Steam locomotives and the environment.

[clayliner]

Thanks for this, Brian. According to the article the consent to extract for 15 years appears to have been granted in 2006, which according to my maths means it will be shutting down production any day now...

David.

[clayliner]

Just to confirm Brian's earlier figure, I see that December's Railway Magazine indeed reports that steam loco emissions were just 0.023% of the total UK CO2 emissions in 2018 [i.e. pre-pandemic]. "The HRA has secured the government's assurances that the Environment Bill will have no direct impact on the heritage steam sector, and that there is no intention to change its policy towards heritage steam".

So we can all relax...

David.

[David Weber]

...

So we can all relax...

David.

Until the green, tree huggers spot that they haven't yet targeted the heritage railway movement ...  :-\

It's already happened. The Avon Valley Railway was targeted by a person or persons unknown who painted messages on the cycle path alongside the railway claiming that 'coal trains cause global warming' and urging people to 'boycott' the railway and it's popular cafe at Bitton.

[Tom Haythornthwaite]

I'm a proud, very green tree-hugger.  And like most green tree-huggers, I am concentrating on the real problems which are astronomically bigger and astronomically less culturally important.

[clayliner]

the real problems which are astronomically bigger and astronomically less culturally important.

I read an article by (?tree-hugger) George Monbiot the other day in which he said the major offenders want individuals to focus on relatively trivial personal issues like bamboo toothbrushes - that way we will keep off their case. He has a name for this: MCB [Micro-Consumerist B*ll*cks]

So by all means re-use those plastic bags (though he says it has been estimated that one organic cotton tote bag has the same environmental impact as 20,000 plastic ones) but maybe focus more on the big stuff, like (globally) levelling down (3% annual growth means a doubling of economic activity in just 24 years). And put another round in the firebox without feeling guilty about it!

David.

[Hobby]

I always think that the problem with plastics, especially bags and those micro beads, is not the use of plastic to make them but what happens to them after use, people just seem to dump them so we see them flying around and getting to places they shouldn't do and causing problems when they do. We use plastic a lot in our hobby but I don't see anyone demanding we stop, probably because we don't tend to throw away what we use!

[clayliner]

We use plastic a lot in our hobby...

It depends what you mean by 'a lot', Blair. Yes, it's a sizeable proportion of our modelling materials, but in global plastics terms the actual amount we use is vanishingly small - definitely not worth losing any sleep over! Anyway, as long as we all keep recycling our stuff via the Sales and Recycling Service it'll never get back into the environment.  :)

David.

[Graeme Dunbar]

I think the "we don't tend to throw away..." bit is key. That may even apply to the packaging as well as the contents, with boxes and vacuum moulded retaining trays inside them.

I think a criteria similar to the clothing 'cost per wear' might be applied. A soft drinks bottle has a useful life with respect to the purchaser only until the contents are drunk and the bottle disposed of whereas a model may have a useful life that exceeds that of its original purchaser.

Concerns over 'microparticles' in a hobby context might be less of a concern too. True, filing, sanding and so on will generate small chips of plastic but I wonder how much that is compared to what we shed from our clothes and wear off the soles of our shoes day after day?