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MadInventor

Environmental Impact of our hobby.

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First of all, thanks for taking the time to look at this. I shall be surprised if this gets more that 15 views. Not the most riveting topic, but something that I thought was worth prompting a discussion on if possible, given the current media frenzy around the impact that plastic is having on the planet. It's really driven from the fact that I recently bought a NIB Globe Liner kit, and was a bit dismayed about the amount of clear plastic bags that ended up in bin after the kit was assembled, and got me thinking about the wider impact on the environment of the hobby as a whole, what's good about it, and what's not so good. So don't take this as a thread simply bashing the hobby about consuming plastic, because it isn't. 

Rather than this turn into a thread about whether or not you believe that climate change exists, or is caused by man or a natural phenomena, I've made a few basic assumptions which I think can be agreed as facts.

1. There's a finite amount of oil on the planet, so the less we can use, the better. Unlike paper, it doesn't grow on trees.

2. Dumping plastic into the environment is not a good thing, so the less wastage the better.

 

I've focused on Tamiya RC kits, for obvious reasons :) 

So, back to the Globe Liner. After I'd put it together, there was a large number of clear plastic bags, in which were held the sprues, parts bags, screw bags, etc, plus the empty sprues, which all went straight in the bin. I'm assuming there is a quantity of plastic 1150 bushings still floating in the kit box, as I ordered a roller bearing kit at the same time as the kit, but can't remember if the kit use plastic bushes or bronze.

Clear plastic bags

Thinking about the clear plastic bags, these are clearly single use items. So to use less of them, what about sealing stuff in paper bags instead. I get that the sprues need to wrapped in something so that if a part becomes detached from a sprue it gets lost, but I thought paper bags would be a good opportunity for Tamiya to fire up the marketing machine and print pictures of the kit the parts are for, or compatible kits, on the parts. I remember buying kits bitd which always had images of other kits printed on the inserts on the inside of the box, so why not do it on sprue bags and screw bags, etc. The would be a marketing opportunity (or even a collecting opportunity of you wanted to keep the bags), but at least it would cut down on the plastic bag usage.

Left over sprue plastic

I guess not much can be done to reduce the amount of left over sprue plastic, although it would be good to perhaps have some recycling information embossed into the sprue body to indicate what sort of plastic it is and whether or not it can be recycled. Not a lot of effort for the manufacturer, and at least it give the consumer half a chance to recycle said plastic.

Plastic bushes. Well, let's face it, I think we're all agreed these are a waste of space, and we'd all be happier with the kits if they just came with roller bearings throughout as standard. Tamiya might just as well put the plastic bushes in a bag marked 'landfill' (L parts perhaps). 

So, what else isn't good. Well, I'm aware that the kit has probably travelled half way round the world to get to me, which isn't a good thing, but then I bought it from a UK model shop, so hopefully it's come on a slow boat in an ISO container with a load of others, rather than being airfreighted via a fast aeroplane. But at least I generally only buy a kit every 18months to 2 years, not one every 2 months....

So now for what I think is the positive side to the hobby.

1. I think it's highly unlikely the globe liner (Like most Tamiya models) will ever end up on a waste dump. Even if I was to run it with 1/8 brushless and thrash it within an inch of it's life, someone would still buy if off Ebay and either restore it or strip for parts and sell them on. I suspect this is probably true for most Tamiya kits, and although you hear stories of parents clearing out lofts and chucking out kits, the number of Tamiya kits ending up getting chucked I think would be very small in comparison with a lot of cheap Chinese rubbish you see in children's toy stores. ( I include all sorts of plastic toys in this, not just toy grade RCs). So the kits, generally have a long life, and even when expired end up being donor vehicles for other projects or rebuilds.

2. The hobby does not promote 'throw away' culture, the fact that parts are interchangeable between models, and the fact that they can dismantled and repaired, encourages an ethos of at least attempting to repair something before throwing it away. Also there does not seem to be an attitude of wanting to own the latest models (Quite the opposite in some cases), unlike other consumer products like mobile phones and TV's, where advertisers are constantly trying to convince we 'need' the latest offerings on a yearly basis.

3. The hobby has been the forerunner for development of technology now finding it's way into other consumer areas. Watching Dysons adverts for their new cordless vacuums, where they were talking about their 100,000rpm motor and long life batteries, I thought, well, they've just used a brushless motor and some LiPos out of a model car system. 

4. We've been messing about with electric powered cars for the best part of 35 years. With full size electric cars now becoming more popular, if the motor car industry has any sense, they'll look at what's happened to the RC car hobby technology and learn from it. I think there's 1 big lesson there. Car manufacturers should agree on a standardised motor format and leave it to 3rd party companies to make them. We're (mostly) still all running the same size motors (540) that appeared in kits 35 years ago. OK, the motors now might be brushless, but a 3rd party company can develop a motor, and it will fit in nearly every single hobby grade RC car out there. The same goes for ESC and battery technology. Just think how much cheaper it will be for car manufacturers to develop electric cars if there is a standardised motor, control electrics, and battery system. Given how efficient brushless technology is, it would seem pointless for individual car manufacturers to each individually develop motors, ESCs, and battery technologies themselves, as they will all be so similar in size and performance as to  not be distinguishable between vehicles. Much better for them to put their efforts into making vehicles that stand out from the competition for other reasons, and leave the development of motor, battery, and ESC  technology to 3rd party companies who can specialise in that one field.

 

Room for improvement...… ?

Tamiya seem to doggedly keep producing kits in the same design, even when they have been around for many, many years, and not looking at what common modifications are made to kits by owners looking to improve them. Would it not be better to accept that there is room for improvement in a design and make that change, rather continuing to produce kits which are then modified as a matter of course and the originally manufactured parts are no longer used, which is waste of effort, energy, and resources. Here's a few examples:

1. Lunchbox 5th shock mod / double wishbone front suspension mod. 

2. TXT-1 drive shafts. My favourite design flaw. arrghh. the brass centre drive shafts are rubbish being made from brass. Traxxas revo shafts are so much stronger being made from plastic with steel pins, and large diameter shafts. Got to be cheaper to manufacture than machining all that brass as well.

3. Clod buster dual servo steering mod. Would it really kill them to mod the bumper guard slightly and put the steering servo down on the front axle, with an option to fit a rear mounted servo. It would be a slight change to an existing mould, maybe a couple of extra parts, and you wouldn't need the centre track rods, springs for the servo savers, brass inserts, extra ball joints, etc. It would make the kit cheaper and better. It's been around long enough, it deserves at least that.

So that's it. I'm fully aware that the impact we have as consumers of these kits is very minor in comparison with other industries in the world (such as aviation and the fashion industry), but I thought it might make a different discussion point from the usual, and I'd be interested to hear other peoples views on the subject.

 

 

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Im glad you have posted this - I was going to post exactly this same thing last year and for some reasonn didnt as I couldnt think of it as anything other than having a moan but do feel it needed adressing in some way. It was just after building a re-re sandscorcher last year - I think at the end of it I had over thirty empty plastic bags to throw away. It was a shocking waste - there is no need for every individual part to have its own plastic bag.

I spend a lot of time long distance walking and see lots of plastic waste in the countryside where it just continually blows around - I hate it.

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This is definitely something I think about, though maybe not as much as I should. I'm absolutely with you on the plastic bag thing; that has always bothered me.

Here's an idea: why have bags at all? Why not supply the hardware in one of those small divided plastic trays, like the aftermarket stainess steel screws come in? Instead of "Bag A" for steps 1-5, it's "Compartment A." And then move on to Compartment B, and so on. Then, when the build is done, you have a "spare screw kit" already sitting there in a box! Call it a "bonus" and announce it on the box lid. "Includes Free Hardware Organizer!", and absolutely no little plsatic bags.

As for the leftover/unused parts, I have actually decided not to buy certain models because I knew I would be throwing out half of them. It's why I'm so thankful for the efforts in the crawler/scaler market to sell "bare chassis" kits, like Axial and some others are doing now. No body/wheels/tires that you'll never use, can't give away, and end up in a landfill.

And for that matter, it sort of validates my purchases of old junky vintage models instead of modern kits: I'm recycling!

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I had this conversation the other day with my son. Hes almost 6 and at school they are really hot on this topic, plastic in waterways and birds and sealife etc. I thought the same when I built the TT02B's and remember commenting to my wife that there was a lot of waste. Funnily enough I don't recall the same issue with my TA07 or TRF102 but maybe it is as bad for those kits but I didn't notice (I was too busy being impressed by the quality of the kit compared to others perhaps). We decided that the cars themselves are 'good plastic' because we use them for years and can fix them unlike other stuff that just gets thrown away. He was happy with that and it also started another discussion for him about durable products vs throwaway products.

The spares and hopups annoy me a bit though too. They always come in a bag which looks good (Tamiya paper top, clear bag showing the nice shiny part) but it seems a lot of plastic for whats often a small part. I like how Savox and even Trackstar servos come in a little box thats useful, I use them for spares, which is great compared to throwing away plastic, and ks a bonus when otherwise I would buy little boxes like them. 

I don't like to think about the freight side. Tamiya parts can be hard to come by in NZ, especially for the TA07. For some reason retailers stock the TB05 but not the TA07. This means that all my hopups have to come from rcmart or rcjaz. I also make small orders because often need the part to get the car going, so can't save them up to do bulk orders (the tax system doesn't encourage this either, any order over $400 is likely to be caught for GST). The best way for me to avoid this would be to switch brands so I can buy locally like I do for my Kyosho and HB cars. Tamiya just isn't a big brand here, except of course TT02 or DT03 cars.

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the most i really think about is why brands don't just package things in cardboard boxes anymore. are plastic bags cheaper to make? there should be a good reason why tamiya went from cardboard packaging to plastic bags. it'd certainly be a lot better if cardboard was used, because at least you can recycle it.

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There was a time when I built kits that I would keep track of the waste/excess produced once assembled. For an otherwise-simple F103RS, I remember it being disproportionately high...

It certainly makes the case to run and repair our models, and do so responsibly. I like the discussion that Jonathan Gillham had with his son about durable vs. throwaway products.

I also like the idea of cardboard and paper packaging for the models. Though Tamiya started with wood models and not exactly paper, it could still be a nice tie-in to history. And even if good cardboard can take lots of water to process, recycling is easy.

Over the years, I have found that as I become more aware of the environment and the crisis at hand, I have been using my models less (and thus ordering less parts from overseas). As much as I would love to say this is due to my attitudes on the relaxed emissions standards of transportation and freight vehicles, I would be hypocritical as I still use them for other hobbies...

Plastics are improving all the time, but with metal being easier to recycle, could this make the case for more old-school RC cars like the Rough Rider, Sand Scorcher, or Bruiser?! :P

Anyway, it is a good topic to discuss, especially since the problem will not be going away any time soon - not without drastic changes to the way we live...

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It's hard to judge whether the hobby is bad for the environment at face value.  I think one misconception is that plastic is bad and any alternative must be better.  There's been several studies done about plastic shopping bags, which are undeniably awful for the environment, but the alternatives can often be worse over time.  As with anything, a reduction in waste would be a good idea.  Especially unnecessary packaging.  Disposing of waste responsibly is getting harder when it should be easier.  The crisis in the recycling sector has shown just how poorly managed things are.

One thing I find interesting is that we see how much waste there is from sprues so we are more conscious of it.  Almost no other hobby or general item sold comes like that.  You get a finished product but with no idea how much waste might be created.  I assume most people here also don't dispose of their cars or parts very often.  Buying parts trees for it as things break over many years is going to still work out better than tossing it and getting a new one.

I know that Lego are keen to find a better alternative than the current plastic but that's easier said than done.

39 minutes ago, Jonathon Gillham said:

the tax system doesn't encourage this either, any order over $400 is likely to be caught for GST

The limit is more like NZ$285 depending on exchange rates.  I think for a NZ$400 item you'd end up paying about $135 in fees.  I've debated chancing it with buying a CR01 Bronco so many times I think I've memorized the rates.

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3 hours ago, MadInventor said:

I remember buying kits bitd which always had images of other kits printed on the inserts on the inside of the box, so why not do it on sprue bags and screw bags, etc. The would be a marketing opportunity (or even a collecting opportunity of you wanted to keep the bags), but at least it would cut down on the plastic bag usage.

This is a great topic, and thanks for taking such time to think and post about. And for giving it so much detail.

Personally, I am deeply concerned about the environment - particularly climate change, and waste. One only has to listen to David Attenborough's warnings now - the man whose wonderfully narrated documentaries we all grew up watching, is nearing the end of his life. Yet he is gravely concerned for our future on this planet, unless we act immediately to reverse humanity's impact on the environment.

When it comes to R/C...

I've always had such respect for Tamiya, and their models, that from an early age I never wanted to view anything in Tamiya kits as "waste" or "rubbish". Getting a single car or part, was extremely rare for me. So I never threw away the box, inner boxes, bags, body set boxes, or even the leftover parts sprues. I even kept some cut-off bits of lexan for later test-color sprays. The same applies to all the great Japanese brands of the 1980s. As they all took a great deal of care with their design, presentation and branding. And it made the product feel worthwhile and special.

What you wrote there @MadInventor is exactly correct - the older kits and spares had a sense of detail and love poured into them, that Tamiya even decorated the kit dividers with images of other cars. And the parts bags had header cards with images of the cars on them. And so on. For these reasons, I simply kept them all. So, having a certain respect and nostalgia for Tamiya and just keeping all the leftover bits in the kit box, is actually one way to avoid contributing immediately and continuously to waste piles. Maybe it was the fact I grew up not having much access to expensive toys, that made me not become one of the people who think "I will just chuck all that out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" five minutes after building a kit. There are undoubtedly people out there in the world who are standing in their backyards, stomping empty Tamiya kit boxes into the garbage bin around midday on Christmas Day each year. Sometimes I wish I knew where they lived, because that behaviour seems like nothing a Taser wouldn't fix? :lol:

And when it comes to old, used parts - I have parts drawers here that still contain the very first plastic bearings I wore out, back when I was a kid and didn't know when I was going come across another $10 for a new set. :D Yes, I kept it all. And yes, ok, that is extreme Tamiya behaviour. But tiny things like those really don't take up any space. Some of those old parts, even the worn ones, later get recycled for other things.

And as you say, much of the larger packing material becomes collectible after a few years. Today, some empty kit boxes will get several hundred dollars alone - meaning the "I've run out of space, this is going in the bin!" mentality is also stupid from a financial standpoint. Just sell your kit boxes if you need to. Then store or recycle the smaller bits. I am pretty sure the modern Tamiya sprues even have recycle codes printed on them, don't they? Correct me if I am wrong.

.:. I cannot remember the last time I threw something in the bin which had "Tamiya" printed on it. It's possible it has never actually happened. B)

The real danger of waste from the R/C industry ...as with every industry, comes from China in my opinion.

Shoddy Chinese R/C counterfeit companies (which some people even on this forum have actively supported :angry:) and generally speaking - RTR R/C landfill manufacturers who are producing millions of generic, nameless, rubbish R/C cars per year that nobody has respect for... I bet thousands of those entire cars are chucked in the bin every day around the world, to end up in landfill.

Furthermore, the trend of modern tech products using custom lithium batteries, rather than replaceable batteries, is stupid and horrific, and designed to force consumers to waste and re-purchase. And all of that stuff is manufactured in China too. As I wrote in another thread recently, products like Apple AirPods cannot be disassembled and fixed even by professionals. Their batteries die after 2 years. You chuck them out and buy another pair for another $200, or whatever. A disgrace.

cheers,

H.

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My biggest issue is the polystyrene - I think it's my least favourite material ever.

Whether it's a flatscreen TV, a kettle or the newest Traxxas monster-truck, why do they all need to be encased in polystyrene? Rigid cardboard would be a lot easier to recycle and make flat-packing the box for storage (am I the only one that does that?) much easier.

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Interestingly now in my country (atleast my home state) the soft plastics can now be recycled through a national supermarket chain. So any plastic bags, pet food pouches and the like, all get “bagged” together and dropped off at collections points in front of the store. My households actual refuse is very small these days.

One thing that brings out the sceptic in me though is climate change, or at least how it’s impacted. So often I hear reports that “today has been the hottest day since 1934” or “this is the driest start to the year since 1918”. So tell me, what was happening in 1934 or 1918 to make it that hot or dry back then?

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Our battery's are a bigger nuke on the tree's and flowers...

Not to mention the coal plants running to provide the power to charge the battery's...

 

But that is beside the point.

 

From a professional view ( im in this business )

 

Hard plastics are very easy to recycle , and very economical.  Everybody loves this .

So as clear plastic bags, its highly sought after as a base product.. just turn em in at the recycle center.

So is carton ( including the metal staple's , they get picked out easy )


However.. just to kill your dreams a bit, and a cold reality check.

Mostly as "green guys" are really good at hiding these facts.

 

Did you know, that large portions of the separate collected plastics get burned ?

As it has more value as "fuel" for green-electricity plants as reusing it in the plastic industries .

The fact is, that current household garbage collected has such a low portion of plastics these days, that at the plant they

mix in extra plastics just to keep the fire burning. 

So yes, first you separate it..  turn it in.. then it gets taken by the ship loads, and re-added to the garbage..

 

Btw, polystyrene can be recycled very easy also , the issue is, that the offered high quality ( clean ) polystyrene, is so high

that most gets burned up anyway.  ( its extreme cheap to make it, and the pure volume of it, makes the transport of it very expensive )

There are ways to avoid this again ( compressed at location ) , however the electricity used  and diesel fuel to move it , is such a high load

that the recycle effort is actually consuming more natural resources then the profit of "recycle it" is.

 

By example..

My country ( Netherlands ) , imports household garbage from the UK by shiploads.

As we , as a country, do not produce enough garbage to keep the energy plants burning.

 

We export to the UK ,  "toxic waist wood" ( railroad track wood ) , to the UK , as its getting used there in gardening ( yes ... ) , and repairing railroads.

To give you a idea how toxic that stuff is, we threat it the same as asbestos and low radio active waist. 

If the quality of it is so low, that even the Britisch do not want to buy it ( no joke ) , we put it in the ground, isolated.. Next to the asbestos and the low radio active waist. 

As the burn would create so much toxic fumes , the factory filters can't handle that.

 

 

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10 hours ago, MadInventor said:

4. Car manufacturers should agree on a standardised motor format and leave it to 3rd party companies to make them. We're (mostly) still all running the same size motors (540) that appeared in kits 35 years ago. OK, the motors now might be brushless, but a 3rd party company can develop a motor, and it will fit in nearly every single hobby grade RC car out there. The same goes for ESC and battery technology. Just think how much cheaper it will be for car manufacturers to develop electric cars if there is a standardised motor, control electrics, and battery system. 

The same argument could be made for standardising parts in internal combustion powered vehicles. To some degree it does already happen with multiple models and even car makers sharing the same engine and chassis designs. Ultimately logistics and marketing gets in the way and there is the necessity to design bespoke parts. 

With regards to standardising electric motors in 1:1 cars, even that idea has been turned on it's head recently as Tesla used a totally different brushless motor architecture (reluctance motor) in the Model 3 vs the previous models (Model S, Model X) which used induction motors. They claim that the different design requirements meant that an induction motor wasn't suitable for the Model 3.

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40 minutes ago, mtbkym01 said:

One thing that brings out the sceptic in me though is climate change, or at least how it’s impacted. So often I hear reports that “today has been the hottest day since 1934” or “this is the driest start to the year since 1918”. So tell me, what was happening in 1934 or 1918 to make it that hot or dry back then?

The biggest problem often is how it is reported.  Saying it is the hottest day on record, etc doesn't really tell anyone anything meaningful.  "One swallow does not a summer make" and all that.  The news conflate the weather with climate change if they think they can grab you with a headline.

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Thank you all for taking time to respond to this. I was half expecting to get flamed as a 'tree hugger' :). I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking about this.

I'd like to take the time to respond to everything everyone has said, but my son is bugging me to go and play with, and has Stefan has just posted I'm going to respond firstly to that .

19 minutes ago, Stefan(2) said:

Our battery's are a bigger nuke on the tree's and flowers...

Very true, but we do get a longer lifespan out of them than some apple products, which can be repaired or even change the batteries in them.

Not to mention the coal plants running to provide the power to charge the battery's...

Also true, but there are alternative sources of energy available. I have a friend who supplements the charge of  his full size electric car from the solar panels on his house. 

But that is beside the point.

 

From a professional view ( im in this business )

 

Hard plastics are very easy to recycle , and very economical.  Everybody loves this .

So as clear plastic bags, its highly sought after as a base product.. just turn em in at the recycle center.

So is carton ( including the metal staple's , they get picked out easy )


However.. just to kill your dreams a bit, and a cold reality check.

Mostly as "green guys" are really good at hiding these facts.

 

Did you know, that large portions of the separate collected plastics get burned ? (Yes, or shipped out of the UK and dumped in landfill abroad. This is why I'm trying to promote a conversation about the amount that is consumed in the first place, rather than recycled.)

As it has more value as "fuel" for green-electricity plants as reusing it in the plastic industries .

The fact is, that current household garbage collected has such a low portion of plastics these days, that at the plant they

mix in extra plastics just to keep the fire burning. 

So yes, first you separate it..  turn it in.. then it gets taken by the ship loads, and re-added to the garbage..

(This just seems to validate the need for trying to reduce plastic consumption in the first place, rather than thinking, it's ok to use tons of plastic, we can just recycle it afterwards)

Btw, polystyrene can be recycled very easy also , the issue is, that the offered high quality ( clean ) polystyrene, is so high

that most gets burned up anyway.  ( its extreme cheap to make it, and the pure volume of it, makes the transport of it very expensive )

There are ways to avoid this again ( compressed at location ) , however the electricity used  and diesel fuel to move it , is such a high load

that the recycle effort is actually consuming more natural resources then the profit of "recycle it" is.

 

By example..

My country ( Netherlands ) , imports household garbage from the UK by shiploads.

As we , as a country, do not produce enough garbage to keep the energy plants burning.

 

We export to the UK ,  "toxic waist wood" ( railroad track wood ) , to the UK , as its getting used there in gardening ( yes ... ) , and repairing railroads.

To give you a idea how toxic that stuff is, we threat it the same as asbestos and low radio active waist. 

If the quality of it is so low, that even the Britisch do not want to buy it ( no joke ) , we put it in the ground, isolated.. Next to the asbestos and the low radio active waist. 

As the burn would create so much toxic fumes , the factory filters can't handle that.

(I was not even aware that we still used wooden railways sleepers in this country any more for the railways. All the railway tracks I've been near are all concrete, but yes I have people with railway sleepers piled up in their gardens (Just yesterday actually), but I assumed they were leftovers from when we used to use wooden sleepers, was not aware they are imported, so that is informative)

 

Please don't take this a bash because it isn't. I see this as good that you've outlined the cold reality of the situation that in our general lives we use far too much plastic in the first place anyway, and that what we do in the hobby is, pardon the phrase, a drop in the ocean. In my original post I did try and outline the good things about the hobby as well, and did say there are a lot worse polluters out there, like the clothes industry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, mtbkym01 said:

One thing that brings out the sceptic in me though is climate change, or at least how it’s impacted. So often I hear reports that “today has been the hottest day since 1934” or “this is the driest start to the year since 1918”. So tell me, what was happening in 1934 or 1918 to make it that hot or dry back then?

It's a valid question. But the answer is: hot or dry years were possible back then too. They just weren't as frequent.

An outlier heat record may have been set 100, or even 200 years ago. But if 20 of the last 22 years have been the hottest on record, then something is different this time.

One of the best illustrations of climate change temperature data, was the animation by Dr Ed Hawkins from Reading University, who created this 2 years ago.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-38671660/how-global-temperature-has-changed

And here is a similar one, also using global mean land-ocean temperature data.

https://www.vox.com/2017/11/7/16612498/climate-change-carbon-dioxide-co2-temperature-animation

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4 minutes ago, Hibernaculum said:

It's a valid question. But the answer is: hot or dry years were possible back then too. They just weren't as frequent.

An outlier heat record may have been set 100, or even 200 years ago. But if 20 of the last 22 years have been the hottest on record, then something is different this time.

One of the best illustrations of climate change temperature data, was the animation by Dr Ed Hawkins from Reading University, who created this 2 years ago.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-38671660/how-global-temperature-has-changed

And here is a similar one, also using global mean land-ocean temperature data.

https://www.vox.com/2017/11/7/16612498/climate-change-carbon-dioxide-co2-temperature-animation

I think one of the most dramatic indicators of climate change is the rate at which the great barrier reef is bleaching / dying off.

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1 hour ago, mtbkym01 said:

Interestingly now in my country (atleast my home state) the soft plastics can now be recycled through a national supermarket chain. So any plastic bags, pet food pouches and the like, all get “bagged” together and dropped off at collections points in front of the store. My households actual refuse is very small these days.

You're fortunate in this. As far as I know, we have no faiclities to recycle soft plastics in the UK

 

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Not a quote ninja..  :)

But yes, mostly the ship that hauls in the garbage into our country ,

will load c-wood ( how we call it ) , to ship it to the UK

 

 

My point was,  that , yes, while we do produce -to much- garbage ( well.. i got to keep a job to ;p )

The issue is that a lot of recycle effort is done for a piece-of-mind,  as the recycle proces itself ( minus some specific goods )

usually is a bigger load on the environment then simply using it as landfill and make a ski-hill out of it.

 

 

 

 

 

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1 minute ago, MadInventor said:

You're fortunate in this. As far as I know, we have no faiclities to recycle soft plastics in the UK

 

its get baled up , and shipped out

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2 hours ago, Stefan(2) said:

The issue is that a lot of recycle effort is done for a piece-of-mind,  as the recycle proces itself ( minus some specific goods ) usually is a bigger load on the environment then simply using it as landfill and make a ski-hill out of it.

In Australia it seems that the process goes that they illegally stockpile large amounts of recyclables at a holding yard until a fire mysteriously starts and destroys it all.

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Yup,  happens all over the world.

 

Reason is pricing.

Take wood,  paper factory's and wood-plate factory's buy in scrap-wood.

However, if there is a large offer and little demand,  price goes down.. or money is asked to take in the wood.

 

Insurance is based on a value of wood / ton .  So , if the insurance pays out at say .. 10 euro/T  .. 

But the wood-plate factory asking 10 euro/T .. + provide your own transport.

 

Accidents happen fairly fast.  It is wood after all, ... it burns...

Company's recycle to make a profit.. not out of the goodness from there harts or care for the environment.  

 

Only governments do that , and as they don't have the skills , know how and people to do it, they pay a company

to do that for them.

The one with the best price wins. 

 

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I have solar panels, recycle all that we can as a family and look for green options when reasonable.

I have built three re-re's and cut all the part tree parts up for recycle, I was a bit annoyed at the plastic bags BUT its MUCH thinner than the vintage ones, even the paper used on the screw bags is thinner but I suspect this is more about cost.

As to climate change my take is that the world goes in cycles and we are currently on a warming cycle BUT we humans are accelerating the current warming cycle with our ozone depleting gasses.

Its good to talk to other who at least think green  and try their best.

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Google 'Termites CO2' - put things into perspective...

Respecting the environment and using energy efficiently, etc... just common sense.

Recycling & reusing also great ideas but what really grinds my gears is the amount of waste products we send to places like China for recycling in huge ships which burn the lowest grade, most polluting fuel oil available. 

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I was pondering this the other day as my wife is trying to find ways of recycling our rubbish, sorting crisp packets and spray triggers and I buy styrene for scratchbuilding ... hmmm.

I have bagged all my 'waste' offcuts and tryouts for recycling, reusing. 

I am trying to cut down on 'small orders' to combine postage to one package.

Most of my cars are second hand so I am recycling to a certain extent!

Lego comes in plastic bags which have their PP recyclable nature clearly stated, would be good if Tamiya did the same.

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MadInventor, great thread. I guess we all think about the environment more which is a good thing.

i guess the fact Tamiya use less packaging is a good thing, although I kind of miss the big boxes. But it makes total sense.

I’m always aware that anything that gets produced is using up raw materials. I always prefer to try and fix something rather than throw it away and just go and buy a shiny new one.

But in terms of our hobby I think that every time I buy something that could end up getting thrown away it’s in some small way recycling.

I also try to reuse anything, including bags. I also hang onto plastic sprues in case I can use the plastic for a fix ?

Al

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