A report published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation claims it is the effort to recycle plastics that has caused the marine plastic litter crisis – another own goal by the Green Blob. Good job they don't play football. Most of the plastic waste in the oceans is said to originate from countries in Asia and Africa – but here is the nub. What happens to your plastic packaging when you discard it in your recycle bin? European countries ship huge quantities of waste into Asia waste management schemes (and streams) – for the holier than thou act of recycling. Some 20% of this ends up in the oceans – millions of tons a year. This is of course all due to EU directives that have discouraged landfill (which worked) and taxed incineration (which also worked) in order to encourage the recycling process. Hence, for many years we have been allocated several large plastic dust bins in order to seperate cardboard and plastic from general waste. Food waste is treated differently. In other words, we pay the council to take away our rubbish (or garbage if you like) and they get us to do most of the work ourselves. Even then when spot prices are low all the waste goes into a single disposal unit – but assuming most of it is properly recycled it ends up in Asian countries and a fifth of it ends up in the sea. I hope you are taking notice Mr Politico. You have been berating us for discarding plastic bags which you claim is cluttering up the oceans and marine life is ingesting it (and it is landing on our dinner plates when we eat fish) but it is your political shenanigans that are causing the problem – and conforming to EU regulations is mostly to blame. I've often wondered how plastic that ends up in my recycle bin could possibly end up in the ocean – but apparently this is what happens. I even had a woman berating our garden shop for selling plastic plant labels when we could sell wooden ones instead (even if they are twice the price). For the privilege of conforming with EU standards we even have to pay 5 pence if we want a plastic bag to take away our shopping. Who gets to keep the 5p – into which hole does it disappear. Go to www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2018/06/Save-the-oceans.pdf … and sit back and laugh at David Attenborough and the BBC.
The report was written by Mikko Paunio, 'Save the Oceans – Stop Recycling Plastic' a professor of epidemiology at Helsinki University and a specialist in public health issues. The report is mentioned in the GWPF newsletter of 28th June 2018. The same newsletter also has a piece on the volcanic warming under the West Antarctic peninsular and says the plastic recycling story has appeared in the Daily Express too.
The GWPF also has another interesting report – by one Ulli Kulku on Henrik Svensmark. Whilst the latter has not got involved in the climate debate before it is clear his theory would raise the profile of the Sun and its effect on climate. He is more interested in cosmic radiation from outside the solar system than the solar wind but he does say something worth reporting here and this is that the role of co2 is much less than the climate models assume (but we all know that already) – but it is also much less than the influence of cosmic radiation (and the influence of the Sun).