Dear Diver Dan,

Idiots like myself?

Here we go again it seems.

You wrote;

“I've been diving in the ocean for a period spanning fifty years, and still engaged commercially in the diving industry. Never once have I ever seen a plastic shopping bag in the ocean. It doesn't happen.”

Well mate it would appear you are about as blind physically as you are intellectually.

Come for a dive with me at Popes Eye off Queenscliff and you can give me a dollar for every bag we see from when we leave the cut and if we see none I will buy you a decent feed at the Royal.

How did these bags end up in the stomach of the Bryde whale which died near Cairns with the equivalent of 6 square meters of plastic in its gut? Did it walk out of the water and nab them off unsuspecting shoppers in the woolies cap park?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgv5uV64j44

Plastic bags in the ocean look like jelly fish which is a food source for a number of sea creatures. To be saying they aren't an issue is just immature no matter what your political persuasion.

And by the way the neither Woolies, Coles or Aldi are members of the retail grocers associations. If you are going to run a political line try and at least get your spiel right.

diver dan - Quote "I've been diving in the ocean for a period spanning fifty years, and still engaged commercially in the diving industry. Never once have I ever seen a plastic shopping bag in the ocean. It doesn't happen."

You are absolutely wrong, if you added in Australian waters maybe but in Asia too many people do not care and throw plastic bags full of rubbish in the ocean also rivers which flow into the ocean.

SteeleRedux – I wholeheartedly disagree with your comment that: “it isn't the quantity of plastic which is the issue.” The more plastic that gets into the oceans, the more marine life will be impacted. The best thing for marine life is too keep as much plastic out of the oceans as possible. The best way to do that is to go to the biggest sources of mismanaged plastic. Those are mostly in Asia. Trying to reduce the sources of mismanaged plastic waste in Australia will not have a significant impact worldwide, because Australians control their plastic waste very well. There are thousands of times as much plastic waste going into the oceans in Asia, as there is in Australia.

Philip S – Diver Dan is saying that he doesn’t see plastic waste while diving in Australia. Certainly there is considerable plastic waste off the coasts of Asia and that is where it is best to start our efforts to reduce plastic waste into the oceans.

Whale off the coast of Thailand. The video also notes that most plastic waste is from Asia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNAbIx33kwY

Great article. I rarely read such long articles but this one is so on the money.

Like most problems, we tend to treat the symptoms, and ignore the cause, and it would appear this is one such case. Although I will say, trying to Asia on board is going to be pretty much a fruitless exercise.

You see people like to think they are doing something, it makes them feel all warm and fuzzy. Take the back yard rain water tank. How many of these are there but never used? You see once they are full, they no longer catch water, but this does not effect the 'feel good' feeling the offenders get from having a tank.

It's like the failed carbon tax. A country like ours where our population is minute, should not be trying to get trophies for saving the world as we simply can not afford to go it alone.

Dear ericc,

If you were to read my post again you may see the argument I am making is that it is the mobility of an item of plastic which most often determines its impact on wildlife and the environment in general. A plastic water tank on a farm is unlikely to make its way into our oceans but rather be either recycled or disposed of.

Straws and lightweight plastic shopping bags are very numerous and can be transported via wind and water into our creeks, streams and rivers very easily. They are also not able to be recycled with our current systems. These rightly are the types of items targeted.

Dear butch,

Interestingly I believe it was Bangladesh which first banned plastic shopping bags. However it is not Asian plastics which are impacting our wildlife as most of it ends up in the middle of the Pacific eroding away leaving millions of tonnes of microscopic plastic particles in our oceans. Our wildlife is most directly threatened by our plastics full stop. You can either stick your head in the sand or you can be part of a solution.

And sure there are some people who don't use their water tanks, but there are a sizable majority who do and they make a significant impact on water savings.