Pickle, one more thing to bum you out aside from the toxicity issues: plastics are made from oil, oil that we and our manufacturers have to buy from countries we really don't like all that much.

You could also argue that if we weren't making so many luxury items out of plastic, the price of the raw materials would go down so that the really essential stuff like syringes, PVC pipes, etc. would get cheaper and make peoples' lives around the world, especially in developing nations, a little easier, but that's probably stretching it. ;p

Oh, stop. Do you eat meat?

i know this is totally out in left field, but recently i have stopped watching pro wrestling for a reason what you said above has made me think of.

i have been a pro wrestling fan for over 20 years (through good and bad believe me) but this latest steroid shit has me turning it off completely.

i understand it is up to each individual performer in the industry what he does with his body, but these large companies (WWE, TNA) that evidently do not have a proper program in place to prevent all the drug use i cannot support. they are perpetuating the horrible lifestyle that is leaving so many of these guys dead before they are 50. i feel guilty providing ratings/revenue for a company that doesnt care about its employees enough.

sorry for yet another tangent

Point:

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/press-cen ... e-children

Counterpoint:

http://www.vinyltoys.com/

I can understand why you'd be upset about this, but as you said, those wrestlers do that to themselves willingly and fully conscious of what might happen.

If you look around your house, even at the clothes you're wearing right now, you will probably find dozens and dozens of items that were assembled by grade school aged children who were paid less than what you feed into a parkway meter every month.

That's the stuff that's worth agonizing about.

Sweet dreams. ;p

The documentary "Blue Vinyl" talks about the environmental/health hazards of vinyl. It was interesting. But unlike "Supersize Me", which was so effective a film that it made me essentially stop eating any fast food ever since I saw it, "Blue Vinyl" hasn't stopped me from collecting vinyl toys.

I chose not to have children, it dies with me.

I figure thats my part.

I admire the other steps you take though I buy the 42o.
Make it a legal crop and tax and sell it.
Less harmful and destructive than alcohol.

Once it's legal, that would be ideal, but for now you're just pumping more money into a corrupt infrastructure.

But you're doing the same by buying toys, anyway. ;p

Grow your own.

1. My experience is that Japan is highly polluted.

2. no 'acceptable' alternate materials exist. Vinyl is vinyl. it has that lustrous feel because it is in effect 'alive'..that means its constantly outgassing. Long molecular chains...the longer a molecule, the more unstable, especiallly when the solvents outgas and UV hits it. thats why it degrades. Now, you cant destroy or create matter, only transmute, so when the molecules in vinyl 'fall apart' they enter the biosphere, and, those molecules are toxic.

you CAn make toys out of ABS ( hard plastic) but they do not feel the same, are way more expensive to manufacture, and the few companies that try it meet extreme resistance because 'collectors' dont like it.

ABS wil take longer to degrade, but degrade it will.\\\the nicer and silkier the vinyl...the more solvents.

the solvents are basically carbonhexa or tetra chloride ( like drycleaning fluid)

the solvents are the primary polluters.

thats why theres almost no more rotocast on any level in any countries with pollution laws.