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It sounds like they can cause issues for marine life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_particle_water_pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_parti

It sounds like they can cause issues for marine life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_particle_water_pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_particle_water_polluti... such as just physically choking them or leaching chemicals. It may be a good idea to not run the experiment of "what happens when we coat marine life with a lot of plastic beads" because it could be really expensive to clean up if we find out it's bad later on.

randyrand 11y ago
I'd argue that animals will adapt
- mahouse 11y ago
  The same animals adapted to oil spills.
  - randyrand 11y ago
    There haven't been enough oil spills.
smsm42 11y ago
Wait, it was said those are super-small - so small, filters can't filter them out. So how can it then be that animals are choking on them? Are they congealing somehow? The article you quoted shows some pretty large beads. I see how they could harm a small creature, but for beads this large it should be pretty easy to filter them out. Are those the same beads or different beads?
- xsmasher 11y ago
  Animals come in all sizes, and the big ones depend on the little ones. And so, ad infinitum.
  - smsm42 11y ago
    This is true, but what I am trying to understand is why sand and dust does not hurt these animals but microbead particles of the same size do.
    - rleigh 11y ago
      Two factors. 1) Density. Sand and dust settle out. Plastic has a lower or similar density to water, so will collect at the surface or float in the water column. 2) Structure and surface properties. Plastic is hydrophobic and usually not completely solid--it is more of a sponge at the microscopic level. This means it can adsorb and absorb oils, which in turn can absorb biologically active chemicals from the water, effectively concentrating them. This basically means that small organisms at the lower end of the food chain can end up ingesting these, including all the nasty stuff, and these cause problems up the food chain, either by killing or reducing the turnover of the lower organisms, starving the higher organisms of nutrition, and also by concentrating the toxins up the food chain.
      - smsm42 11y ago
        I wonder if density issue can be fixed - i.e. if it's possible to make microbeads with density/specific gravity that would make them sink. AFAIK, there are plastics/compounds like that. Not sure how hard is to fix the absorption issue.

randyrand 11y ago

I'd argue that animals will adapt

mahouse 11y ago
The same animals adapted to oil spills.
- randyrand 11y ago
  There haven't been enough oil spills.

smsm42 11y ago

Wait, it was said those are super-small - so small, filters can't filter them out. So how can it then be that animals are choking on them? Are they congealing somehow? The article you quoted shows some pretty large beads. I see how they could harm a small creature, but for beads this large it should be pretty easy to filter them out. Are those the same beads or different beads?

xsmasher 11y ago
Animals come in all sizes, and the big ones depend on the little ones. And so, ad infinitum.
- smsm42 11y ago
  This is true, but what I am trying to understand is why sand and dust does not hurt these animals but microbead particles of the same size do.
  - rleigh 11y ago
    Two factors. 1) Density. Sand and dust settle out. Plastic has a lower or similar density to water, so will collect at the surface or float in the water column. 2) Structure and surface properties. Plastic is hydrophobic and usually not completely solid--it is more of a sponge at the microscopic level. This means it can adsorb and absorb oils, which in turn can absorb biologically active chemicals from the water, effectively concentrating them. This basically means that small organisms at the lower end of the food chain can end up ingesting these, including all the nasty stuff, and these cause problems up the food chain, either by killing or reducing the turnover of the lower organisms, starving the higher organisms of nutrition, and also by concentrating the toxins up the food chain.
    - smsm42 11y ago
      I wonder if density issue can be fixed - i.e. if it's possible to make microbeads with density/specific gravity that would make them sink. AFAIK, there are plastics/compounds like that. Not sure how hard is to fix the absorption issue.