enviro friendly sinkers

[roz]

I was shopping in Big W recently and came across these sinkers, now I do realise a lot of you out there already knew about this product, but I didn't.

So for those who didn't, here is something I think is very worth while.

They were developed and made in Australia, are completely biodegradable and are almost identical in weight to a similar sized lead sinker.

I check the enviroweight 30gm bean sinker against the same size in lead and found the latter to be around 4gms heavier. Not much to worry about IMO.

Priced at around $5.00 for 12.

Hope some of you find this useful.

cheers roz.

[rockfisho]

Looks good, quite expensive though.

Good to see that they are Australian made!

rockfisho

[carpel]

lead is illegal in some country , England for example..

[ffejsmada]

I bought some last week and have had one soaking in water now for 9 days.

It is still hard, but has formed ferrous like filaments and rusty coloured staining of the water. Interesting.

Just want to see how long it takes to break down and how it actually does break down.

Jeff

[bayfisher]

I have noticed lately that many of the tt jig heads now come in 'lead free' as well. Defiantly a move in the right direction

Cheers Chris

[Fafnir]

I was talking to one of their reps recently. Seems like a top idea, especially as carpel pointed out, lead is illegal in some countries, and there is now an increasing push to ban it in some US lakes. Interesting that is a move which is getting a fair bit of support from anglers who believe that lead levels in some US lakes are reaching dangerous levels.

Apparently it's compressed metal shavings, or something to that effect. It's meant to simply rust away over time. Takes a fair while as Jeff seems to be finding out. Which is good, as you know that by drying them off after each trip they shouldn't just disolve away in the bottom of the tackle box. They are a bit expensive at the moment, but I am sure other manufacturer will get on board and that will drive down prices. Good to see the Aussies coming up with another winner.

[tunaticer]

Ive often wondered why zinc isn't used as a lead replacement, it is cheap and it is heavy and breaks down relatively quickly.

If these envirosinkers are iron based that would lead towards a damaging residue even though it is less toxic than lead it will suppress marine growth for a time until it completely breaks down.

Jack.

[oldboot]

I noticed their apperaance too.

there was a crowd trying to sell compressed iron sinkers on one of the TV shows a year or two back.

there is someone else on ebay selling natural rock sinkers... . they are a rock that has a hole drilled in it and a swivel glued in.

I recon non lead sinkers are a good idea.... but waht about the cost and availability.

I notice these enviro sinkers are only in larger sizes.

cheers

[aussiefool]

I looked at them aswell and compaired the prices with "normal"lead singers and thought that the price was ok. But dosen't lead break down aswell over time?

[Davemclean]

lead is illegal in some country , England for example..

yup, not alowed lead for freshwater fishing, usually a mixture of metals...or tugsten, bloody exspensive

[dogsbody]

Yeah there needs to be an alternative there's a lot of lead out there on the sea floor.

Hey Jeff about your experiment do you change the water? Would the amount of oxygen in the water make a difference?


Dave.

[Poodroo]

Sounds good to me Roz. Thanks for sharing it with us. I have often wondered just how much lead we leave down there so the fact that these break down is a good thing. I think that the price is fair so long as they don't start breaking down too fast in the tackle box.

Poodroo

[myde]

I agree that sooner or later we will have to stop putting lead into our waterways, especially in closed waters. Lead is reasonably stable but it does break down and will end up in some sort of soluble form in the water.

Lead is actually around 40% more dense than iron. By making the iron sinker just slightly larger, you don't notice the difference so much , especially in the larger sizes.

For example, a 20mm diameter sinker made from lead weighs around 47g. By making the iron sinker just over 22mm diameter, you will achieve the same weight in an iron sinker.

[finga]

I've been thinking about this a bit and thought to myself how many sinkers I would loose a year.
Wasn't many really. Loose a fair few hooks but not that many sinkers.
So how many sinkers in reality would you loose a year??
Might as well say size as well.
Personally I'd be more concerned about the other junk coming out of the outboard and the plastic bags etc floating around the oceans then some lost sinkers.
If these enviro sinkers are press iron how do they get on with modern skinny lines and braid??
Do they chafe lines because of the hardness??
Cheers then
Scott

[oldboot]

yeh lead does break down BUT unlike iron it is persistent in animal bodies.

so lead falls to the bottom.... one way or another something eats it along with its normal food.... something eats that...........lead poison up the food chain.

In the US the issue is lead shot from shotguns in the lakes....
they were finding the waterbirds were ending up with quite large amounts of shot in their guts.


iron on the other hand is a normal part of the bottom in many places & is a normal part of the metabolism of most animals.

I think the reason we ahve used lead all these years is that it was very cheap and redilay available and extreeeeeemly easy to mould.
Well within the reach of anybody with a reasonable heat source and a steel container

Compressed iron on the other hand requires substantial equipment.

For the small sinkers I think we are stuck with buying shelf product,
but if we deliberately think of things other than lead, there are many things that come to hand that we could use for the heavier stuff.

for example
steel off cuts instead of snapper leads
hey you could even drill holes in rocks.

Perhaps one problem we have is that the vast majority of us are off the shelf anglers....and we want to just buy what ever off the shelf and go fishing.....so used driven inovation is not so strong.

cheers