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I will give you that you specify inshore (like the discussion started about with Homosassa), but I toss all my carcasses back into the ocean where they came from...lobster, dolphin, shrimp heads and bottom fish....100% recycled. I will always do that and will draw the line with someone telling me that is "bad for the environment", hence my very original comment. Kind of like when there were people that were saying burning wood (natural firewood) was bad for the ozone.
100% agree with you on the others. I personally have had a xeriscape yard for more than 15 years. more time to fish!
100% serious. How is not bottling spring water and allowing the rivers to flow naturally wasting water?
Your other comments have nothing to do with what was said. Apples to oranges.
I'm not sure that exporting bottled water to other states makes a significant difference, however. Haven't seen the data.
I think this thread has run its course
Hopefully there's people that read it that will now discard their scallop waste appropriately, had they not prior.
So at the risk of adding more crap to the pile let me say this. I feel just awful for the way we are leaving the planet to the generations to follow! Yes some of us were just ignorant for a long time but did and are doing our best at shrinking our green footprints now that we have been become a little more educated. But I fear it's just a little too little a little too late!! The signs are all out there and we are running out of clean water! And if you think we have it bad take a good look at California!! At least our water supply runs under ground!! Theirs whats left of it travels down dammed rivers and in big concrete canals (not sure what they call them out there?) from north to south from lakes and reservoirs. I hate to think what will happen to them if terrorists somehow blow up the dams or canals? Seems like it wouldn't be too difficult? They are dangerously low on water now fighting with states upstream on the Colorado River for what little flow and water is left when it gets there!! I've heard that the Colorado river doesn't even reach the ocean anymore? I'm sure Doc will know the answer along with other facts I don't know!?!?
I think the answer is one that no one wants because of it's cost. Desalination Plants may be what the future holds and we should be building them NOW!! They have the technology and it's going to come to it or some other drastic measure way before we are ready to deal with it! But we'll just wait while all the chicken necks in Congress and the Senate debate on how to spend money we don't have on somethings that are really stupid!!! You lefties and righties can argue all you want but I hate all those egomaniacs on the hill!!! They are all gonna argue us right into the poorhouse and thirsty as hell to boot!!! I guess I'm glad I lived and fished when I did but like I stated earlier, what a mess our Big Party has left!!!
Sorry Gize, the little voices told me to do it!!!!!
In another fact from posts above about California and Florida about shipping water out of state. California water is what Sam's club sell a Members Mark water, just noticed it on the bottle.
Mankind is one of nature's most magnificent creatures who belong on this earth as much as any finned, furred or scaled creature. It's true we fight nature at every turn - by healing the sick, mitigating poverty, feeding the hungry, protecting the weak, building elaborate shelters, cooling and heating the air, inventing go-fast transportation, watering the desert - and building weapons that can destroy all we've accomplished.
No matter what we do though, the earth will survive - nature is the more powerful and ruthless force. In the meantime it is our responsibility to be good caretakers so that future generations of humans will have clean water and clean air. Right? For most of us that job begins at home.
We need to be careful not to spend our energy fighting trivial battles (ie bottling drinking water) and end up losing the big ones...we need to educate ourselves on the difference...the things we can control, and the things we can't.
I hate many of the things many many people give absolutely no thought to. Look at the average person that bags your groceries - they have no thought of trying to atleast miniminze how many bags they give you. Plastic is the gift that keeps on giving. My wife and I had re-useable bags long before it became a fad. If I forget them, I atleast get the old school paper bags. We send our kids to school with re-useable containers. Alot more work for us, but we're not throwing ziplocs away daily.
I hate how much garbage we all generate. Every time I take a bag out, I think about the crap that is in it that we have the technology to recycle it, but we (waste management) dont. Even though we recycle everything we can, the reality is there's tons of plastic, Styrofoams and papers that could be recycled that our waste management has not prioritized to be set up for.
Everytime I get takeout at a restaurant, I think - why hasnt someone decided to sell refillable, reusable containers that you bring to the restaurant with you.
I teach my kids these things and bring all our waste to their attention. We have no grass and dont water and I put down handfuls of fertilizer on the plants every couple years, for close to 20 years. I saw what a waste St Augustine was and killed my entire yard off. I do spay roundup occasionally, and I know its toxic. I hate seeing all these trucks running around with 1000's of gallons of chemicals in them going from yard to yard. I have developed a disdain for St Aug and the way it looks.
Anyway, all that and what? I still throw bags away sometimes, I still toss hooks in the garbage. I am very conscious about all of it and hate it in many ways. I am still a human in an unperfect world, but I am not a cancer or a virus. I am stuck doing what I can without being a zealot and teaching my kids the same. And there's for sure people who take it to a whole nother level and I am sure would look down on me for not doing enough.
If you want to point that kind of negativity at something, point it at the people who take and spend your money, perpetuate the problem, dont give 2 hoots and spend the money that is supposed to be/should be allocated to improve these things instead rather on new buildings, a fleet of drive home vehicles, pet projects etc. There's your cancer.
If the people in charge had this mindset, we'd be focused on correcting the errors of our ways regardless of whether it was from greed or ignorance, from the past. But the fact is, most if not all the people do not have that mindset so I dont know how it will improve. But calling all of us a cancer is a whole nother level of cynical and I am a pretty jaded.....
They do, it's called Tupperware.
On the subject of recycling - mr gl and I have a long standing debate over to rinse or not to rinse...whether or not it is worth the water used to rinse containers to be recycled. He rinses, I toss.
As to your original post - we have a place on a wide salt water canal that has a decent tidal flow - yet it really bothers me when neighbors clean fish and dump the carcasses in the water. I freeze the carcasses and use them for crab bait. Maybe it shouldn't bother me, because everything dumped is gone on the next outgoing tide - yet I put the carcasses in the trap and that 'essence' hangs around for several days...so who's polluting more, me or them?
If you transport 1 kg of nutrients from offshore to an inshore canal, you are putting 1 kg of extra nutrients into the system whether they are consumed overnight or over a period of several days. But if you remove some crabs, eat them, and dispose of everything on land and into a sewer system that treats the waste, using the carcasses for bait is less harmful than just throwing them into the canal.
The important point is if the system can handle the extra nutrients or not. Everything is fine until you hit that tipping point where the extra nutrients cause oxygen depletion or overgrowth of weeds or algae.
I was really speaking of personal traps off the dock in same salt canal with significant tidal flow, not commercial traps in open water. It bothers me to see discarded carcasses floating - yet I put our carcasses in a trap and hang them off the dock for several days...just doing a little 'soul' searching. I don't think either one is ultimately harmful - one is just visually unappealing.
A#1 - I remember seeing pictures of dead fish piled up in a canal down your way - this past winter?...we were gone. How long did it take for the critters to clean it up?
Doc, we dispose of crab shells with the trash - since it's only collected once a week I triple bag and freeze until trash day.
Bill
bout had it with you non boat driving idiots."
So that's the thanks' I get for salvaging one of your traps for you.
This summer has been one of the worst ever for me in terms of destroyed traps.
Nature operates in cycles: the water cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the carbon cycle. These are the big ones we hear about, but there are plenty of other cycles. A cycle that applies to this discussion is one I call the Florida Cycle.
Here's how it works.
1. Florida is a pristine wilderness, with humidity, heat and insects making it unsuitable for habitation (except by extremely tough or extremely desperate people).
2. Henry Flagler, air conditioning, insect control and the aftermath of WW2 (emphasis on air conditioning and insect control). Make Florida a desirable retirement and vacation location.
3. People flock to Florida to enjoy the environment that air conditioning and insect control have created. Floridia's economy becomes dependent on continuous growth, thus politicians are hesitant to do anything that may prevent as many homes as possible being crammed into what used to be swamp or to keep business from taking advantage of the environment swamp draining, insect control and A/C have created.
4. Too many people take up too much space, use too many resources, pollute too much water and over time destroy the environment that attracted them in the first place.
5. Florida's economy collapses. Yankee's all move back to Michigan, alligators and insects once again rule Miami west of the Orange Bowl (now Marlin's Park).
6. The cycle starts over.
I'm guessing that we're in the early stages of step 4 and about 20 to 50 years from step 5. I'm also guessing that, like Natures big cycles, there's not much we can do to change things. More people want sugar in their coffee and cheap real estate with lots of sunshine than care about how good the fishing is. Politicians will always pander to money.