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Garfield phones beach mystery finally solved
- k_sze 8y agoFrom practical and philosophical points of view, if the container and its cargo are stuck at the bottom of the sea forever, is it really a problem? Of course, I'm aware that random man-made things polluting the oceans is a bad thing in general, but in this specific case, if the plastic is just stuck there forever, is it still pollution in practical terms? The electronics inside the phones probably won't pass modern environmental standards (e.g. RoHS), so let's forget about the electronics for now and only focus on the plastic. On the one hand, does the plastic release toxic chemicals in high enough concentration as it decomposes (slowly?)? On the other hand, does the container and its cargo somehow become a new shelter/habitat for certain species of marine life?
- vectorEQ 8y agoits still polution to the life in the ocean. humans aren't the only ones inhabiting this place as you point out. (taking into account there could be any number of containers - as if one ends up there, it's likely this process of it ending up there is not unique)
- fearhugs 8y ago"Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change."[1] I think the above comment is questioning whether this container is causing `adverse' change. If not then I suppose this particular case wouldn't be classified as pollution. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution
- tengbretson 8y agoShould we consider sea snails leaving behind their shells when they die litter?
- jschwartzi 8y agoIf one beach had a million sea snails leaving shells behind, and the beach were cluttered with them, and it was choking out any other life on the beach, then yeah we would consider that litter. It's the same as when sea urchins devour whole kelp forests, rendering parts of the sea floor totally barren. One or two urchins aren't a big deal but when they breed without limits they can completely destroy an ocean ecosystem. And so we kill them off when we need to to try to be good stewards of our planet.
- tengbretson 8y ago> If one beach... The very existence of beaches at all is the result of the overwhelming dead remains of billions of diatoms and crushed shells. I have no doubt there would be a totally different ecosystem if it weren't for their remains.
- andrewflnr 8y agoSo if some organisms were naturally excreting a chemical toxic to most life on the planet, with no feedback mechanism to stop them, you'd be against that, right? Don't answer that, it's a trick question. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxygenation_Event
- perilunar 8y agoYes, but 'litter' is not necessarily bad. Fallen leaves are 'leaf litter' for example. The problem is not litter per se, but how it degrades over time. Shells become sand, leaves become soil. Glass becomes sea glass. Plastics become deadly blockages in animals stomachs.
- CydeWeys 8y agoIt's not buried at the bottom of the sea though. It's in a cave on the shore. And the cargo is not stuck on the bottom of the sea permanently either; it's periodically washing ashore and causing ongoing pollution and litter problems.
- glenneroo 8y agoToxic chemicals are only one aspect of pollution. AFAIK the more serious threat is from plastic decomposing into micro/nano-sized particles, which are then consumed by plankton who then perish and/or are consumed by ever-larger creatures in the food chain. Plankton are vital for our species' survival, since they produce 50-85% of the world's oxygen supply, as well as feeding all other living things in the ocean (and eventually ending up in Human stomachs).
- blackflame7000 8y agoYea but the ocean is full of things decomposing into small particles. Rocks for one.
- orf 8y agoWell that's OK then. Thank god.
- coryrc 8y agoI don't think you should be downvoted, as it's a valid observation. Nanoplastics concentrate toxic compounds within themselves, smuggling them past animals' defense system. This does not happen with rock. There has not been enough time for animals to evolve systems to remove nanoplastics from their bodies.
- throwaway5752 8y agoI don't doubt that microplastics are not good for the environment and organisms that consume them, but can you provide a citation for the toxin concentration claim so I can learn more about it?
- A2017U1 8y agoTop 3 results here should do fine. https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=nanoplastic%20toxin%20concentration https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=nanoplastic%20toxin%20...
- 8y ago
- baxtr 8y agoSince the 1980s, the Iroise coast in Brittany has received a supply of bright orange landline novelty phones shaped like the famous cartoon cat. ... Climbing down the slippery rocks to the cave, the team spotted remnants of a destroyed shipping container - and soon, between the rocks, Garfield phones - in a more complete condition than any found before them.
- reaperducer 8y agoClimbing down the slippery rocks to the cave, the team spotted remnants of a destroyed shipping container - and soon, between the rocks, Garfield phones - in a more complete condition than any found before them. This sounds like a Nancy Drew book in real life.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- zelon88 8y agoI don't understand how something can be inaccessible in this day and age. Helicopters? Boats? Submarines? Is it really impossible to retrieve the wreckage or just economically impractical?
- gregschlom 8y ago1. It's a function of cost. None of these things are cheap. 2. It might not be possible. Helicopters will need a somewhat direct line of sight to the container (which might be tucked in a cave), boats probably won't reach (too close to the rocks#, submarines... Lol. The only viable approach is probably by land, which means months of construction work to bulldoze whatever obstacles there are... Which brings us back to point 1, cost
- nkrisc 8y agoYes it's physically possible to somehow retrieve and remove the container and phones. It would also likely be absurdly expensive to do so for the gain. It's likely cheaper, easier, and safer to simply keep picking them up off the beach as they wash ashore.
- lallysingh 8y agoCan they seal the container?
- nkrisc 8y agoMaybe, I don't have enough information to answer that. My guess is doing any work in a coastal cave that is only accessible at low tide is going to be expensive and dangerous.
- magduf 8y agoSeems like they should be able to get a team of volunteers together to go to the shipping container and remove the phones by hand so they don't keep going out into the ocean. How hard can this possibly be?
- abhinai 8y agoThis post just makes me sad. It is a sad reminder of just how long lived the plastic in our oceans is. And as a species we are still not doing enough to stop this.
- nvarsj 8y agoIs it far fetched to think that plastic is one of the most damaging inventions of the 20th century? I imagine it will be affecting us for hundreds of years. Banning single use plastics seems like a no brainer to me at this point.
- dwighttk 8y agodo Garfield phones count as single use?
- timdiggerm 8y agoWhat usage lifetime justifies the total lifetime of a plastic object?
- UncleEntity 8y ago> What usage lifetime justifies the total lifetime of a plastic object? Probably depends on if you're having to justify it to someone who wants to 100% ban all plastic or someone who wants a silly phone simply because they like Garfield.
- Dylan16807 8y agoI'm not sure, but you could definitely put a dollar price on cleanup, and it wouldn't be super high for something like a landline phone.
- Green_man 8y agoThe value of reusable plastic devices in a pollution sense is less that the device will be ~20 years older by the time it's thrown away, but rather that there will be so much less plastic used overall than if disposable devices were used for that purpose for that time.
- paulie_a 8y agoIt doesn't really seem like a mystery just the source was found. The rubber ducky container is also interesting.
- dmix 8y agoIndeed, it had to been obvious it was from a shipping container from day one.
- massivecali 8y agoSuprised there was no mention of the Lego spill: "Nearly 4.8 million Lego toy parts fell overboard from the Tokio Express container ship in a storm off Land's End on 13 February 1997." https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28582621 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28582621
- ergothus 8y agoI'm more surprised they didn't mention the rubber ducks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_Floatees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_Floatees
- bduerst 8y agoFor Lego aficionados, that's about $499,207.34 worth of pieces.
- Theodores 8y agoI wonder how much the Garfield phones will fetch if sold on eBay. Just think of the patina, the history and the kudos. Perfect gift. I would buy one if I had a landline.
- core-questions 8y agoSo $100 raw plastic cost then
- I_am_tiberius 8y agoGarfields are one topic but another one is 500 meter pipes with a diameter of 2 meters. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4781126/Beachgoers-shocked-giant-pipes-UK-shores.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4781126/Beachgoers-...
- jeron 8y agoYeah but the pipe is all in one piece and is removed all in one go while these Garfield phones will keep showing up possibly forever
- I_am_tiberius 8y agoYes, but the pipe can go down and pollute the ocean for thousands of years until it's dissolved.
- ChuckMcM 8y agoWell not any more, they go and recover the container and its remaining contents, the ones between the container and the beach will arrive and then no more phones.
- freeflight 8y agoFrom the article: > The container remains inaccessible and it is not known how much of its cargo is sealed within it. > In the meantime, both Ar Viltansou and local officials say they will continue to harvest Garfields from the coastline.
- ChuckMcM 8y agoFair enough. It's an engineering problem though right? I read 'inaccessible' as "it would cost too much to get to it" rather than "it's physically impossible to get to it."
- justinsaccount 8y ago> The media attention on the new campaign, however, drew the eye of a local farmer who remembered the first téléphone Garfield appearing after a storm in the early 1980s, when he was a young man. > He also knew the location of the container - in a secluded sea cave accessible only at low tide. So they've been dealing with this mystery for almost 40 years and this guy knew where the problem was coming from the entire time?
- jschwartzi 8y agoIt's been my experience that a lot of seeming mysteries are solved only by the person with the mystery talking to the right person. And the right person could be anyone with an observation. It happens in Engineering all the time too, where you talk to the one user in ten-thousand who happens to have a keen eye for the exact sequence of events on the display, and their careful recitation of the sequence of frames on the display is enough for you to piece together the system state at the time of a failure. It's rare that engineers talk to users, and it's probably equally rare for environmentalists to talk to individual farmers looking for information.
- mfoy_ 8y agoIt's not even "one in ten thousand", I think more often it's just that the people who don't know assume that no one else knows either and don't bother properly asking around.
- lsferreira42 8y agoWe have something like that in Brazil, but with cans of weed floating at the beach through the whole summer. http://www.bemsaopaulo.com/summer-of-the-cans/ http://www.bemsaopaulo.com/summer-of-the-cans/
- coryfklein 8y ago> cans of weed By which, the OP means "marijuana".
- ada1981 8y ago> "marijuana" By which, the OP means "WEED".
- croisillon 8y agoi'm originally from about 20km away of that place, I remember in the 80s there used to be kid shoes and whatnot washing ashore from time to time
- mratzloff 8y agoThis is what the post-humanity planet looks like: broken, dirty novelty phones piling up on a beach for a hundred years.
- ejz 8y ago"Guys, I have a prank idea involving phones...hear me out..."
- megablast 8y ago>Since the 1980s, the Iroise coast in Brittany has received a supply of bright orange landline novelty phones shaped like the famous cartoon cat. >But now, the source of the problem has been found - a lost shipping container. Isn't that the most obvious?
- mapmeld 8y agoThey also found the location of the shipping container, which is impressive
- emmanueloga_ 8y agoI'm surprised nobody seem to be curious who manufactured the phones. I was waiting for some reveal: the designer was X, it was made by Y... not the main point of the article, but I'm still curious about it. In some office somewhere there's someone who shipped that container and it never arrived... who's that person? Won't be able to sleep tonight :-p
- just_steve_h 8y agoContents of the article aside, this for me was the hardest to parse headline I've read on HN in a long time!