tophatyachts.com

A friend found this on the Byron Bay facebook site. I think the claim that it effects global warming is a bit far fetched.

I might start using bigger garbage bags.

That is concerning. The implications are very serious. For example, instead of building boats out of plywood, we should use disposable diapers as it lasts much longer. Can last for 550 years, WOW.

There are a couple of fairly remote beach areas I have camped at and the normal erosion of sandhills from storms has uncovered where other campers have buried their rubbish. One place it was the main path down to the beach that eroded and rubbish underneath was uncovered and spilled down the remains of the track onto the beach. When I saw the broken glass on the track which little kids loved to run down it gave me the heebie jeebies so I did a clean up job. When I was a kid, the camping motto was 'burn bash and bury' (except for glass) as it was expected that scraps, paper, tin cans and a bit of plastic would disappear aided along with heat. Nowadays ya can't have a wood fire in most camp areas so no burning, and there is so much packaging which does not easily rot away that carting it away becomes the best solution. Burying it just means it will come back to bite somebody on the backside, metaphorically speaking.

It is amazing just how long rubbish lasts for, so the old 'heave-ho' is not doing our environment, our play-areas, any good.

Wouldn't it be better to build it out of fishing line?

MMMM interesting,

But that list means nothing as the conditions under which they are decomposing is not stated.
They don't mention glass which can last for thousands [even millions] of years in the worst environments. Paper can last for a couple of thousand years in the right conditions.

What's really important is that the oldest Mark 1's are now approaching 45 years old and I reckon that they will be around for another 955 years if they are looked after.[see plastic bags]


But the real message here is that if you take packaging onto a boat you must bring it BACK to dispose of in the right manner, and that does not mean throwing it overboard.

Phillip.

Wish I could of found some of those 1000yr plastic bags when I had a little TS moored on Lake Macquarie....I was lucky to get 2 weeks from the ones I tied around the boat to scare the birds off.

cheers

Hatters

I'm trying to find a 200 year old aluminum can ,surely Captain Cook and Arthur Phillip didn't recycle ? Or maybe they did ? that's why I can't find one !

There is one thing that bothers me ? If we recycle everything what will the archeologists dig for in years to come ?

Bear

Oh Bear,

Don't worry about anything being left for us Archaeologists.


In past times because everything was handmade it was usually well worn and broken before being thrown away. Today we throw things away after using them once, hence the archaeological record for the future is well assured.

May even be the odd Mark 1 around!



Phillip.

I came across an interesting paper recently.
In the US they have found traces of mettalic copper wire which could indicate that the american indians could have had a telephone network in use.
In England Arhceologists dug large excavations and found purified silicon which indicated that the saxons could have had some kind of electronics.
The Irish archeologists dug for miles in 3 directions and found nothing indicating conclusively that ancient Irish civilsation definitely had wireless communications!