by Troppo » Tue May 22, 2012 9:35 am
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.