The Eastern Garbage Patch - twice the size of Texas, between Here and Hawai'i

So, I just saw the article in the SF Chronicle this weekend, which made a reference to the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch."

http://science.howstuffworks.com/great-pac...rbage-patch.htm

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-great-...rbage-patch.htm

http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/3724/P...astics-Part-One

I'm absolutely shocked. Honestly, I was expecting a big pile of trash floating around out there...what if I sailed into it on a crossing to the islands?...actually, it's not nearly that visible.

But it's not as benign as a pile of bottles floating placidly, either.

Apparently, what's going on is, plastics are accumulating out there due to atmospheric and tidal forces...the sun and waves break them down...half of it sinks, half of it floats, but in smaller and smaller pieces...

...here's what I didn't realize about plastics: they repel water but tend to accumulate oil and other toxins, due to their relatively unstable molecular composition. So, as this stuff is breaking down out there, it's also accumulating other toxins as well...

..as you might imagine, marine life of all sizes and complexity mistake it for dinner and feed on this stuff...we eat that marine life...and the water bottle ITSELF (which supposedly contained a fluid that will keep us healthy) ends up in our food, as a toxin.

Sweet.

Apparently, this conglomeration has been growing since *1950!!!*
[gulp]

One other thing: apparently the raw plastic pellets used by manufacturers to mold plastic products also fall off of railway cars, etc., and (via stormdrains) end up here, too.

As one scientist remarked when they were sailing through it, "We don't go shopping anymore, we just wait for things to float by."

Here's something else: Living things in the area are evolving in unusual ways. For example, an odd sort of underwater cockroach of gigantic proportions.

[attachmentid=12241]

P.S. a recent study indicated that there was, by weight, 10-15 times as much plastic in the water, as there was phytoplankton. Also, there is, with current technology, no way to *ever* clean it up...even if we stopped using ALL plastics today.

And, on that pleasant note...a happy beginning of the week to us all!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rae Vynn @ Oct 29 2007, 05:47 PM) [snapback]532140[/snapback]</div>

You sound remarkably complacent about all of this; I'm a bit surprised, honestly.

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The documentary short I happened to view said that 20% of plastic pollution comes from ships(!!) and the other 80% is from land-based sources.

Considering how few people must be on those ships, 20% does seem a bit extreme.

What makes it worst is that plastics, themselves, attract other toxins as they float there and get broken into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic...the way they aggregate lots of nasty stuff and pass it quickly back up into the food chain is unique to this material. That's the problem.

The basic instability of the chemical compound itself.

I think it's this aspect of it ---the way the plastic attracts all kinds of toxins as it floats there, and then quickly reintroduces them into marine life, even directly to marine animals occupying high levels of the food chain--- that is particularly nasty and what I wasn't aware of.

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I have to say, I'm a bit surprised that few people here have replied, and that there hasn't been more...well...outcry.

I'm just beginning to realize that we can never throw anything away. EVER. It's all still here with us. I know that sounds naive, but it's my little sick-day realization; I'm going to indulge myself in thinking about how it might have an effect on me.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(samiam @ Oct 30 2007, 08:25 PM) [snapback]532686[/snapback]</div>

You know, I think you're right about 'crisis fatigue.' Honestly, I'm laid up sick right now and have waaaaay too much time on my hands to think about stuff.


For some reason, this particular thing really impacted me, and I'm still trying to figure out why; that, too, in itself is intriguing to me.

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Kind of free-associating...I've for quite some time felt that there was one or perhaps a few primary environmental factors of our own creation which could increase significantly the occurrence of mutative diseases...plastic being right there at the top of the list. (I also have this thing about radio waves and potentially the electrical systems in cars, but I'll keep that to myself).

I mean, the way it can so quickly taint the taste of a beverage; it doesn't take a rocket scientist to wonder what, exactly, might be causing that taste, and how bad it must be for me.

Same goes with that foggy film on the windows of vehicles (don't see it much anymore on cars, but it can still happen in boats and some RV's) from the offgassing of the plastics and petroleum-based adhesives used to put the interior together. Ever been to a boat show? Smelly!!

I know I'm probably coming off as really naive now, but I did a bit more research and happened on a group that was saving EVERY piece of plastic trash their small office generated for a YEAR! Even after a month, apparently, it was surprising how much there was.

I'm thinking about doing this for at least a week, just to see. And I'll tell you this, I will no longer make a habit of buying water in those little bottles. I mean, that's not asking too much, is it?

Now I wander around the home improvement store or discount mall and all I see is plastic:

Plastic that looks like wood
Plastic that looks like metal
Plastic that looks like stone
Plastic that looks like glass
Plastic that looks like like everything...but plastic.

And it will ALWAYS be plastic...maybe in microscopic pieces, but still plastic. It's creeping me out, and I'm beginning to think that my theories of us poisoning ourselves may not be as far off as I'd like them to be.

Okay, [ahem] so I'll take a pill and go back to bed!
[laughing]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rae Vynn @ Oct 30 2007, 09:31 PM) [snapback]532715[/snapback]</div>

[taking a breath] I agree...at least, in theory!!


<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Rae Vynn @ Oct 30 2007, 09:31 PM) [snapback]532715[/snapback]</div>

[sigh] I feel like, some folks believe the very act of working together (processes, rules, etc.) removes them from their grassroots heritage...and that, automatically, implies that one has sold out and is becoming part of the establishment they're fighting...(??) It's an odd dynamic.

On the other hand, lots of things which were strange are now familiar...maybe even some of the most out-there groups and causes are still part of this process...?



<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daniel @ Oct 30 2007, 08:12 PM) [snapback]532679[/snapback]</div>

Maybe we could spread plastic all over the ocean so it absorbs all the toxins, then sweep it all up and bury it in some salt dome in Nevada...?
[laughing, guardedly]

This goes along with my other idea: put a big plastic bag on top of my car with a tube going to the exhaust pipe...and when it gets full of pollutants, I'd just take it off and throw it away!!

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[attachmentid=12241]

Is it just me, or does anyone else want to touch the very center of this, just to see what it feels like?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Renocat @ Oct 31 2007, 08:16 AM) [snapback]532861[/snapback]</div>

You know, that was my first thought, too...if it's so big, why no pictures of it?

As it turns out, the concentration of things that still look like they did when they were manufactured isn't that great. What's happened is, by the time lots of this stuff has gotten there, it's traveled thousands of miles.

During that time, the sun and waves break everything into smaller and smaller pieces; by the time it all accumulates here most of it is already teeny-tiny.

Not only that, but the patch doesn't just exist on the surface; it actually extends way, way below ; they said that only 1/2 of the plastic will float at or near the top.

What's really telling is that the amount of plastic, by weight, is 10-15 times as great as the amount of phytoplankton in the water. Which means that the organisms in this area are eating 10-15 times as much plastic --and with it, all the toxins it's collected-- than they are food!!!

It's a giant waste sink for all the toxins that get into the ocean...and they're all accumulated in areas like these, via little bits of plastic, which collect them as they go.

Let me see if I can find the video I stumbled upon; it was these eight people in a sailboat who went out there as volunteers and took all kinds of water samples for study back on shore. It was some of these water samples which "did" it to me, actually...yikes!!
:-(

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I read, somewhere else, that future generations digging down through the strata of the ground will always be able to tell when they've reached our time; by then the plastic will have degraded into a toxic dust that will be embedded with every remnant of what our world was.

This will be our legacy, after all the big buildings and bridges and whatnot have been gone for so long, it will be like they never existed at all. It's conceivable that plastic will outlast even Democracy and Freedom.
[sigh]