bbs and the environment
 

Are there any environmental hazards with non biodegrading bbs? I want to know before i purchase any. ie. birds eating them

OMFG I thought I had heard everything....forget the bullshit and just go play the damn game. Eat a bag and find out.

No need for that.

Anywho yes, birds can choke on/ingest/whatever bbs. If that bothers you then buy biodegradables.

hmm... i dont think that birds would eat the bb's...

they tend to eat like berries on trees, andi have never seen them eat off of the ground anyway..

i would be more concerned about the squirrels, but then again i am no enviromental expert...

regardless of how biodegradable the bb is, its not going to biodegrade in 2 mins, by the time the bird puts the bb in its mouth, flys away, and chokes, it will have fallen from the sky, broken bones, and died, long before the bb degrades anough to fit down its little throught.
There is some good news though, in the years that I have played airsoft, I have never seen a dead bird on the ground, and if I did, I doubt it would have been from that.
Now its another story about those heavy bb's hitting worms on the head! and our boots stomping on the ferns

If birds are dumb enough to eat pebbles off the ground I have no doubt that a BB would look interesting to them.

Regardless to what happens to animals, plastic BBs are still bad for the environment no matter how small. I have used biodegradeable BBs in the past and would use them again if it was easily available in Canada.

Birds eat pebbles off of the ground to aid in digestion of their food. They have a "gullet" in their throats to aid in the grinding of their food. Birds as you may have or obviously have not noticed HAVE NO TEETH. So I guess they are not the stupid ones.

I think the exhaust fumes you burn on your way to a game would do more damage than a few good bags of bbs on the ground...

That's a rather weak excuse and not everyone drives to events. ;) I know I try and take public transit where I can (yes I'm a bit more extreme). If it's not your cup of tea that's ok but the initial question is still valid.

Excel biodegradeable BBs do degrade although slowly, I found it takes over 6 weeks to degrade over the summer (tested a couple of summers ago) at my parents back yard. It was a controlled test, I didn't shoot there. ;)

I've accidently swallowed a couple that fell into a sandwitch at a game. Passed right through just like corn. I don't think animals are dumb enough to eat them, and if they do, other than some kinds of birds (the ones that use a crop, like diving ducks), they just pass through.

I think the only danger non-biodegradable BBs pose in the short term is an eyesore. They do eventually break down and I really don't think we use them in enough quantity to do any real damage.

Also the non-biodegradable ones do break down after about 4 years. I've been watching a small pile up at our Muskoka field that was dropped the first year I was there. The BBs have turned yellow and the surfaces are pitting. Its just a matter of time, but they are disintegrating. Unless someone specifically asks you to use biobbs and you *really* want to play on the field enough to go for the added cost, god bless, but I think the whole biobb thing is a pile of horseshit. Do they break down faster? Absolutely. Does it make a net difference to the evironment after 10 years? No.

But, each to his own.

If I recall correctly, someone tested the bio bb's a few years ago and they wouldn't degrade any more than the non-bio's.

In other words, it's horseshit.

Actually Morb, its true, they do breakdown faster than regular BBs, there was a fellow here on ASC (who's username I cannot recall at this moment), PM'd me back and forth over for about 6 months. He put a biobb and a regular BB in a planter in his house and just watered the plant regularly and the biobb did start to show break down by color change and pitting, whereas the regular BB didn't - but was the progression significantly faster? Sorta, but not dramatically so. He terminated the experiment before the biobb really completely broke down - he took it out at 6 months and tried to crush it and it was still structurally sound. Those 4 year old BBs I'm talking about sound sort of like where the biobb was at 6 months.

So, while it may be somewhat faster, does it *really* make a difference to the environment? No. Like others have said here before, you do more damage burning petrochemicals driving to a game than you do playing airsoft.

Now you dummies did it......Recon is planning to feed bb's to Turkeys, so they can do low fly overs and bomb the enemy.