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The Saker

Indymedia ireland

Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.

offsite link Army Sergeant Travis Decker Murdered His Three Children After Being Denied Mental Health Care at JBL... Sat Jun 07, 2025 04:52 | JBLM Whistleblowers
A corrupt military police force and incompetent Commander who denied emergency mental health care and crisis counseling to an American service member resulted in the murder of the sergeant's three young daughters

offsite link Gaza doctor grieves her nine children killed in Israeli strike Sun May 25, 2025 20:00 | imc
Israeli regime continues it's slaughter
'The children were completely charred'

Paediatrician Alaa al-Najjar was treating victims of Israeli attacks when her children were killed by an Israeli strike on their home

offsite link British doctors working in Gaza describe territory as a ?slaughterhouse? Sat May 24, 2025 00:23 | imc
There?s no food getting in so people are starving,? surgeon Tom Potokar says
British doctors working in Gaza have described the territory as a ?slaughterhouse,? where the patients they are treating are severely malnourished.

Plastic surgeons and orthopedic specialists from the UK are based at the Amal and Nasser hospitals in Khan Younis in the south of the territory.

Dr. Tom Potokar, a plastic surgeon specializing in burn injuries, has worked in Gaza 16 times but said this mission had revealed a level of destruction far greater than his last visit in 2023,

offsite link It is time to talk about the Out of Control Immigration. Mon Mar 31, 2025 22:12 | imc
For the last few years since the CV19 scamdemic undocumented immigration into Ireland has surged. No one is allowed discuss it because they do not want any rational debate about it. If you do you are labelled an extremist. However this out of control immigration is fully facilitated by the Irish government and the EU and the shady figure behind the Neo Con movement pushing for endless war, wokeism and globalist agenda.

offsite link [Dublin] National Demonstration for Palestine: End Israeli Apartheid & Genocide Thu Mar 06, 2025 22:35 | ipsc
Sat, 22 March 2025, 13:00 Assemble at the Garden of Remembrance, Parnell Square, Dublin 1
The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, supported by over 150 Irish civil society organisations, has called another National Demonstration for Palestine on Saturday 22nd March.

The march will begin at the Garden of Remembrance at 1pm and finish outside the D?il on Molesworth Street/Kildare Street to bring our demands to the Irish government?s doorstep.

The Saker >>

Public Inquiry
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

offsite link RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony

offsite link Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

offsite link Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

offsite link RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

offsite link Waiting for SIPO Anthony

Public Inquiry >>

Human Rights in Ireland
Promoting Human Rights in Ireland

Human Rights in Ireland >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link News Round-Up Thu Jul 17, 2025 23:45 | Toby Young
A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ?climate emergency?, public health ?crises? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link On Being a Young Male Immigrant Thu Jul 17, 2025 19:00 | Dr David McGrogan
The worldview of those who govern us is predicated on the 'denial of shit'. And when it comes to immigration ? particularly of testosterone-addled young men ? they deny it by the bucketload, says Dr David McGrogan.
The post On Being a Young Male Immigrant appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link How Masking Came to Our Modern Animal Farm in 2020 Thu Jul 17, 2025 17:05 | Paul Stevens
Paul Stevens of anti-face mask campaign Smile Free tells the sorry tale of how the wily racoon was co-opted into Covid masking propaganda. Animal Farm came to life in 2020.
The post How Masking Came to Our Modern Animal Farm in 2020 appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Have You Been Cancelled? Thu Jul 17, 2025 15:06 | Dr Carole Sherwood
Have you experienced cancellation? If so, and you received help from the Free Speech Union, please complete this online survey exploring the effects of cancellation on mental health.
The post Have You Been Cancelled? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Starmer Gives Children the Vote: 16 Year-Olds to Vote Despite ?Rigging? Claims and Half of Teens Opp... Thu Jul 17, 2025 13:00 | Will Jones
Keir Starmer is to give children the vote as he lowers the voting age to 16 at the next?General Election, despite claims that it's "rigging" the result and half of teens themselves opposing the move.
The post Starmer Gives Children the Vote: 16 Year-Olds to Vote Despite “Rigging” Claims and Half of Teens Opposing the Move appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Towards a Plastic Pollution Revolution in Ireland

category national | environment | news report author Tuesday June 13, 2017 23:49author by 1 of indy Report this post to the editors

Reposted from Green News.ie

Originally appeared on June 8th
Today marks World Ocean Day 2017, a global day of celebration honouring the world’s oceans and an opportunity to appreciate, conserve and protect our marine life and habitats.

This year’s conservation focus is on preventing plastic pollution and marine litter, encouraging solutions for healthier seas.

And rightly so. A widely cited study by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation for the World Economic Forum warns that by 2050, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.

A separate report in the journal Science estimates that 8 million tonnes of plastic enter the oceans each year – the equivalent of one truckload per minute. One researcher for the study likens this amount to lining up 5 grocery bags of rubbish on every foot of coastline around the globe.
Plastic along our coast...
Plastic along our coast...

This onslaught of plastics in our oceans is having a devastating effect on marine life. One million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals are killed each year by ingesting and becoming entangled in plastic debris.

And single-use, disposable plastic packaging is largely to blame. When this plastic breaks down into smaller particles it is ingested by marine life, entering the food chain and, potentially, ending up on our plates.

The catastrophic impact of disposable plastic on the environment has prompted measures to be taken by governments across the globe. In 2016, France banned the use of all disposable plastic cutlery, plates and cups. In January 2017, the government in Delhi took the unprecedented step of banning all forms of disposable plastic in the Indian capital. Other bans on single-use plastics have been implemented in San Francisco, Morocco and Ethiopia.

The Plague of Plastic Packaging

But what about Ireland? A walk along the aisles of a mainstream supermarket paints a very different picture. In one survey carried out for this article, 121 out of 139 fruit and vegetable items recorded were packaged in plastic. That amounts to a staggering 87 per cent, the vast majority of which was single-use and non-recyclable.

Another survey in a separate supermarket chain yielded similar results, with 83 per cent of all fruit and vegetables wrapped in plastic. Less than three per cent of these (two out of 75 packaged products recorded) used fully recyclable plastic.

These figures indicate that on a whole, Irish supermarkets are potentially responsible for billions of disposable plastic bags ending up as waste each year.

New data from Coastwatch Ireland set to be released this week indicates plastic bottles were found in over 80 per cent of all coastal sites surveyed during the most recent All-Ireland Coastwatch Survey. The results, seen by The Green News, indicate that plastic bottles are the primary macro litter item found around the island of Ireland every year.

While Ireland made history in 2002 with the introduction of the plastic bag levy, reducing the use of plastic carrier bags by over 90 per cent, the impact of this levy is being largely undermined by the excessive and unnecessary amount of disposable plastic packaging on our supermarket aisles.

Towards a Plastic Pollution Revolution

While the Irish government has yet to outlaw disposable plastic packaging, citizens are taking it upon themselves to make their voices heard.

One Uplift campaign, organised by Dylan Regan, is calling for the provision of a plastic free aisle in every major supermarket across the country. Another Uplift petition put forward by Zero Waste Ireland is encouraging the introduction of a Deposit Refund System for drinks containers to reduce the amount of plastic bottles ending up in landfill.

The End Plastic Plague campaign, which can be found on Facebook, has a Change.org petition calling for the ban of single use, non-recyclable plastic packaging for fruit and vegetables in Irish supermarkets. It also recommends a number of ways you can participate in the campaign and raise awareness by engaging consumers, retailers and politicians alike.

Following an online campaign and ongoing consultation with several members of the public, Lidl recently began providing their aubergines free of plastic for their customers. It is a tiny, yet significant, victory which demonstrates the impact that people power can have in influencing retailers’ packaging choices.

‘BYOC’ – Bring your Own Containers

While many are calling on supermarkets to change their packaging policies, others are taking it upon themselves to offer zero-waste options for like-minded consumers.

‘Bring Your Own’ was set up a few months ago by Íde Mhic Gabhann and Ciarán Smyth to provide loose, packaging-free goods as an alternative to supermarket options. They travel to markets around Dublin and Kildare offering a range of nuts, dried fruit, beans, lentils and pulses, as well as other essentials like baking powder, detergent and toothbrushes. Consumers are required to bring their own refillable bags, containers and jars to avoid the need for plastic packaging. To see where they’ll be visiting next, find them on Facebook here.
https://www.facebook.com/bringyourowncontainers/

Laetitia Therr has also initiated a Zero-Waste section at the Dublin Food Co-op in Newmarket Square, Dublin 8, offering a whole range of loose produce and foodstuffs, from pasta and rice to salt and spices. The stall is open from Wednesday to Saturday each week during normal opening hours. Find out more on the Dublin Food Co-op Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/DublinFoodCoOp/

Finally, for those who would like to learn more about living a zero waste lifestyle, Ireland’s first Zero Waste Festival is coming to Inchicore Sports and Social Club on Sunday 25th June. It will be an action packed day of talks, screenings, workshops, food and swap shops all revolving around the ethos of zero waste. Tickets are limited so get yours here. For more information, visit www.zerowastefestival.ie.

If you or your organisation are involved in campaigns, clean-ups or other efforts to combat disposable plastics in your local area, please get in touch at office@ien.ie or send us a message on our Facebook page.a https://www.facebook.com/IEN.Fans/

Links:
One Uplift Campaign
https://my.uplift.ie/petitions/tell-supermarkets-to-cre...store

The End Plastic Plague campaign, which can be found on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/EndPlasticPlague/

Groundbreaking EPA report reveals scale of microplastic pollution in Irish freshwaters
http://greennews.ie/epa-report-freshwater-microplastic-...gmit/

Plastic bottles found in over 80 per cent of coastal sites surveyed by Coastwatch
http://greennews.ie/plastic-bottles-80-percent-coast-si...port/

Plastic debris floating in the sea...
Plastic debris floating in the sea...

Excessive plastic wrapping
Excessive plastic wrapping

and yet more excessive plastic wrapping
and yet more excessive plastic wrapping

Bring your own containers
Bring your own containers

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