plastic waste

[Papa Joe]

I did a search, and didn't find anything on the topic of disposing of waste acrylic and other plastics. There has been a lot of PSA's on TV lately about micro plastics in our water systems. They seem to be blaming cigarette filters for most of the problem but still, pen turning plastic blanks must create a lot of micro bits to be dealt with. Has anyone on this forum dealt with this? I'd be very interested in hearing how this is being handled.

 

[1080Wayne]

Living in a very rural area , I burn mine . Less environmental damage than making a 30 mile round trip to the landfill by my thinking . I played a fairly large part in the landfills creation , 30 years ago . Now it is home to some Calgary garbage , over 350 mile round trip .

 

[BULLWINKLE]

Papa Joe:
Good point you make. The problem with plastic is that it doesn't decompose and stays around forever. If it did decompose it would leave nasty chemicals behind. Burning it releases dioxin which is extremely toxic and carcinogenic. In my opinion it should be banned completely or severely limited. As to acrylic shavings from pen making, it is minuscule compared to the tons of the plastic discarded as bottles, bags and other consumer products that are produced in huge quantities and are the main source of the problem. I'm not concerned about scrap acrylic from turning. I'm concerned about the massive amount of pollution caused by the tremendous use of this material for so many different uses and the lack of any safe way to dispose of it.

 

[Woodchipper]

Interesting posts. No easy way to dispose of plastics. I saw a humorous post on FB a few days ago. It was a paper straw to eliminate plastic straws. It was wrapped in plastic.

 

[egnald]

Just as BULLWINKLE eluded to, I think the acrylic shavings and dust from pen making it is insignificant compared to the real situation of macroplastic waste. From an environmental perspective, microplastics are more concerning, but the problem is not with cigarette filters or pen turning waste, the real problem is our clothes.

Even though cigarette filters might be getting a lot of blame in the media, the overwhelming problem with plastic microfibers comes from our clothes. For the last 80 years, most of our clothes are made out of plastic. Almost all of us wear all of us wear clothes made from nylon, rayon, or polyester either entirely or as a high percentage. When we wash these clothes, the fractured bits of fabric (plastic) go down the drain and others go into the air from our clothes dryer vent in the form of lint. There were some scientific studies done in Canada a couple of years ago that estimated a single load of laundry will shed over 100,000 microfibers into the environment.

The good news, at least for those hooked up to municipal waste treatment facilities, is that at some point before wastewater is returned to the environment, it goes through LUV-R filters which take out anywhere between 85% to 99.9% of these plastic microfibers. The other good news, I guess, is that this has been going on for the last 80 years and I haven't succumbed to it yet.

Dave

 

[Kenny Durrant]

Just to add my 2 cents. I remember when paper grocery bags was"The" problem destroying the rainforest/environment. That's why they went to plastic. As far a shavings I throw them in the trash during the summer and use a handful to start fires in the cooler days and nights. For you outdoors people take a sandwich bag with resin and wood shavings and you won't have trouble starting a fire. There was a thread not long ago here that someone took "Drill Worms" and recast them into blanks. It made a very interesting pen. So I guess you could recycle.

 

[BULLWINKLE]

I didn't know that clothes were a huge part of the problem. Now I'm glad that I only wear 100% cotton clothes. I live in jeans and a T shirt
I use laundry soap not detergent to wash my clothes. Your skin is the largest organ of your body and being somewhat porous, I avoid contact with chemicals as much as I can. I shower with Castile soap and never use antibacterial hand soap, just plain soap.

 

[Woodchipper]

I didn't know that clothes were a huge part of the problem. Now I'm glad that I only wear 100% cotton clothes. I live in jeans and a T shirt
I use laundry soap not detergent to wash my clothes. Your skin is the largest organ of your body and being somewhat porous, I avoid contact with chemicals as much as I can. I shower with Castile soap and never use antibacterial hand soap, just plain soap.

Interesting lifestyle. How do you breath to avoid contact with chemicals? Rivers are loaded with microplastics. I have photos somewhere, showing the amount of trash including plastics taken from the Ohio River.

 

[BULLWINKLE]

How do I breathe you ask ? With difficulty. I've been a heavy smoker for decades. I know, I like good cigars and good bourbon on one hand, and try to live healthy on the other. Gotta have some vices. Nobody lives forever no matter how they live. You can't avoid all the poisons in the world but you can select those you choose to avoid as much as possible. I don't eat any GMO foods or food that has a lot of chemicals added.

 

[Woodchipper]

Never smoked and never had the desire to do it. Chemicals of some sort were used to process cotton fabric and dyes to color them. Inks were used if they are are silk screened or printed in some way. Bumper sticker: Eat right, stay fit, die anyway.
BTW, used to live in the Atlanta area in the mid 60s. If we had bought 100 acres in metro Atlanta, I could have retired 40 years ago.