This is not really new but what is interesting is that GWCT has recently posted this video. I don’t quite know what is going on in GWCT but something is…
It shows that the UK is already over 30 years behind Denmark and it’s another example of a shooter telling UK shooters that there isn’t a problem.
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No problem? They have chosen to ignore that they now have a significant problem with plastic wad pollution on their foreshore given the fact that steel shot cartridges, are only now just being made available with biodegradable wads and then certainly not a cheap alternative as they show for the type they have been using with thick non biodegradable one use plastic wads.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29525627/
Two points: (i) the abstract for the article you cite refers to two sources for the plastic pollution identified on Danish beaches – shells and wads. Eliminating the shell part of the problem merely requires shooters to pick up the shells after they have used them rather than leaving them lying on the ground. (ii) As you yourself acknowledge, ammunition manufacturers are now producing cartridges with steel shot and biodegradable wads. Whether or not these are a cheap alternative I cannot say but my view would be that if it costs a bit more to shoot without polluting the environment then so be it.
How far does the wad fly from the barrel roughly? Why don’t shooters pick them up? Crisps all come in plastic packages but we don’t excuse people who enjoy eating crisps just dropping the bags everywhere. (Ditto plastic water bottles and other similar items.)
If people want to do an activity they need to prevent the harmful consequences.
Many human activities have harmful consequences for the environment, just suits your agenda to pick on shooting compared to say formula one racing, or the millions that fly for a holiday.
And here’s the desperate whataboutery. If you can’t indulge your hobby without f***ing up the world for everyone else, then that hobby should be taken from you. The same applies to motor racing and frivolous flying. If you really gave a damn about the damage caused by plastic wads, you’d cease shooting until alternatives are available. But you won’t, will you.
No because I do not use plastic wads because I do not use steel shot, clay grounds and farmers round these parts do not like plastic wads being used.
China has done a better job of f***ing up the world with COVID-19 for everybody then I will ever do by my shooting.
I look forward to seeing you standing outside Heathrow air port with your banner calling for a ban on all frivolous flying, good luck with that one.
I can assure you John that I strongly oppose all the other destructive things too, including the two you mention. (Did you know Lewis Hamilton also avoided paying tax when buying his private jet by the way?) So no, I am not picking and choosing. I’m opposing all of them, including scattering thousands of tonnes of lead around the world every year.
John’s just admitted that he’s perfectly happy to carry on polluting our countryside, while hiding behind the plastic issue, then goes off on his own completely unrelated tangent of China and Covid.
We’ve seen some stunning hypocrites on these pages over the years, but he’s right up there with the best!
John I don’t know if this comment was directed at me but it is nonsense. This is a discussion about whether or not lead shot is harmful to wildlife and, if so, whether it should be banned. I have views on many different environmental issues – as I am sure we all do – but they are not relevant to this discussion.
As far as the issue of lead shot is concerned ‘my agenda’ is definitely that there is no justification for spraying it all over the countryside so that it can be ingested by birds and cause their intoxication. Alternatives exist and there is no excuse for not using them.
Coop, you need to live in the real world, when did it become your countryside you do not own the private land over which I shoot, if the owner of that land does not allow the use of single use non biodegradable plastic wads yet needs on occasion his crop protected to protect their livelihood then the only realistic choice is to use lead shot with biodegradable fibre wads to which their is no law stopping us. Will I use the steel shot cartridges with biodegradable wads, yes but none are yet available in 28gauge.
Perhaps you should be venting your obvious frustration to the EU manufacture of shotgun components demanding they listen to you insisting they make such biodegradable wads after all how could they refuse you, oh wait we are not even in the EU club anymore, close the door on your way out.
John – Coop and the rest of us are all paying for that land through our taxes, so don’t get too uppity – you owe us.
Wads fly twenty plus meters from the end of the barrel and frequently to a place where it is impossible or very unlikely to be retrieved even if found. Their is no excuse for not collecting up the spent cartridge case.
Not against the argument that shooting need to prevent harmful consequences within what is practical and hence why in the U.K. the goal is to move to both non toxic shot and biodegradable wads at the same time, not decades later.
However the video was biased and ignored the environmental issue of using non biodegradable plastic wads.
@John
The topic of the video was the use of lead-free shot, not plastic cartridges and wadding. So I don’t think it is fair to say the video presentation was biased and ignored the environmental issue. The environmental issue was the use of lead shot in this context!
The article you directed us to about plastic wadding etc. is authored by the very same presenter of the video, so I presume, he’s very aware of the potential impact of spent cartridges / wadding from shooting activities.
Denmark banned lead shot many many years ago, along with charging for use of plastic carrier bags for shopping and having incentives for recycling plastic / metal drinking bottles (deposit return scheme). Maybe they will introduce a deposit return scheme for cartridges or phase out lead in rifle cartridges??
I live and work in Denmark and I’m not a hunter, but the interesting aspect, which I know from personal experience, is that organisations like the Danish Hunters Association are willing to discuss and adapt, as society changes and concerns raised.
I guess it depended on which was the worst of the two evils scattering the countryside with lead or plastic, the opportunity to remove both at the same time (unlike DK) has only recently become achievable and hence the goal to do so for all live quarry shooting in the U.K. within the next five years. Hopefully it will be achieved sooner than five years but DK is a tiny market compared to the U.K. and manufactures need time and money to increase production capacity, most of which is manufactured outside the U.K. so we have little or no control over, especially as we are no longer part of the EU.
Personally I think the video was biased as it identified steel shot as a suitable alternative to lead but said nothing about the consequences of using it regarding plastic pollution however bismuth shot does not need a plastic wad but being prohibitively expensive compared to steel (or lead) was ignored in the video.
bismuth was not ignored in the video – I believe there was a slide which looked at the alternatives to lead that have been used in Denmark which included bismuth but we were told in practice are dominated by steel. If the Danish experience has been largely based on steel then it is only reasonable that that is what he talked about given the title of his talk.
Let’s agree to disagree, one slide on bismuth dismissing it due to cost, at the same time praising steel for being similar in price to lead. But not one slide showing the disadvantages of using steel shot ie, pollution from the non biodegradable plastic wads. May be they did not want to bring that into the open and risk a ban on non biodegradable wads.
It’s good to show the advantages of non toxic shot but you do not have a working cartridge without the other parts and the wad is an important part that also ends up in the environment, so cannot be ignored when discussing the merits of non toxic shot cartridges.
The presenter of the video was by the same person as the article you cited. He wasn’t biased or dishonest and it certainly was not pursuing an anti shooting agenda (the speaker identifies himself and a long-time hunter). It was addressing the issue of the elimination of lead shot from a Danish perspective.
Plastic wads is certainly an issue that needs to be addressed (and biodegradable wads suitable for use with steel shot are now available) but it does not mean that lead shot can and should be withdrawn from use.
Although many in the shooting world had been quietly hoping this would go away, i cannot believe that the major ammunition producers have not, at least,been considering a future in the UK without lead. Especially with countries like Denmark, and the USA, already travelling this road, and further EU legislation likely, i would like to think they are nearer a workable solution
than they admit.
The growing reluctance of markets, especially newer ones, to accept lead shot game ,will accelerate the process.
The bigger stumbling block will be developing workable loads for gauges smaller than 12/16, as ballistics / pressures/ cartridge length etc, are currently hard to reconcile with steel.
“when did it become your countryside” (sic)
In his petulance, john reveals another aspect of his character.
And you reveal you have a chip on both shoulders and think land should not be privately owned and recent that fact.
John – resent?
I recent it! I’m full of recentment. In fact, no-one’s more recentful than me. No chips on our shoulders, just well-developed bullshit detectors.
Mark says:
November 18, 2020 at 8:56 pm
John – Coop and the rest of us are all paying for that land through our taxes, so don’t get too uppity – you owe us.
Really Mark, 4.5 acres fetched for £71,000 the other day perhaps you can arrange for your taxes to refund the money to the purchaser.
Plus that does not make that land yours, your name is not on the land registry is it.
John – don’t be an idiot (please). Our taxes pay farmers’ lifestyles. The taxpayer owns farming.
And who forks out to clean up the pollution that John and his mates feel entitled to inflict on our countryside? Or, for that matter, subsidizes his shotgun licence?
Coop, when the very first firearms act, the pistol act of 1903 was introduced, it was concluded that society at large benefited by controlling pistols and hence the fee has always in part reflected that principle. Shotgun certificates are relatively new 1968 compared to firearms and for many years you did not need a certificate to own shotguns.
Where I use lead shot the law allows me to however once able to do so will change to steel shot.
And yet more irrelevancies. The fact remains that shotgun certificates are subsidized by the taxpayer.
Obviously you have a far better understanding of it than I do because yes farmers receive tax payers money for tendering the land they farm, depending on the amount of land.
But then other businesses can receive tax payers money in various grants and people on low earning received taxpayers money hence in reality supporting whatever business they work for, how do you conclude that therefore tax payers own the farm business assets i.e the land but not the business assets of the other businesses or perhaps you think taxpayers do.
John – your argument is ‘others cash in too’? Well done. Highly principled.
To me this is a narrow discussion about the shooting world and the gun/ammo industry just waiting until the last minute when “push comes to shove”. Nobody in that world seems brave enough to grab it, run with it and turn it into a positive PR story for shooting. But also, like tiny becks that form streams, that then form rivers, every discussion about every topic on land use if continued long enough, always flows to the sea of “who owns the land, and what rights do they have”.
A purely technical question – doesn’t steel shot wear out the barrels quicker?
Howard – thank you for your first comment here. It depends on the barrel as to whether that makes much difference or not. Tens of thousands of Danish shooters haven’t stopped shooting and have been using a range of non-toxic shot for years. It is already illegal to use lead shot for shooting wildfowl (or over wetlands – the exact details differ in different UK nations) and despite a lot of fuss at the time, this is no longer an issue for wildfowlers. Of course, that might be because although using lead shot is illegal there is a high level of non-compliance ie shooters breaking the law.
Thanks Mark.
What I take from all this is that steel shot and biodegradable wads seems the right way to go – what about going back to paper hulls?
Maybe I’m being naive, so please, people, don’t shoot me down!
Are there any significant cost and/or efficiency issues involved? Are there any safety issues?