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UP TO 15 sightings of the poisonous Portuguese Man-of-War sea creature have been reported on beaches along the west coast.
The blue-tinged sea creature, which looks like a jellyfish but is actually a jumble of tiny organisms filled with toxins in order to catch its prey, have been spotted washed up on Keel Beach, Keem Beach, and Boat (or Bog) Dock in Co Mayo.
The Achill Island Coast Guard have released a safety warning and Mayo County Council have erected signs warning members of the public and frequent beach users of this new danger.
Local GPs have also been notified of the sighting.
Sightings have also been made by the public on Lahinch beach in Co Clare.
If you do spot the creature, members of the public are advised not to touch it, as their tentacles’ sting can be deadly when they’re dead or alive.
The result of coming into contact with the creature’s sting can range from a severe allergic reaction to death, depending on the level of exposure.
If you do come into contact with the creature, dial 112 immediately.
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Penalise retailers for the packaging and lets see how quickly plastic consumption is reduced.
@john Appleseed: they will simply increase there price to maintain there margin.
It’s only when people stop buying a product will producers react
@Arfer Daly: there is one in Monaghan called Shabra in Castleblaney.
@Arfer Daly: Please line up here to offer to have toxic fumes in your town..
@Shane Murphy: I hope they do. it worked for plastic bags
maybe going back to cardboard packaging is the answer
@john Appleseed: A few moths ago our local authority ceased receiving plastic bottles at their bring banks. Hardly setting a good example.
@Johnny Bellew: *months*
If something like that comes up, it would make sense to do it in mainland europe as it would be easier to transport it by train/truck than by ship.
China had the advantage that they were already sending lots of cargo ships with the billions of things they sell, and those ships were returning empty, so, sending them with waste was “free”.
@Arfer Daly: This is Ireland after all. Where we have to pay to recycle. We have ro pay someone to take a primary product off our hands so we can buy it back off them
@Shane Murphy: not necessarily. Companies will seek out better packaging if they are forced to. Nobody WANTS to increase their price, even if it’s necessary to maintain margin
@john Appleseed:
I would rather pay more and force retailers to address their use of plastic.
@Joseph Caulfield: Actually paying a bit more for food usually means it isn’t wasted and going to landfill. Don’t get me wrong I can’t afford expensive food but paing a little more for food concentrates the mind a bit more and you are more inclined to use it all up.
Plastic packaging has become ridiculous. Far too many items are plastic packed, in some instances you almost need a chainsaw to open them. Consumers should start insisting on leaving the packaging at the supermarkets and stores and force retailers to drastically reduce the use of it.
@John Campbell: 100% this. I’ve been trying to reduce our plastic consumption but it’s nearly impossible.
@John Campbell: thoroughly agree with you. What IS it about vegetables and fruit being packaged in plastic? Depending on the supermarket sometimes it’s not possible to buy loose produce. We need more ‘zero waste’ outlets which would also cut down on food waste.
@John Campbell: I bought a scissors a few weeks back and I needed a knife to get into it.
@john Appleseed: I thought that too but l discovered the Hop sack in rathmines..it’s pricier but fruit and veg are plastic free and you can refill soap, dish washing liquid and clothes detergent which cuts down an awful lot of plastic!
@John Campbell: I’m going to start removing goods from plastic in the store and leaving the plastic behind me.
We could all improve our efforts. It’s a case of building it into our daily routines. Rinsing the containers out before throwing them into green bin is just one example. Supermarkets also need to reduce packaging so much. Sometimes it makes me laugh the amount on certain objects.
@The Viking: yeah but now to learn that they’ve just been shipping it to China? Hardly very environment friendly. This makes my blood boil.
@john Appleseed: Gives a new meaning to the Term: ‘ Plastic Paddy’.!!!
@john Appleseed: It was known for a long time that all the plastic waste was being sent to China – but then again the official line was that we were great at recycling.
Shipping containers arrive here with Chinese goods, they returned with plastic waste for incineration – a win win until the Chinese economy slowed down.
It’s high time that we insist on bio-degradable packaging.
@The Viking: sure we’ve been rinsing them for years, the rinsed ones still go to China!! The packaging needs to be controlled. Most things that were jars are now plastic bottles. Individual wrapped veg plastic packaged fruit. I mean do we really need it all. Saying that I would like to see how we are that different to the UK or France.
@Bilbo Baggins: I live in france and france is miles ahead of ireland. Theres big recycling bins at most supermarkets parking lots and general parking lots. I recycle more than i put in the rubbish. Its great.
@The Viking: Imagine rinsing the plastic if you had water charges. We are recycling to feed the Waste Management Plants, while receiving nothing back like we did in the old days. I’m not anti- waste management, but washing, cleaning and properly storing items should mean €€€ directly into your pocket.
@The Viking: now you’re wasting water
As long as plastic is made from oil the problem will remain. And this is a problem you can’t tax your way out of. Though this will be the first go-to solution as always.
Make biodegradeable plastics from hemp oil. That’s the simple solution.
Hemp can go a long way in solving many of the problems that give rise to Global Warming. Oil, very good quality paper, and card, textiles, clothing and more can be made from hemp. It could stop the problem of deforestation.
But hemp is cheap to produce, it grows abundantly. The problem seems to be there’s not enough money in it.
https://hempbenefits.org/environmental-benefits-of-hemp/
http://hashmuseum.com/en/the-plant/industrial-hemp/hemp-based-plastic
@Dave Doyle: I also saw/read the are making plastic out of crab shells which keeps food fresh and its bio degradeable. Just not sure how much money is invested in this.
Not all rigid plastic is actually recyclable! My recycling company – thorntons only recycles type 1,2,4 (the number inside the recyling triangle on most plastic( hard to find on alot of things)) alot of our household plastic waste falls outside of these types. Manufacturers should be obliged to use recyable plastic, if they have to use it at all!
@Jonathan Gray: Couldn’t agree more. No plastics should be allowed for use that aren’t recyclable.
When you purchase items in the supermarket, remove the plastic there and then and put it in their bin. If everyone does this I bet they won’t be long in getting rid of the ridiculous amount of unnecessary plastic on things like fruut and veg.
@Pounamustone: my local Tesco removed the bins! But your right if you can dispose of the plastic before you leave the supermarket, it wasn’t necessary in the first place.
@Tippgirl: “Tesco removed the bins!” – retailers always win, and consumer will pay the price.
When I was a kid we had paper bags, milk and drinks were in glass bottles. Mams had shopping bags. There was no plastic.
Why can’t we use Tetrapaks like the old yoghurt cartons made of cellulose? Plastics can be made from Apple juice too and are totally biodegradable. And don’t forget the many uses for hemp.
“One of the top recycling nations in europe”
Until china says no more.
But we have an incinerator now…
@blue exile: But would this not effect the numbers?
It looks like all the best countries for recycling are also the highest producers of plastic waste.
If a country is not recycling and their plastic waste is going with everything else, how are they recording the numbers?
Let’s face it, as a consumer, it is virtually impossible to get away from plastic.
As a household, we recycle as much as we can, and also try to buy as little plastic packaged goods as possible. It’s simply not possible to completely reduce the plastic packaging……you only need to walk down any aisle in a shop to see this.
The producers and manufacturers need to change their methods.
Consumers cannot be expected to take the full responsibility to fix this situation.
Article is about how to recycle it, but the issue is that it exists in the first place.
Reduce, reduce, reduce.
Ditch straws.
Buy bars of soap instead of liquid soap in plastic dispensers.
Buy loose vegetables and fruit, or in paper bags.
Buy toys for children that are wooden, metal or fabric.
Reusable drinking cups.
Cardboard or paperwrapped takeaway food.
Etc…
@Wurps: Bars of soap usually come wrapped in unrecyclable plastic. On the other hand, the plastic liquid soap dispensers are recyclable.
How about a ban on any imported Chinese made product if packaged in plastic?
So…..what are the options for dealing with our plastic waste? Article forgot to address that!
Apart from cutting back the amount of packaging in the first place, all the rest should be incinerated locally. It is full of calories.! :This is the cleanest way to get rid of it. Not ship it half way around the world to someone else’s back yard, dumped in the ocean or land filled in Africa. And no, it is not economical to recycle it at present low oil prices.
In each large town or industrial centre there should be a state of the art CHP/ incinerator plant, that burns native, sustainable biomass as the base load. Out of it comes a whole lot of heat for local distribution, electricity for local use and a bare heat shimmer out the stack.
Now we could do all of this no problem, except like with the famous “cash for ash”, we are grossly abusing our PSO levy funds. A large hunk of this €500million a year fund is being used to blatantly import wood biomass from the Americas and SE Asia, with a colossal carbon footprint, to then burn it in the old peat stations. This burning has an delivered electric efficiency in the low thirties. Local CHP would be up in the high seventies. And there would no need for more heavy grid.
And it not just the climate change and waste. Doing it this way, the right way, would lead to at least a ten times economic advantage. Carbon credits, farmers incomes, alleviation of flooding, wildlife and fisheries, gathering and transportation, etc,, etc.. It does though need a large dose of joined up thinking across at least five Depts., let alone all the NGOs.
Drop a reply if any point needs elaboration.
@Nicholas Grubb: excellent comment
Oh look, another crisis. But yeah keep that recovery going
Governments love stuff to do with greenhouse gases because it means more spending on stuff, electric cars, wind turbines, digging up fields for these things etc. However when it comes to plastic reduction means effectively reduction in consumption by consumers and no digging up of anything or building
@john bennett: The same with the issue of obesity. Never heard the simple statement “just eat less” as they cannot charge vat on eating less but they can on slimming products, gym fees etc.
Glass bottles. Recycle them
Ban the sale of milk in plastic containers. Is this so difficult?
I would really like to see the development of more bio-degradable containers to replace the plastic that we are now knee deep in.
Sure there might be a cost factor at the start but it would benefit us all.
If packaging is not recyclable, then put a big red sticker on it, let the consumers make the choice in the shop!
Is there a reason why we don’t have recycling bins in public? Might only be a small help in the grand scheme of things but being able to put drink bottles and cans into recycling while out and about would be a positive step. When I lived in Canada every bin had a recycling one attached to it
Easy in six months introduce automatic prison sentances for the Directors of any importer, manufacturer, distributor or retailer, alternitives will then appear.,, since plastics did not exist 100 years ago there are loads of alternatives, one being nothing..
@DeFonz: Yes that’s totally reasonable and proportionate and nothing can possibly go wrong with it.
@Ben McArthur: Thanks Ben knew I could count on your support..
Repak are a real problem businesses sign up and absolve themselves of any responsibility for waste pushing it onto the consumer. Make shops take back waste soon see a reduction.
We also have a good deal of plastic waste from silage wrap which would increase our per capita amount significantly – if this were removed – how would we compare to the rest of europe?
@Derek ODwyer: Still burning those ‘Silage Wraps’ as I’ve seen around the country.!!
@Derek ODwyer: Black silage wrap goes to a company in Laois to be washed and shredded and is then shipped to Germany for recycling. End product is garden furniture and stockboard etc. Chinese ban should have no effect on this material I imagine.
Sure as hell, there’s a tax, brand new on route…
A lack of a decent water supply in a lot of areas is pushing up plastic bottle usage in Ireland. Thankfully companies like Lidl can sell us cheap bottled water but the amount of waste it generates thereafter is huge. The water in my hometown is literally yellow which is very noticeable if you fill up a white mug or cup. Maybe as part of the report they should investigate where the bottled water is being sold and the reasons why to reduce waste at source.
@Brian MacAllister: Get a reverse osmosis kit.
Western countries constantly criticise countries like China and India for pollution and emissions, yet we expect them to undertake more than 50% of the worlds heavy engineering, manufacturer, and disposal of waste
@Simon O’Connor: True, and a lot of our plastic waste goes into their main rivers, not ours.
Why can’t they melt it, to produce drainage pipe for land and it can also be used in 3d printers I believe? Am I wrong, any experts out there that can find a use for it?
@Stephen murphy: Quite a lot of plastics wont remelt and are classified as thermoset.
Looks like there’ll be many more full bin bags than usual dumped around the country.
Why cant we recycle our own plastic and use
3d plastic printers to make stuff we can use?
I remember reading about a guy out in the states that made sleepers for railway lines with recycled plastic?
@Barry O Neill: They are looking for structures, to dump at sea and so that food fish eat can grow on it. Surely they can melt them into blocks, dump them at sea and help in that way?
The hypocrisy from Denis Naughten on this issue is profound. In the article above he is reported as saying “Naughten said the principle of the Waste Reduction Bill last year was to reduce the amount of plastic waste in our environment.” Yet when the bill was introduced by the Green Party in conjunction with the Labour party last year he opposed it in the Dáil. This government also opposed the Greens Bill to ban micro-beads and monitor micro-plastic pollution in 2016. This government has had no ambition on waste reduction and climate change and are only ever spurred into action by an emergency! I really hope he gets serious about tackling plastic pollution but I will believe it when this government actually produces and passes some legislation. They seem to be all talk and no action.
Probably a nappy in the green bin done it ffs
Map and open up data on litter anywhere @ openlittermap.com so the councils have a pool of data they will have to do something about – it’s like Pokémon go for tidy towns
A lot of plastic toys made in China can’t be recycled, maybe they should look at that as well…
There is far too much Plastic in anything we buy these days, Can barely buy anything in the supermarket without it wrapped in several different types of plastic. This talk of setting up a huge plant to process plastic is crap. We need to reduce whats in the packaging and do it now. I would be all for EU legislation on this. This stuff is murdering our rivers and oceans and its only getting worse as less developed countries follow our path. India is a major concern right now having moved away from their traditional food delivery and recepticales into Tetra. Depressing stuff. If we lead by example enforcing biodegradable packaging gelotines and the likes then it will follow suit in newly developed countries. EU should make some in roads here.
Plastic packaging is great for burning in the wood stove..no need to waste money shipping it around the world.
@tom McCormack:
You can only burn stuff like that in a gasification furnace, or downdraft system, or in reality a municipal incinerator. Then it is the best option of all.
@tom McCormack: @tom McCormack: that’s environmental taboo. Though burning Carbon-chain Polymers is unfairly treated by environmental campaigners. Carbon chain polymers have a higher calorific value than wood. (So It burns 4 hotter than wood). Beware the environmental brigade…
@Nicholas Grubb: it burns fine with wood.. No residue..
@tom McCormack: The “residue” goes up the chimney and lands somewhere. If in Ireland that is most likely on grassland where it is consumed by livestock, bio-accumulates, and is eventually eaten by us again.
Tax rubbish at point of production not point of collection. Simple.
Not surprised to see our lovely little capitalist, tire burn nation at the top of the list. Someone mention electric cars, I dare you!… morons.
I like to leave all the plastic packaging in the shop once I have paid for it. That way I don’t have to bring it home and it becomes the supermarkets problem. The more people who do this, the more shops that will take note and put pressure on suppliers to reduce plastic packaging
Your all laughing now. Wait six months till we’re knee deep in Ballygowan trash
Has anyone seen lol doll packaging.amazing in this day and age encourages kids to be wasteful, truly shocking
There needs to a plastic return scheme to the shop that sold it and that shop has to pay for it to be disposed of….
Penalties will not stop plastic waste, bag taxes were supposed to do that and didn’t. It has to be banned getting in. Stop importing rubbish produce in plastic containers.
Throw them to the shankill background , they will happily accepted them for bonfire week in July .. ;)
Too little too late from the government, as ever they were content to keep sweeping the warnings under the carpet until it was impossible for the general public to wake up to this.
Whatever the government do at this point it will be a half-assed whimp out, people need to take responsibility for themselves but I imagine that’ll be a long time coming too. In the mean time prepare to see ever more sacks of refuse and dirty nappies and more dumped at the side of our once scenic roads.
Bullshit! So people in Poland are producing one fifth the plastic waste that we produce here? In todays world you would literally have to be living on a commune in f***ing woods somewhere to achieve such a low level of plastic waste. Also, having lived in the UK, I can say that they produce way more waste than we do here and they’re nowhere near our standard of recycling. Calling Bullshit on this one definitely. Possibly another heavy penalty relating to plastic consumption on the cards as punishment for our low corporate tax rate.
@John O’Leary: agreed, these are definitely not reliable figures.
How’s about taking responsibility for your own plastic use. Having to tax things to get people to cooperate is a sign of our laziness and stupidity.
The plastic bottles that “innocent ” juices are in drive me insane because of the waste. Guilty more like.
When I was growing up there didn’t use to be so much plastic waste. Fruit and veg were sold loose. Bunches of grapes were wrapped in paper. We had paper cups or styrofoam for coffee and paper bags for groceries instead of plastic ones and glass bottles instead of plastic. You never used to get a straw in your drink unless you were having a cocktail; these days you get two. Things have got seriously out of control in recent years.
A number of years ago, we were just behind Switzerland for recycling. Now we are the top producer of plastic in Europe. It is mind boggling. Coral reefs are responsible for producing more than 70% of the world’s oxygen; yet we are choking them with plastic, killing marine life and putting certain species on the brink of extinction. (“If the oceans could speak, would you listen?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcsguBiPH3A) It is an eye-opener or watch the video of a whale dying – when cause of death was determined, it had had five plastic bags cut out of its stomach, which had caused it to starve to death. Or look at the video of a turtle getting a straw pulled out of its nose while it whines in pain or the shocking image of a sea horse bobbing along on a cue tip. I am a scuba diver and have witnessed this stuff first hand and I find it heart-breaking. I have spent many dives collecting rubbish. I do it gladly as I know it means we are helping to protect the ocean in some way. However, if stricter restrictions were put in place, this problem would be lessened. Holland and even India use plastic to make pellets to surface roads. In Scandinavia, they are making great progress. They have machines where they can return plastics and get money refunded. They have a similar process in Germany and are about to adopt it in England. A Swiss guy has even built a boat to remove waste from the sea, where it is then separated. Recyclable plastic is compacted into cubes for recycling, while non recyclable plastic is used for fuel. A fleet of boats will be launched in 2022. Even places like Indonesia are waking up to reality of the situation.
A few weeks ago, it was announced that the EU would be taking steps to address the issue and Ireland would be a forerunner with even stricter measures. Yet no word on the street ……. Hopefully, the protest at supermarkets tomorrow will have some effect.
Personally, I think everyone should take up scuba diving to see the damage we are doing. Already, the coral reefs are dying due to bleaching by the sun, not to mention the damage caused by sun cream. It is estimated that by 2050, most of the coral reefs will be dead. That will be a sad state of affairs and detrimental to the survival of the human race. Finger pointing is not necessary as we all play a part in this destruction and we definitely could all do our part to alleviate the problem.
All types of plastic can be recycled. The problem is not plastic…the problem is lack of recycling of plastic & lack of recycling facilities to recycle plastic in the country.
I went to India & I visited 5 factories in China to view the equipment.
I want to setup a recycling facility in Dublin to recycle plastic…I just need funding to do it.
Leave the plastic thats wrapped around veg etc in the supermarket, they wont be long in changing their tune in reducing tje amount they use. Bring containers to the butchers to put your meat in. Use stainless steel bottles for your water. Basically if you support local (fresh) produce you resuce waste.
have your say