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Revision as of 00:09, 5 May 2005

Pollution

Is there a dispute over the claims made by some organizations that PWCs pollute? Please discuss. -Willmcw 16:57, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

Well, there cannot be a dispute that they pollute; after all, they are internal combustion engined and inevitably emit pollutants when used. The question is how much, and what effects that has, and how serious a problem that is, and whether it amounts to anything significant in comparison to other forms of pollution. —Morven 17:19, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

go away hippy

The references that were in this article are misleading, dated, and false.

Also, the majority of watercraft sold are either clean burning direct-injected 2-stroke engines that emit less emissions than cars and use biodegradable oil or are 4-stroke powered just like the cars we drive.

I'm prepared to dig up the sourvces for the material on pollution. Are you prepared to provide sources for those assertions? Also, cars do not direct their exhaust directly into the water, so even if the pollution output were identical, the impact on bodies of water would be greater from PWCs. Thanks-Willmcw 23:19, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

This is a place to define PWC right? Take your naturalist bs somewhere else please... someone looking up "Pollution from Personal watercraft" looks for your info... not someone who wants to know what they are.

"Even if the pollution output were identical, the impact...." So I assume you feel there is a difference for exhaust into the air? Does it end up in the environment? In a perfect world, nobody would pollute anything, however, we are alive so even if we were cavemen, the 'environmentalists' would want to ban campfires.

Yes I'm prepared to cite sources too.--SuperJETT 23:38, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Citing sources and turning inaccurate statements into properly referenced, NPOV statements are what we should be doing. An article about personal watercraft needs to have information about their environmental impact, especially since it has attracted fairly widespread attention. —Morven 23:50, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

Deleting sourced information without comment is vandalism. The anon who is doing so needs to stop. Thanks, -Willmcw 00:09, May 5, 2005 (UTC)

biodegradable oil

Manufacturers have come out with biodegradable oil a number of years ago for personal water crafts; I don't know anyone who still uses the conventional stuff, most of us care about the environment and enjoy being out exploring on the water:

http://www.pennzoil.com/products/marine/100pcSynth2cycle.html

http://www.sharetrails.org/magazine.cfm?story=320

http://www.autochic.com/redline/specialty.html

This company lists a whole bunch of them:

http://www.nmma.org/certification/programs/oils/

Sure you might get some idiots that use car oil in their PWCs (2 stroke) but most stopped. 4-stroke PWCs are as clean as a car since they use catalytic converters.

I think there is a good middle ground here.

Let's see what facts can be agreed on.

From a quick read up on the topic, these seem to be some salient points about PWC pollution. Let's see if we can get reasonable agreement on these?:

1. Prior to 1996, PWC emissions were unregulated in the United States. In that year, the EPA passed pollution regulations for PWCs. These were set up after dialog 1991-1996 between the EPA and manufacturers.
2. 2-stroke PWCs sold before the 1990s, and the oils they used, were highly polluting.
3. 4-stroke PWC engines have always been less polluting than 2-stroke; modern 4-stroke PWCs feature similar technologies to cars (catalytic converters, etc) to reduce emissions to low levels.
4. Modern 2-stroke PWCs are much improved over their pre-1990 forebears. The use of cleaner-burning direct injection and biodegradable oils have made a significant difference. However, they still pollute more than 4-stroke PWCs.
5. California is operating an accelerated program of compliance compared to the rest of the US.

Anything else we can add to that?

This does of course ignore the complaints of noise pollution and of other, non-pollution environmental impact, which we should also address. —Morven 00:04, May 5, 2005 (UTC)