I heard this probably 20 years ago, and have been cutting them ever since.

Remember humanity has the perpetual freshman class coming up.
No matter what you know there's many who don't yet.

I am a high-school teacher for students with autism that incorporate environmentalism into my Humanities teaching. I show them one picture of peanut the disfigured turtle and they are horrified and can't wait to help in any way I need them.

I always cut these... ALWAYS. It's not just sea creatures that get tangled in these.....

Over here in New Zealand, those 6 pack plastic things went out years ago. we still have wasteful packaging and we still need positive change - but there is little excuse to not know about those things by now.

I do NOT buy any of those things connected by plastic rings. Most all are bad anyway: soda,...

Saw a basket yesterday with many PETE bottles of water. I was close to telling the lady that the water in the bottles is the same as that pumped from the deep wells just north of Lansing.

If you do buy such stuff, PLEASE do not use the bottle again. Rinse and recycle.

Always rinse all containers, and recycle/return all of them.

Even water in gallon jugs is about 1000 times the cost of tap water. Yeah, i know there are many places that have shit water. SO: Don't buy the PETE bottles. Especially by Nestle. They are steeling water and fucking the planet. Don't contribute. Buy the biggest bottles possible.

ANNNNDDDDD:::: ALWAYS TAKE YOUR BAGS WHEN SHOPPING::: NEVER GET PLASTIC BAGS. Trillions made from oil every year and most are buried in land-piles.

Pump the oil OUT of the ground, boat it to refineries, make plastic bags from the oil, use once (because you're a lazy brain dead fuck), and bury it in the ground: fucking stupid.

I heard about this years ago and started cutting them up. I put things in my recycling containers and hope that they are recycled. Recently I read an article that China is no longer accepting our recycling materials.

I knew about this a long time ago. It seems to have been forgotten.

Moral responsibility lies with the manufacturers who should display reminders on their packaging for consumers to cut these things up before disposal.

Geez, I think I heard about cutting the plastic soda can rings back in the early 1990's as a kid. I agree.

If they somehow end up in ocean they can be ingested. I have seen them when skin diving over a mile out from shore and someone told me cruise ships dump garbage..lots of sea animals like turtles eat jelly fish and garbage bags or anything clear looks like food.

We live an in age when people get new information screened away from them all the time and a shocking number of people are fundamentally un-curious about acquiring it. This is only one example of that. While the knowledge is right there to be had, it may be the case that a lot of people simply don't care to learn anything new.

But look at your primary care physician. YOU often have to tell them stuff about medical studies. Even after stuff has been published for years!

The rediculousness that is a plastic spoon cannot be understated.

This was a major problem when we were dumping in the ocean or folks were careless with their refuse. Now its plastic bags appearing as jelly fish to sea turtles, which ingest them with fatal results.

Not as big a problem any more, according to Wikipedia they are now made with a photo-degradable plastic that will disintegrate in a few weeks and some are even being made with materials that are edible for marine life

Knowledge about this, or really, anything, is usually based on desire to learn. If a person is not interested in environmentalism then they will skip past articles that would educate them on it. That is why someone might know every technical aspect of a rifle and absolutely nothing about plastic waste disposal. We all have so much information at our fingertips, but we each only learn what we want to know and tend to blow off whatever doesn't interest us. Might be due to limited brain space, but more likely due to limited time. We tend to spend our time on things we enjoy. Its human nature. Expecting people to educate themselves on things they don't care about is futile, until you find a way to make them care.

My recycling company accepts them (but from force of habit I cut them up anyway)

It was burned in my brain. Those go in our burn pile and I still cut them first. Pointless. Yet I still do it.

Been teaching my daughter and others about this for a very long time. Any plastic loops really. I avoid 6-pack rings as much as I can.

A lot of people choose to live under a rock. LOL

I accidentally put down an answer when my answer did not fit any of the options.

I think that something has to be syndicated through the mainstream media with enough emphasis for it to become common knowledge. Sites like Youtube, Google Video, and such are also a means for something to become common knowledge, and this can take a few weeks.

That being said, I don't think such knowledge has become common knowledge, but what you are saying is definitely common sense. I remember that such issues were the reason why I developed a big preference for pro-environmental policies, provided that they don't cost a lot of money.

Doesn’t ‘common knowledge’ imply that the general public know it?

Are they still using the plastic rings to make a 6-pack? I have not seen those in a long time. Today, canned soda comes encased in a paper carton.

Came across this.