What do you do with the bottle when you are done? Put the top on it and throw it away? Maybe a portion of you actually make the effort to recycle. But c’mon …most don’t.
Of the billions of bottles that are used around the world each day, what percent are emptied, then recapped and trashed?
So I think the threat is clear. The atmosphere of our beloved Gaia is slowly being buried in landfills around the planet.
How much time do we have? Can anyone do the calculations?
If I buy bottles/cans of whatever when I’m out I bring them home to put in the recycle bin. If I see a recycle bin while out, I’ll use that instead of dragging them home.
I brought plastic bottles and cans home that I bought on our road trip vacation through Arizona and New Mexico just so I could put them in the recycle bin.
I also reuse plastic bottles as ice packs for coolers instead of buying those blue ice thingies.
The OP is talking about the air inside the re-capped soda bottles no longer being in the atmosphere, and therefore unavailable for us to breathe. I’m thinking he is joking a bit.
Just a thought: burying carbon-based products is surely beneficial these days, since it’s keeping it from the atmosphere. A landfill is therefore a very useful carbon sink. So let’s stop recycling.
Cow and pig farts. No, really! Methane from the bowels of millions of cows and pigs creates a global warming hazard that may rival the automobile, but is less likely to be controlled, because people still want to eat meat. If the animals now raised for food were slaughtered and their food (milliions of tons of grain) were used to feed people instead, two problems could be solved at once. That is probably less likedly than controlling automobile emissions, though, because there are so many meat eaters in the world . . . like me.
Can you back that up with a cite? I recognize that Cow and Pig farts may be contributing, but I thought the “may rival the automobile” part was just a piece of misinformation that has been floating around. Probably started by PETA.
I have read (and I don’t remember where) that methane emissions from livestock worldwide were a real problem. But I have no cite, I’m afraid. The “may” rival the auomobile part was just an opinion, That’s why I didn’t say “rivals the automobile.” I just threw it in for comparison. This is IMHO, after all.
Oh yeah smarty, what about Dinosaur killer sized Meteorites and Comets?
How about Super-Volcanoes? Total Nuclear War?
I think these all run ahead of standard Volcanoes.
Largo62, OK. I believe the threat from Bovine Emissions* has been exaggerated. I will attempt to cite my belief to clear this up despite the forum.
So Bovine Emissions* trail Autos and Power plants by a good margin. US Cars alone contribute to 6% of the world’s global warming emissions. So worldwide reduction in Auto Emissions is a big piece of solving the threat and Power Plants is a even larger piece.
Sorry for cite invasion to IMHO, I have heard this animal emissions thing many times and I was pretty sure it was not correct. I thought it was worth clearing up.
Yes. What is the volume of the earth’s atmosphere? Can we extrapolate from soda sales just how much of the atmosphere is captured in sealed, empty soda bottles each year? How long do we have until we have sufficiently buried our own atmosphere amid our own garbage?
No problem, Jim. Thanks for the stats. I only knew that I could smell a feedlot miles before getting to it on the highway, and I assumed that the effect was bigger than it was. How about global stinking?
Larry
