The difficulty is in seeing how something can get through a pipe of a certain size but not through a larger more flexible pipe after. ” – Jan
I had a short discussion with my old man and he said that re the obstruction of plastics in the digestive tract it must probably be caused by accumulation of objects( unless they don’t choke on the plastic) A single little plastic piece won’t probably not cause any harm ( unless its not sticky and can cause perforation) but as it is the cause with the orange ileus , it depends on eating lots of oranges and the cellulosa accumulate and cause obstruction.
As I mentioned earlier , there were many cases of sea birds that got killed by the plastic wrapping around six pack beers and Coke. Due to observations by ordinary walkers, ornithologists etc , that could take pics and report this back to authorities , a ban was imposed on the plastic 6 pack wrapping in Sweden
Roger: “Thankfully not everyone is as self-obsessed as you appear to be.”
Just attempting to poison the well – a logical fallacy.
Since you seem to be having difficulty with comprehension I’ll spell it out for you.
I AM NOT THE ONE THAT NEEDS CONVINCING!!
It’s those who don’t care the planet is being trashed.
Do you understand now?
“So a report containing stats from various veterinary post mortems is satisfactory, but the pm photos alone are not?”
That’s right. It’s called evidence based action.
Viking lady: “I had a short discussion with my old man and he said that re the obstruction of plastics in the digestive tract it must probably be caused by accumulation of objects( unless they don’t choke on the plastic)”
You make it sound like they have a steady diet of plastic surely there is some real food mixed in with it somewhere. How much public priority should be given to something that might be statistically insignificant?
( unless its not sticky and can cause perforation) ?? do you mean unless it is sharp?
“Due to observations by ordinary walkers, ornithologists etc , that could take pics and report this back to authorities , a ban was imposed on the plastic 6 pack wrapping in Sweden”
It’s a good result but I don’t think we can reasonably expect it to work every where.
“I AM NOT THE ONE THAT NEEDS CONVINCING!!” – Jan Pompe.
Well it certainly came across that way.
“That’s right. It’s called evidence based action.” – Jan Pompe
Do you ever have cases of patients complaining of feeling ill and no evidence for any illness presents itself, despite barrages of tests? When they are sent home and drop dead, it becomes a real problem.
BTW, there was a Northern bottlenose whale that beached itself in a fjord 2 years ago in Sweden, necropsy revealed plastic bags and the death cause was starvation.
Roger: “Do you ever have cases of patients complaining of feeling ill and no evidence for any illness presents itself, despite barrages of tests”
What are you suggesting that we then send them off to a surgeon cut them open for a peek? Have them scarred for life only to find nothing again? Prescribe potentially deadly medication (there is no such thing as a perfectly benign medicine) on a vague suspicion?
I don’t think so.
Dropping dead is a part of life in fact a universal conclusion to every life – get used to it and for you own sake stop watching House it’s not even remotely real.
“Dropping dead is a part of life in fact a universal conclusion to every life” – Jan Pompe.
What a wonderful bedside manner you must have.
“get used to it and for you own sake stop watching House it’s not even remotely real.” – Jan Pompe.
I mention this Jan because we have such cases here. Doctor’s don’t trust the patient’s own assessment of how they feel and send them home. Later they are back, but in the morgue. My point is that just because there is no evidence from what is known, doesn’t mean it’s not real.
Roger: “What a wonderful bedside manner you must have.”
I do I get on very well with my patients it’s those with personality disorders that have difficulty with me, because I don’t get sucked in by their manipulative behaviours the way they want, and respond to me the way you have done here, but that’s another story.
“My point is that just because there is no evidence from what is known, doesn’t mean it’s not real.”
It is however irrelevant whether it’s real or not you don’t go cutting people open if you don’t know why or prescribing poisons without good reason and an unnecessary or incorrect medication is a poison.
Ann: “BTW, there was a Northern bottlenose whale that beached itself in a fjord 2 years ago in Sweden, necropsy revealed plastic bags and the death cause was starvation.”
One whale 2 years ago and did the plastic bags actually cause the starvation or was it a lack of real food? Did the bags somehow cause the lack?
Unless you can give us those answers it’s an anecdotal post hoc fallacy.
F.D,
I have zero intention to be impolite here, and I’m fascinating by your calculi, but your medical knowledge is somewhat poor on certain mechanisms.
We have provided you with info here re plastic bags and marine animals . We have posted evidence how plastic objects cause OBSTRUCTION of the digestive tract. This means STARVATION , as it is mechanically impossible for food to come through.
For sea birds , plastic items take lots of SPACE in the gut as well, so they starve to death. All these things have already been mentioned.
Ann; All these things have already been mentioned.
and it is mostly anecdotal, and a lot of “it can”, “it might”, and “it may” not enough “it did in so many cases out of this many found”.
Flying D,
Have you seen the post mortems???
Actually methinks now that this discussion is futile and you’re just looking for an argument.
Bye
“because I don’t get sucked in by their manipulative behaviours the way they want, and respond to me the way you have done here, but that’s another story.” – Jan Pompe.
Thankfully you are not a doctor, as your ability to diagnose is deplorable.
“It is however irrelevant whether it’s real or not” – Jan Pompe
For those that die and lose loved ones, it is very real and relevant. Dropping dead is a part of life Jan, but it doesn’t necessarily have to come early. I’d imagine you’d get on very well with palliative care patients. Probably best with comatose ones.
“Unless you can give us those answers it’s an anecdotal post hoc fallacy.” – Jan Pompe.
What a crock of shit. Why do crime scene investigators take pictures as well as measurements?
“Actually methinks now that this discussion is futile and you’re just looking for an argument.” – Ann Novek.
Well said Ann.
Ann: “Actually methinks now that this discussion is futile and you’re just looking for an argument.”
No I’ve just demonstrated the poverty of yours you need to do better. Now when you actually have nothing left to but address that poverty you say “Bye”
Well have it your way. You haven’t been able to convince me and I’ll now spend a little time rebuilding the control system for a plastic bag manufacturing machine that I have putting off for about 5 months.
Roger: “What a crock of shit.”
Please mind you language.
“Why do crime scene investigators take pictures as well as measurements?”
To gather evidence for one particular case in order to prosecute one particular set of criminals. Which is a far cry from making a case for world wide public action.
If you want to compare apples with pomegranates that’s fine but don’t expect to be taken seriously.
Well you have just proven you are a trouble maker Jan Pompe, although what you hoped to achieve is anyone’s guess. You are as much a waste of time and space as Ian Mott, but maybe you are one and the same.
It says something that people get their rocks off (men it would appear here) from animal suffering. Maybe karma will come knocking and someone close to you will have a pm report and pretty pictures adding to the stats on suicide by plastic bag suffocation? Maybe then you will take it seriously.
Roger: “It says something that people get their rocks off (men it would appear here) from animal suffering.”
Is jumping to conclusions the only exercise you get?
“Maybe karma will come knocking and someone close to you will have a pm report and pretty pictures adding to the stats on suicide by plastic bag suffocation?”
I can see the sort of person you are but I already have a daughter dead. Died at the hands of drug dealers 6 years ago.
I thank you for your kind thoughts now you can go to hell your self.
Regardless of the controversy, who wants to make the ocean, and the world, a giant garbage dump with billions of plastic bags blowing around the planet? Would we pollute our own homes this way? Why pollute the homes of wildlife? And are those who defend such practices prepared to explain to their children why they have inherited such a polluted world?