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One can only hope that eventually a solution will be developed that fixes the long-lived problems that plastics cause- perhaps a bacteria or chemical that break

by JTbane 8y ago

One can only hope that eventually a solution will be developed that fixes the long-lived problems that plastics cause- perhaps a bacteria or chemical that breaks them down. In the meantime plastic waste is here to stay.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
This was mentioned before. Plastic is used in all sorts of applications for its durability and lack of reactivity. It doesn't rot. It doesn't corrode. In certain environments it dries out and cracks but that's about it. While there's a lot of plastic in the ocean it's relatively thinly distributed. It's not like there's a bunch of bottles floating in one place. It's a bunch of plastic dust in the water column. Any sort of bacteria or chemical that is self sustaining enough to be dropped in the ocean and expected to clean up the plastic would likely wreak havoc on all sorts of things. Any sort of bacteria or chemical that is sensitive enough that it won't wreak havoc in the environments where we don't want it to likely can't be applied in a effective or economical manner in the oceans.
- EGreg 8y ago
  So there is no solution?
  - ISL 8y ago
    Reduce, reuse, recycle.
  - creep 8y ago
    In a couple hundred million years the Earth will regenerate, new species will evolve, etc. I do think we have a responsibility as self-aware beings to pick up after ourselves, but at the same time the Earth will be fine long-term. You could even say it's fine now. Yes, species are going extinct at an alarming rate, but we came from the Earth too and are not the only contributing factors to Earth's various disasters. I'm not about to throw trash out the window because of that fact, it's just that I don't have so much anxiety about totally destroying the planet. Maybe we will destroy the planet inasmuch as we can't live on it anymore, but that's our own damn fault and it's almost nothing compared to the longevity of the Earth.
- artmageddon 8y ago
  > While there's a lot of plastic in the ocean it's relatively thinly distributed. It's not like there's a bunch of bottles floating in one place. It's a bunch of plastic dust in the water column. But it's distributed over a very large area, and affects sea-life. Guess what that means for people who consume fish?
  - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
    I don't know how it affects sea-life. Other than the occasional scare-tactic picture of a turtle with a plastic web stuck to it, what is the systemic effect? Sure there's lots of plastic in the ocean; there's lots of sand too. What's really at issue?
    - at-fates-hands 8y ago
      The United Nations Ocean Conference estimated that the oceans might contain more weight in plastics than fish by the year 2050.[33] Some long-lasting plastics end up in the stomachs of marine animals, mature and immature.[6][34][35] The food chain is affected as the plastic attracts seabirds and fish. When marine life consumes plastic allowing it to enter the food chain, this can lead to greater problems when species that have consumed plastic are being eaten by other predators. Besides the particles' danger to wildlife, on the microscopic level the floating debris can absorb organic pollutants from seawater, including PCBs, DDT, and PAHs.[40] Aside from toxic effects,[41] when ingested, some of these are mistaken by the endocrine system as estradiol, causing hormone disruption in the affected animal.[38] These toxin-containing plastic pieces are also eaten by jellyfish, which are then eaten by fish. Many of these fish are then consumed by humans, resulting in their ingestion of toxic chemicals.[42] While eating their normal sources of food, plastic ingestion can be unavoidable or the animal may mistake the plastic as a food source.[43][44][45][46][47] Marine plastics also facilitate the spread of invasive species that attach to floating plastic in one region and drift long distances to colonize other ecosystems.[15] Research has shown that this plastic marine debris affects at least 267 species worldwide.[48] Great Pacific garbage patch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch
    - 8y ago
chinathrow 8y ago
At least these guys are trying to clean up the mess others did. https://www.theoceancleanup.com/ https://www.theoceancleanup.com/
titzer 8y ago
I know that it's a natural reaction to try to think of a technical solution to a massive problem like this, but to be completely and brutally honest I think humans, as a race, are now obligated to get off our fat asses and pick up some trash. Hands and knees, trash bags, buckets, shovels. A single person can easily pick up 10kg of trash an hour. The 8 million metric tons that will likely end up in the ocean this year, if it were instead collected by people (on land, before it gets in the ocean) at 10kg/hr, 2000hrs/yr, that's 400,000 people. That's really not many when spread across dozens of countries. Also, it's way easier and cheaper to just put garbage in the garbage bin. So in reality it could be far less than this number that are all that is needed to keep the planet free of trash. Also, robots. But mostly we just need to get off our asses and pick up some trash!
- creep 8y ago
  Okay, you first.
  - titzer 8y ago
    I picked up 300 bags of litter last year.
    - creep 8y ago
      I pick up bottles and cigarette butts.
      - titzer 8y ago
        Thank you!
- curun1r 8y ago
  I'm not sure that's the answer. I got an eye-opening view of the problem when I took a trip to Southeast Asia a couple years ago. Being in the third world, there's very few recycling plants to process plastic waste. The next best option, as you've implied, is landfills to sequester plastic waste...sacrifice that land to keep the rest of our planet clean(er). But even that's hard in many places. On many of the islands I visited, people did make a conscientious effort to throw their plastic garbage in bins and do the right thing. And that worked great, up until one of the massive deluges of rain that the area gets would come. And since they had no landfill area that was far enough from the water, the rains would wash the entire landfills out to sea in a massive river of plastic waste. It was one of the most depressing sights I've ever seen. On one of the scuba dives I went on, we found ourselves surfacing in a debris field that had washed out to sea and it was astonishing to see the magnitude of it. Collecting everything together, as in your suggestion, just led to a massive batch dump into the ocean and it didn't do anything to keep the waste out of the ocean. What we really need is a way to simply produce less plastic products. Increased use of glass, increased emphasis on reusing what plastic we do have and, yes, new technology to replace plastics with materials that break down faster so that when they do end up in the oceans, which in much of the world is inevitable from the moment of creation, they don't cause the amount of damage that plastics do.
bcheung 8y ago
It already exists. https://www.popsci.com/bacteria-enzyme-plastic-waste https://www.popsci.com/bacteria-enzyme-plastic-waste Given sufficient time evolution makes pretty much any waste a resource. Oxygen used to be a toxic pollutant. Then nature evolved and started using it to produce energy in cells.

by JTbane 8y ago

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

This was mentioned before. Plastic is used in all sorts of applications for its durability and lack of reactivity. It doesn't rot. It doesn't corrode. In certain environments it dries out and cracks but that's about it. While there's a lot of plastic in the ocean it's relatively thinly distributed. It's not like there's a bunch of bottles floating in one place. It's a bunch of plastic dust in the water column. Any sort of bacteria or chemical that is self sustaining enough to be dropped in the ocean and expected to clean up the plastic would likely wreak havoc on all sorts of things. Any sort of bacteria or chemical that is sensitive enough that it won't wreak havoc in the environments where we don't want it to likely can't be applied in a effective or economical manner in the oceans.

EGreg 8y ago
So there is no solution?
- ISL 8y ago
  Reduce, reuse, recycle.
- creep 8y ago
  In a couple hundred million years the Earth will regenerate, new species will evolve, etc. I do think we have a responsibility as self-aware beings to pick up after ourselves, but at the same time the Earth will be fine long-term. You could even say it's fine now. Yes, species are going extinct at an alarming rate, but we came from the Earth too and are not the only contributing factors to Earth's various disasters. I'm not about to throw trash out the window because of that fact, it's just that I don't have so much anxiety about totally destroying the planet. Maybe we will destroy the planet inasmuch as we can't live on it anymore, but that's our own damn fault and it's almost nothing compared to the longevity of the Earth.
artmageddon 8y ago
> While there's a lot of plastic in the ocean it's relatively thinly distributed. It's not like there's a bunch of bottles floating in one place. It's a bunch of plastic dust in the water column. But it's distributed over a very large area, and affects sea-life. Guess what that means for people who consume fish?
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  I don't know how it affects sea-life. Other than the occasional scare-tactic picture of a turtle with a plastic web stuck to it, what is the systemic effect? Sure there's lots of plastic in the ocean; there's lots of sand too. What's really at issue?
  - at-fates-hands 8y ago
    The United Nations Ocean Conference estimated that the oceans might contain more weight in plastics than fish by the year 2050.[33] Some long-lasting plastics end up in the stomachs of marine animals, mature and immature.[6][34][35] The food chain is affected as the plastic attracts seabirds and fish. When marine life consumes plastic allowing it to enter the food chain, this can lead to greater problems when species that have consumed plastic are being eaten by other predators. Besides the particles' danger to wildlife, on the microscopic level the floating debris can absorb organic pollutants from seawater, including PCBs, DDT, and PAHs.[40] Aside from toxic effects,[41] when ingested, some of these are mistaken by the endocrine system as estradiol, causing hormone disruption in the affected animal.[38] These toxin-containing plastic pieces are also eaten by jellyfish, which are then eaten by fish. Many of these fish are then consumed by humans, resulting in their ingestion of toxic chemicals.[42] While eating their normal sources of food, plastic ingestion can be unavoidable or the animal may mistake the plastic as a food source.[43][44][45][46][47] Marine plastics also facilitate the spread of invasive species that attach to floating plastic in one region and drift long distances to colonize other ecosystems.[15] Research has shown that this plastic marine debris affects at least 267 species worldwide.[48] Great Pacific garbage patch: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch
  - 8y ago

chinathrow 8y ago

At least these guys are trying to clean up the mess others did. https://www.theoceancleanup.com/ https://www.theoceancleanup.com/

titzer 8y ago

I know that it's a natural reaction to try to think of a technical solution to a massive problem like this, but to be completely and brutally honest I think humans, as a race, are now obligated to get off our fat asses and pick up some trash. Hands and knees, trash bags, buckets, shovels. A single person can easily pick up 10kg of trash an hour. The 8 million metric tons that will likely end up in the ocean this year, if it were instead collected by people (on land, before it gets in the ocean) at 10kg/hr, 2000hrs/yr, that's 400,000 people. That's really not many when spread across dozens of countries. Also, it's way easier and cheaper to just put garbage in the garbage bin. So in reality it could be far less than this number that are all that is needed to keep the planet free of trash. Also, robots. But mostly we just need to get off our asses and pick up some trash!

creep 8y ago
Okay, you first.
- titzer 8y ago
  I picked up 300 bags of litter last year.
  - creep 8y ago
    I pick up bottles and cigarette butts.
    - titzer 8y ago
      Thank you!
curun1r 8y ago
I'm not sure that's the answer. I got an eye-opening view of the problem when I took a trip to Southeast Asia a couple years ago. Being in the third world, there's very few recycling plants to process plastic waste. The next best option, as you've implied, is landfills to sequester plastic waste...sacrifice that land to keep the rest of our planet clean(er). But even that's hard in many places. On many of the islands I visited, people did make a conscientious effort to throw their plastic garbage in bins and do the right thing. And that worked great, up until one of the massive deluges of rain that the area gets would come. And since they had no landfill area that was far enough from the water, the rains would wash the entire landfills out to sea in a massive river of plastic waste. It was one of the most depressing sights I've ever seen. On one of the scuba dives I went on, we found ourselves surfacing in a debris field that had washed out to sea and it was astonishing to see the magnitude of it. Collecting everything together, as in your suggestion, just led to a massive batch dump into the ocean and it didn't do anything to keep the waste out of the ocean. What we really need is a way to simply produce less plastic products. Increased use of glass, increased emphasis on reusing what plastic we do have and, yes, new technology to replace plastics with materials that break down faster so that when they do end up in the oceans, which in much of the world is inevitable from the moment of creation, they don't cause the amount of damage that plastics do.

bcheung 8y ago

It already exists. https://www.popsci.com/bacteria-enzyme-plastic-waste https://www.popsci.com/bacteria-enzyme-plastic-waste Given sufficient time evolution makes pretty much any waste a resource. Oxygen used to be a toxic pollutant. Then nature evolved and started using it to produce energy in cells.