Every so often, I still see someone piously taking out the scissors to thoroughly carve up a six-pack plastic ring, or "yoke" before disposal. When I see someone do this, they throw me that look. The "I pity you" look. It's the look that says "Maybe YOU don't cut up the plastic rings, Mr. Choke-a-fish, but some of us have a little compassion."
What the sanctimonious yoke snippers don't seem to get is that they already won this fight. You don't have to cut up the six-pack plastic rings anymore because they're all photodegradable now, and have been so for almost 20 years. US and Canadian law demands they be photodegradable, and the one company that makes them, ITW Hi-Cone, bends over backwards to demonstrate how environmentally friendly they are. Did you know they're all made from post consumer product and are made from 30% less material than a generation ago?
Leave them out in the sun for more than two weeks and they disintegrate. Throw them in the ocean and they float to the surface and disintegrate. There's really nothing bad you can say anymore about six-pack plastic rings. They're used in arts and crafts. The days where you could see humorous sights like this are long, long gone.
But cutting up the rings is just one of those leftover behaviors that you can't get anyone to shake off. It's been drilled in so well that you have to cut up the rings. It's a relic. It's like how every gas station still screams out "UNLEADED" 30 years after it's necessary. It's like the people who are still fighting the battle against styrofoam and preaching about saving the whales.
That's it for today. I was actually working on a grand treatise about which supermarket items it's okay to buy the generic versions of, and which items really demand a brand-name purchase - but now that I've taken such a hard stance against branding, maybe it wouldn't be appropriate anymore. It's just... diet coke is so much better than diet rite... I have to admit I'm conflicted here.
39 comments:
Having only just read this I have to say, it takes a lot less than two weeks for a bird to get caught and choke to death. And I don't see what's hilarious about it either.
As you said in your blog, soda can rings photodegrade. They don't biodegrade. Photodegradation means that the items breaks down into the smallest polymer. Meaning the plastic rings, in sunlight, break down into microscopic polymers, commonly mistaken for plankton. Once a polymer, always a polymer. It will stay in the water column/environment forever. Fish, birds, shellfish, marine animals and mammals then starve because they don't receive needed nutrients. Our oceans are turning into plastic soup! I agree with the previous comment. It takes less than two weeks for an animal or bird to get caught. Makes for very poor nesting material as well.
I wish I could post you a picture of the cat that I found that has a plastic yoke imbedded in him. He is about 3 years old. I guess it did not photodegrade.
I admire the people who take the time to cut up their six-pack rings. While I personally do not know how long it takes them to "photodegrade" (and it sounds like they don't fully disappear at all, in fact), it's better safe than sorry.
I suggest you either offer a rebuttal to the comments on this post, or unpublish it, because lots of people won't scroll down as far as the comments, and it's my opinion that they'll leave here misinformed.
Fuck you. Your text is misleading.
i agree with removing it. I"m glad I scrolled down.
While well intentioned, this shows the problems of the internet with well intentioned people without training in science commenting on scientific subjects. These plastic rings are composed of the polymer polyethylene. This polymer is a chain of connected single ethylene molecules. When polyethylene degrades, it turns back into these single ethylene molecules, NOT little.microscopic polyethylenes.
Polymer Polyethylene is a solid.
Monomer Ethylene is a gas.
In normal everyday biological processes, plants make ethylene gas. It causes ripening of fruit such as apples and bananas. I still cut the rings before I put them into my
recycle to help prevent animals becoming entangled.
However, there is plenty of ethylene gas aldeady in the environment from plants, not plastic rings.
We need to fight the REAL environmental threats, not misinformed imagined threats.
( written by Mark. A university biochemist. )
I find it really cool that the plastic six pack ring carriers are photodegradable. But if the carriers float at the top of the water, aren't birds like albatrosses, who eat food that floats above the water, still affected by these ring carriers? They may be able to throw up the plastic, but their babies die with it in their stomachs.
This article is incorrect and doing a big diservice to the animals. The plastic rings take up to 3 months to degrade, and even then, they remain as smaller pieces of plastic. If you have a recycling service, cut the rings and put in the recycling bin. If you don't have a recycling service or center nearby, you can mail them to the one company who manufactures them, and they will recycle them. Here's the link: www.ringleader.com
Take this blog post down! I was looking up information on yokes and this article popped right up! Take it down, please! I can't believe you didn't consider the fact an animal can die from this in less then 2 weeks!
The post is misleading at best. Cut your rings and recycle them.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to correct the mistake made by the author.
Thank you!! So sad to see so much incorrect information about scientific topics from people on the Internet. But looking through the rest of this blog I'm not surprised to see misinformation like this. Very sad. Thank you for the clarification. As well as including your background
You are an idiot. Check out some of the pictures of animals caught in those rings and suffering a SLOW DEATH!
The year is now 2016 and the original, 2007 misinformed article is still one of the first to pop up when searching for information on "plastic soda rings". Yikes
I completely agree. And I disagree with calling anyone sanctimonious for being considerate.
So I snip the rings. Hurts you?
It is April, 2016 and this post is still up. Why?? And who cares if someone cuts up the rings, why does this affect the person who wrote the blog. Like, get a life and do some scientific research before posting mis-information. At least there is considerate people out there who show they care about the animals by cutting up the plastic rings prior to throwing the plastic in the garbage or recycling. I can attest that so long as I live, I will be cutting up my plastic rings. Who knows, I may get reincarnated as a seagull or a fish!! Kevin from Kelowna, BC, Canada
Absolutely need to remove this information. It is scientifically incorrect, and morally wrong. I have a niece who is a scientist with Ocean Research Project who collects plastic from the ocean to analyze. The percentage of plastic pollution continues to rise world wide. Even if the rings degrade partially in the ocean, they still remain plastic pieces which continue to harm all living creatures from small fish, seabirds, turtles to dolphins and whales. Please remove this post, it is misleading and inappropriate!
Takes 3-4 weeks for the photodegradable plastic to sften and break down. Imagine the damage it can do flying around near the ocean for 3-4 weeks.
Nice blog. Thanks for sharing that look’s awesome.
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I can't stand when people are so bothered by little attempts to do good that they have to prove how useless it all is. I guess it's easier to write this blog post than to... Idk... Cut up some six pack rings...?
Lmao.
Exactly. Get some sea water and float it in the sun and see that you have to replenish the water before those rings degrade. And two weeks still kills. Try strangling yourself for two weeks.
Nope. We should all snip those buggers and put them in recycling.
Cut, recycle. Repeat. Bueno!!!
You got the brain worms or something? WRONG. EPIC FAIL. But, thanks for trying.
You are gravely misinformed. Hopefully people who read this did their own research because you are so f______ wrong!! You could be responsible for dead or injured animals if people are stupid enough to believe this and don't cut the holes open.
I know this was over ten years ago but when I read it, I could not believe it. Even ten years later - they do not disintegrate. You should take this off the internet
Just so you know: I work at a marine mammal rescue and rehabilitation center and have seen, first hand, the horrors this plastic causes. I wonder how many millions, yes MILLIONS, of animals have been killed over the years, which have been used since the sixties.
What were you THINKING?!
I am so glad that I read down. I still cut the rings. I am so worried about our plastic oceans that I will take any measure I can personally to reduce the risk.
Take this article down, you are doing a great disservice to animals. If you don't know what you're talking about, then shut your mouth!
I think instead of this we should go for biodegradable beer can holder by Mumm Products. These are environmental and Eco friendly.
I am ANGER, orange man did this and i am MAD, cant trust a mango man!
No sunlight on the bottom of many lakes let alone the ocean floor dumbass! Hoping you haven’t (won’t) make any babies to dumb-up the gene pool!
oi, ya shit wrong?
Someone needs to take this down. As the comments have said, this post is a big steaming pile of shit.
It's ones own personal responsibility to investigate the facts of everything especially those people who read a headline or hear someone speak and then bounce off to regurgitate it later.
Right or wrong, a civil discourse can bring about common misconceptions and lead people to a more educated conclusion.
-Jonathan
This article is disgusting, and I'm disappointed that it was one of the first articles to pop up. Even if the rings entirely disappeared in 2 weeks, that's plenty long enough to injure or kill an animal. Snip the rings!
I have been cutting the plastic rings for over 10 years, it has become some what of a habit! It only takes a couple of seconds and it’s way better to be safe than sorry!
I picked up 7 on a beach today while monitoring sea turtle tracks. Completely intact six pack rings. Because of where I was, guessing most were older than two weeks in the sea. And the dead turtle we documented last year’s season seemingly strangled by a less than two weeks in the water 6 pack ring. Stop spreading ignorance. Go pick up some trash if you really want to help. And for Gods sake- sit on your hands any future times you want to give unqualified ‘facts’. I don’t know anything, I’m just an astrobiologist not a person who profits from plastic soda rings, so the dead turtle probably had it placed postmortem around the neck by the cardboard soda rings profiting people to make it look like it was strangled by plastic that isn’t really a threat to animals in or out of waters, according to you, and now cardboard will be pushed to replace the plastic. That’s how idiotic you sound.
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