Interest in environmental projects like "Ocean Cleanup" and more?

Hello friends,

... I've started this first in the German forum -- but, as the problem is "global", we should perhaps also address it "globally" ...

Here is the link to the German thread - [reprap.org]


And here the English transscription of the starter:

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Hello folks,

I've been looking at the discussions and projects to reduce the amount of garbage in the oceans for quite some time, but I think that the previous concepts are still far too few in terms of results and are anyway focused only on the "visible" surface areas, which is actually already far too much sad smiley

My question to the group - is there any interest worth mentioning here and maybe already a willingness to get actively involved in really "long-term" and also "radical" projects - and above all to stay involved for years?

With the RepRap project we also started 12 years ago as a small project (about 15 people in the "core team" when I joined), which then in a few years became a worldwide action cool smiley

There are already a few interesting approaches to "marine waste disposal", but none of them are yet really capable of preventing the still increasing amount of waste entering the oceans or significantly reducing the actual amount of waste in the foreseeable future eye rolling smiley

Meanwhile 5 "garbage continents" have been confirmed in the oceans, where the free floating garbage on the surface collects in gigantic "whirlpools" - the largest in the Pacific might be as big as Central Europe or 3 - 5 times as big as Germany!

And that is only the visible part!

From the surface to the seabed at a depth of several kilometres there is much more floating in the water ... and on the seabed there might be another similar amount lying around. It is slowly covered by silt, but can still actively release toxins into the water ...

I have some ideas for "Starter-Projects", which like the RepRap-Project could provide a sustainable garbage collection in small groups "locally" off the coasts for the first time ... but in the long run should lead to the creation of permanently occupied "garbage collection islands" across the oceans, which in turn should be built up from the material of the garbage collected and continue to grow.

What is necessary for the start are interested people and groups of people, in order to start as "germ cells" and then accumulate enough new people, interest (and also money) over the time, so that this can become a really long-term and effective movement!

I have already asked Adrian, NaBu, Greenpeace and an active German project, but so far I haven't received an answer ...

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

First solution is shoot all the politicians that took our money and allowed it to happen in the first place...
Second Stop 3D Printing,
3rd I'm up for trying to figure out more ways to do it but fear it's F'd

... this was a point in the German thread too (transscript):

[Stud54] :
If you really want to do something, then drive our politicians out of discussing. THAT would be a beginning.

Take France as an example. President says plastic bags are shit, I forbid them now.

Germany has been discussing it for 8 years.


I don't just want a different way of dealing with plastic, I want a different way of dealing with all resources. And that's where we're making a really bad impression here in Germany.

Greetings Sven

PS. RETHINKING BEGINS AT HOME. Rethinking starts at every home. I only use a stainless steel coffee mug, disposable is no longer. I don't have plastic bags anymore, Auto am We only if it really can't be avoided. And that can almost always be avoided.


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my answer:

[VDX]:
... to discuss with the politicians I have long since given up ...

With one of the reasons why I joined the RepRap project in 2007, my frustration and disappointment was that many good ideas and approaches "go astray" either because they don't arouse enough interest (which would still be understandable), or because one of the big "networkers" (pronounced "lobbyists") actively takes action against them to stifle them.

I witnessed this several times between 1998 and 2005 - one of the "highest levels" were e.g. the funding application examination committees of the EU, where I was invited 2 times as a "nanotech expert" to evaluate (or cancel) EU funding projects against payment (3000€ per week + travel, food and accommodation) ... some quite accredited "networks" have mixed in pretty badly to get their own interests through and shoot down potential "competing projects".

With the RepRap project we have shown what is possible in the way of a "grass-roots revolution" -- and I would like to trigger something like that in the direction of the "garbage project" also.

The "local" efforts for waste avoidance and recycling can go on and bring something.

Only with the already emitted garbage the previous approaches are totally overtaxed or "scratch only on the surface", where one can introduce this because of the "optics" effective in advertising to calm the people ... really in the long run will help but rather not.

My idea is to first create a few "germ cells" with a few local groups, then get more and more people to rethink and get you to join in ... and at some point (hopefully) it will become a self-runner with new ideas and probably also economic support, if the garbage can be complicated into "industrially usable" products.

One of my sayings almost 30 years ago was: "...today's garbage dumps will be one of the most valuable raw material sources for "concentrated" materials in the future...".

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Hi Viktor,

Your idea sounds very interesting and it is the time to do something against all that waste. The political class or the big company’s living from producing all the plastics will not help us. We all have to address and solve that problem by changing our habits and start cleaning up that stuff in our environment.

The idea to build a floating island with people living on them is really cool. Not sure if the waste is the right material but why not... I am thinking on the sun, the UV light, the salt water, the small and big waves…
Is there a chance to build something like a swarm of robots which are autonomously collecting the garbage on the shore lines, sort the stuff and build something with the collected plastic garbage like bricks which are easily collected by a boat and shipped to a recycling plant…

Or just think big an let us build a garbage island…

CBR

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/09/2018 02:48PM by CBR.

Some way to track ships with waste cargo and make sure they dont dump at sea...I'm sure this is where most of the waste is coming from people who dont want to pay the fee at the other end...and of course the countries that no longer want to take it.

... some groups tracked ships for waste-generation and found below one percent intentional garbage disposal coming from them ... but a bit more comes from accidents or when storms break the fixings and blow containers over board

@CBR - good you've found here!
I've asked you for some ideas about developing the software for a sort of "swarm-bot ecology" -- autonomous flying drones, rafts, ships, submarines and "micro-submarines", only capable of short travels, enough to start from a "base" (raft, ship or submarine), find and clamp to a piece of garbage ... and the start to float a "swim bladder" to rise the "prey" to the surface, were it can be collected conventionally (and tried to retrieve the micro-submarines).

The "floating islands" will be manned ships in the beginning ... but with time, they should build big and even bigger rafts for the infrastructure, needed to support the recycling and fabbing "industry" and all the people working and livin there.

With big enough "rafts" this could grow to big floating "islands", which could be connected to gigantic floating structures

The used materials can be any local source like plastic or other materials from the collected and recycled waste, raw materials from the mainland ... but too processed tang fibers, living corals or any other material, what can be collected or processed ...

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

... another idea from my youngest son got my interest -- could it be, that the big garbage-fields are already changing the global weather?

Think about: covering big chunks of the oceans surface ... blocking (or absorbing) the sun ... change in seawater evaporation ...

Big floating structures can do comparable things - change solar interaction (higher albedo) ... reduce or grow algae around and under them (artificial lights) ...

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

I thought the idea is to remove it so it doesn't erode into micro crap that bottom feeders eat?

Count me in,
but I believe we can't focus on plastics alone. As said above: the earth needs a 'green revolution'. Poititians and lobbyists won't help at all.
I've seen a guy on an island, who builds boats from waste plastic, but that's not enough.

Problem is, that during crude oil cracking, we can't choose what to produce. We get all the stuff from heavy oil for ships to kerosine for planes.
Just because we drive Gas or Diesel cars and trucks, these 'sideproducts' also pile up and have to be used somehow.
If we don't produce plastic from oil, the oil industry has a big garbage problem. And guess what they would do with it?

Ask yourself: are you ready to stop oil industry and live with the consequences?

edit: What about a 'green talk' subforum to collect all the related projects there?

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/2018 12:49AM by o_lampe.

@MechaBits:

Quote
I thought the idea is to remove it so it doesn't erode into micro crap that bottom feeders eat?

... yes, this will be adressed too -- and is one more of the ideas behind the "global view", what hopefully would evolve with time ...


@o_lampe - it's not focussed on plastic alone, but on all sorts of pollutants - could even start to interact with earths atmosphere, if the "floating structures" will be big enough and populated with plants and artificial "air filters"

And for the oil or oil products -- it's not so big a problem to reduce the plastic to the raw ressources again, if you inject enough "green" energy (earned from sun, wind, waves).

But it's maybe even easier to make them from organic materials like algae or seaweed.

The bigger problem would be to deal with the oil-industry and force them to stop the environmentally harmful oil production.


The idea with a "green talk" sub-forum sounds good -- so I've created it and moved the thread

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

We need to Save the Bees or we are all doomed.

... so let's create new "surface areals" in the oceans and populate them with complete biotopes to replace the "doomed" zones onshore, until the people learn to handle their own countries sensibly again

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Floating Eden Projects...I was playing with the design of a Modular Floating Bio/Anaerobic Digester / Home, Research Station would be a good project to revisit.

Maybe if people built less Plastic Printers we could make a small dint in the problem
Believe it or not one of the reasons I wanted all metal...I know it comes with its own Carbon Footprint
Which is why I wanted multipurpose parts, Devices Designed to be easily fixed or upgraded instead of replaced,
Everlasting LightBulbs & all that other tech they hide because they cant milk us with it,
Multifunction Machines, Toasters that can also cook a steak or make a toasty sandwhich
or Double as the build plate in your core XY,
an end to Planned Obsolescence.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/2018 03:50PM by MechaBits.

... my long-term goal is the development of recycling up to the "molecular level".

Then all the harmfull materials could be "reduced" to the basic chemicals or "remixed" into non-toxic complexes ...

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Might have to wait for the next gen Matter Control Software for that.
I was an alchemist in another Life

Gotta make sure no Grey Goo is created, though I'm pretty sure they already produced something that is messing with the machine.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/2018 05:43PM by MechaBits.

@MechaBits - have you possibly read Eric Drexler's books "Engines of Creation" and "Unbounding the future"? ...

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Me Read...I gave that up a long time ago (it's all i can to manage a few words on these threads), but they sounds interesting(prefer technical to fiction).

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/14/2018 10:03AM by MechaBits.

Quote

Everlasting LightBulbs & all that other tech they hide because they cant milk us with it,
...
an end to Planned Obsolescence.

That's why I said, we'll need a global green revolution. But only, if we find a different way of living away from capitalism. Like that will ever happen...

[extremism]
If you want to save live on the planet, wipe off mankind from it's surface. Or at least, reduce it to a reasonable level. The sooner, the better (keeps bio diversity on a higher level)
A huge volcano eruption, covering the whole atmosphere with dust for several years would come handy
This might happen soon, since the melting ice changes the balance between continental shelves pretty fast.
But we might also wake up a deadly virus from it's beauty sleep in permafrost areas. *fingerscrossed*
[/extremism]

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/15/2018 03:31AM by o_lampe.

... yes, there are some of this sort of "extreme think-tank ideas" around, which deals with "necessary mass extermination" -- but have they ever seen themselves (or their relatives) among the 99.99% victims

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

There's a big Cull Coming, that's why the borders are closing, free speech & movement curtailed,
If the Right are more organized & vicious they might be the winners or at least give it a bloody good go.
The way the world is going perhaps the tipping point has passed.
Some things need to go back to manual

Concern about the environment started in the West in the late sixties. Despite all the warnings regarding chemicals, heavy metals, plastic pollution, deforestation and of course the crazy demographic bomb in the third world, not much has been achieved. Worse, new developing countries in Asia for ex. are even less concerned and still nothing done about demography.

The planet is apparently past it recycling capacity. Just that the increased CO2 makes everything grow faster; too bad, not the fish population !

And please, don't blame the RIGHT, the left, socialists, communists have done as much if not more harm ! Everybody is guilty to some extend.

I have always been watchful about pollution, waste, repair all I could, buy locally, go by foot, bike, use public transportation whenever I can, etc... and wonder If I didn't waste my time instead of doing like everyone else and have fun !
OK may be I wouldn't be in good health

Today, not one single beach where the sand doesn't contain plastic particles ! Not to mention all we can't see like chemical residues, heavy metal in oceans, ground water, land ...

And the young generations don't seems very concerned either, even in the West.

I wonder if famines, diseases, landslides, floods even wars (too bad, this generates a lot of pollution) won't be the ultimate solution. Any population that is not regulated by predators is regulated that way.
Predators too are regulated by the abundance of preys and often adjust their reproduction rate to match the available resources. But they don't have economists and politicians as for these (and for imbeciles) there is not limit to growth.

"Let the city burn, we country boy will survive !"

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/15/2018 11:44AM by MKSA.

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"A comical prototype doesn't mean a dumb idea is possible" (Thunderf00t)

Quote
VDX
... yes, there are some of this sort of "extreme think-tank ideas" around, which deals with "necessary mass extermination" -- but have they ever seen themselves (or their relatives) among the 99.99% victims

Right now Darwin's law does not work for mankind. Only the rich survive, is more like it.

A catastrophy like mentioned above would change that.
Only people who can care for themselves and don't ask for the next WiFi point or charge socket will have a chance to survive.
That's only fair, since these people haven't been the reason for climate change and plastic polution.

I wish they would Ban Fishing, not at the individual level with a line or spear, just the commercial side, you want fish for tea you have to go get one.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/15/2018 12:07PM by MechaBits.

Quote
MechaBits
I wish they would Ban Fishing, not at the individual level with a line or spear, just the commercial side, you want fish for tea you have to go get one.

Tell it to the people of Iceland and Japan, they wanted to go Whale-hunting again.

... not "they wanted", but they do! - and Canada, Greenland and Norway even more

[en.wikipedia.org]


One of my ideas is to learn to "communicate" with dolphins and bigger whales (AI based translators?) or start with trained dolphins and orcas, to get them "collecting" free floating garbage for food or fun action

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

Whale & Dolphin Hunting... Sick.... Canada...Not allowed to Hurt a Feminists or Liberals Feelings
but you can Club the Fk out of a Baby Seal or Indigenous Homeless Person, Yeah thats ok....

... that's the world we live on

So start alternatives and spread the word to awaken consciousness!

And one of the "subliminal" ideas of the floating islands - outside the 200-mile zone around the coasts is a completely "Land law-free area" where alternative ideas could potentially develop more smoothly ...

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

New Free Trade Hubs, People's Republic of Smokey Mountain....Did you see the Getty Doc, The Shift from Mining Oil to extract wealth, is shifting over, to Extracting Value by plundering our natural reserves of Midnight Oil ... Extracting our Brain Juice our grey amber our ambergris Grrrr!!! While all the while telling us it's so abundant it's worth nothing & we should just be happy with the joy of creating...and then handing it over...sorry for the digressions...maybe we'll hit on something...but I been thinking hard these last few weeks...you know for the next step, the next big idea...how to make this 3D Printer do something Ultra Useful...to Change the World, and the more I think, the Blanker my mind becomes....as dark as an old abandoned cinema....who's time has come & gone....what's that green glow over yonder...looks like an Exit sign must the show go on.

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/16/2018 02:31PM by MechaBits.

Wind Turbines or Gyroid Gyrators is an interesting use of the 3D Printer, ideally for getting into some moldings, there was an interesting concept on the news the other day with nice 3D Printed scale model, who knows if it's any more productive than others,

... "productivity" or "efficiency" are mostly technically and profit-oriented concepts, when size and costs count.

In the "wealth without money" view, what Adrian meant for the RepRap project, other problems and solutions can be totally different.

So why look at (and pay for) the "most productive" high-tech fabbed wind or solar generator, if low-tech variants in bigger counts can generate the same amount of energy?

This too is more in line with the point of view of our for-profit society, what is also the reason for our current environmental problems.

We need a different "view" on our world to find better ways ...

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Viktor
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Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]