Like India?
Posted on 11/08/2019 8:00:33 AM PST by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
“The potential that plastics are releasing bio-inhibitory compounds during photodegradation in the ocean could impact microbial community productivity and structure, with unknown consequences for the biogeochemistry and ecology of the ocean,”
They want funding next year.
Net/net of the article: The sun breaks down plastics in the ocean and what is released is bio-available, ie food for stuff.
Net/net of the article: The sun breaks down plastics in the ocean and what is released is bio-available, ie food for stuff.
Couldn’t plastic be degraded into harmless chemicals, in treatment plants, before it is dumped into the oceans, just as human waste is rendered harmless?
we need to dump more stuff into the oceans...
Sure, but that would take energy to feed the reactions, and money to collect, sort, and transport all the plastic. Plus I think most of the plastic ending up on the ocean is not being dumped in the ocean intentionally by responsible parties who care about the environment.
A simpler solution is just to burn plastic and use the heat from that to generate electricity to offset the costs of collecting it. Fat chance the green crowd would let us do that though.
It’s our best chance to stop Cthulhu from rising again!
95% or some ridiculous amount of plastic ocean waste dumps out of the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers and the Ganges. China and India respectively with almost all the rest dumped out of Africa. The civilized world does not dump plastic in the oceans.
Get those places to clean up their acts and problem solved.
It is not rocket surgery nor brain science. It is them. No need to treat our plastics. We don’t dump them.
Net/net of the article: The sun breaks down plastics in the ocean and what is released is bio-available, ie food for stuff.
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This is stunning and so unexpected considering that plastics are made from organic material. /sarc
In a somewhat related phenomenon:
“Vehicles may crowd the asphalt of downtown Los Angeles freeways above ground, but below ground hundreds of newly discovered bacteria thrive by munching on heavy oil and natural asphalt. Trapped in the Rancho La Brea tar pits 28,000 years ago, the bacteria are equipped with special enzymes that can break down petroleum”
Source: https://www.livescience.com/1515-asphalt-munching-bacteria-discovered.html
Life on Earth is relentless.
Like India?
See #7
Your point is exceedingly valid.
Pic is a reminder of how fortunate we are to live where we do
Hey, cut India some slack. That is progress from the feces and human corpses that used to fill that waterway!
/ simulated sunlight increased the amount of dissolved carbon in the water /
Hmmmm, doesn’t take a thermodynamics physicist to extrapolate this to “Climate Change” resolution.
It’s racist to accuse India and China. Why? Just ‘cause it is.
Stupid-Useless-Paper-Straws BUMP
Enter George Carlin:
The earth doesn’t share our prejudice towards plastic.....
“The planet … is a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed. And if it’s true that plastic is not degradable, well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice toward plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us. Could be the answer to our age-old egocentric philosophical question, ‘Why are we here?’”
“Plastic...A-Hole!”
-George Carlin
95% of river-borne plastic polluting the world's oceans comes from just TEN rivers
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