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Plastic particles falling out of sky with snow in Arctic
- nanaboo 7y agoRIP humanity/world. We had a good run Supposedly it's even in the water. Measured in Germany by german labs. They're introduced by cosmetics like the abrasive perls some cosmetics use.
- defterGoose 7y agoI keep thinking we're finding out the answer to the great filter problem every day. It's hubris.
- kzrdude 7y agoI think every species of organism has it - that hubris that brings them to compete for food and use every available resource to put offspring into the world, growing to the resource limit. We're just animals. Powerful animals.
- deelowe 7y agoCosmetics were a scapegoat. All plastics breakdown into smaller and smaller particles, but never fully degrade. Ever seen UV damaged plastic that felt like it just turned to dust? That dust is microparticles.
- 08-15 7y agoNot true. Plastic that is collected and incinerated degrades to carbon dioxide, water and nitrogen. You can't collect used cosmetics.
- sachdevap 7y agoOnly if it were that clean: "Finally, waste-to-energy plants have the potential to emit low levels of toxic pollutants such as dioxins, acid gases, and heavy metals." [0] Just plastic is never "just" plastic. There will always be contamination of trash with potential for emission of pollutants. [0] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/03/should-we-burn-plastic-waste/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/03/shoul...
- 08-15 7y agoYour whataboutism still proves that not all plastics degrade to microplastics, doesn't it? There is also a difference between the bulk of some material becoming something else and traces of some side product being emitted, not to mention potentially better technologies like molten salt oxidation or plasma gasification.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- mises 7y agoI agree, let's just ban makeup. No body needs it any way.
- martyvis 7y agoIronically, one of the ads in the OP from BBC was for Chanel!
- anewguy9000 7y agosick and tired of the media saying this is irrelevant. global warming is a straw man.
- vinayan3 7y agoThey are linked because plastic is produced from petroleum. Green house gases are emitted to extract and make plastic. The growth of plastics is highly linked with our increased use of fossil fuels.
- sbierwagen 7y agoDirect link to the (open access) paper: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/8/eaax1157 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/8/eaax1157
- condercet 7y agoI'm scared and feel totally powerless. Everyone around me who I've talked to about this either feels the same or thinks its a complete hoax. The whole habitable planet thing was nice while it lasted. But seriously, does anyone have any suggestions on how a software engineer can make any sort of meaningful impact on this? Or even groups of software engineers, as many of the people here feel similarly. This is a problem that must be solved.
- slacka 7y agoWe are guinea pigs in a worldwide experiment on microplastics, and I fear it will turn out worse for us than our grandparents with asbestos. However, you're not powerless. Personally, cook your food in metal and try to drink out of glass and metal. For the world, work hard and save up. As a SW engineer, you should be able to save up. Put some of your money into organizations that are trying to save the environment. Donate some money to politicians that recognize these threats.
- Gibbon1 7y agoYeah personal action isn't pointless, but it's probably only gets us 20% of the way there. 20% isn't nothing tho. What I've been lead to believe is the elephant in the room vis micro-plastics is clothing. A lot ends up in rivers and oceans via waste water. Check your dry lint trap lately? That's the big stuff. All the micro stuff ends up down the drain or in the air. Other than going full naked hippy how are you supposed to deal with that on a personal level?
- vinayan3 7y agoGovernments are slowly starting to take single use plastic seriously. A good list of government actions varying from Countries to cities is here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/07/ocean-plastic-pollution-solutions/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/07/ocean... Private industry as well like Coke is going to put water into cans under the Dasani brand. It's not everything but it's a major step in reducing the waste caused my plastic. But plastic is in other products as well like toys, electronics, etc... Individuals must be aware of this and need to make better choices or else this problem will just continue. I am hopeful we can take collective action to clean up the environment and live sustainably.
- DataWorker 7y agoI never realized The coca-cola company was so motivated by environmental concerns they’d stick their neck out like that. I guess it’s like the old chevron commercials, “people do”!
- givinguflac 7y agoDon’t be misled, Coca Cola doesn’t give a shit about the environment. They’re just trying to stay in mindshare and ensure they aren’t disrupted if plastic backlash really takes off.
- melling 7y agoYesterday someone on HN said there’s still plastic inside the cans. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20691864 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20691864
- jessriedel 7y ago"Number of particles" is a bad metric. One way to formalize this complaint is that this measure is independent of Avagadro's number. In particular, there are many more molecules in a liter of water (~10^24) than there are liters of water in the oceans (~10^21). So if you tag all the water molecules in a single glass of water, fully mix that water in the oceans, and then scoop out another glass from the ocean on the other side of the world, that second glass will contain many tagged molecules. These misleading sorts of statistics also appear when people discuss detection of radiation, e.g., detecting minute radioactive fallout in the US after the Fukushima meltdown.
- perfunctory 7y agoWhich part of "freaking plastic is falling out of the sky in fucking ARCTIC" is misleading?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jessriedel 7y agoMaybe this will help. Consider the first cup of water that Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun drank on his 18th birthday. That water is currently raining down on the Amazon forest. This is not a good argument that we are being overwhelmed by pharaoh water. (Of course, the plastic could be a big problem; this just doesn't show it.)
- perfunctory 7y agoSo what in your view would be a better statistic?
- chrisco255 7y agoI would assume Parts Per Million via random sampling or some other relative measurement. And looking at whether that quantity is increasing significantly over time.
- gjmulhol 7y agoWant to use your CS/dev skills to help solve this problem? Come join us at Citrine Informatics: https://citrine.io/careers https://citrine.io/careers
- zimmund 7y agoMind sharing a bit about what your company does and how is it trying to help solve this problem?
- aaron695 7y agoI simply don't believe it. Small particles kill, not sure if these are count but they are insignificant to other particles at these rates. But there are air monitoring stations around the world, yet suddenly these new claims come out? Especially given the hysteria around plastic particles. Dust kills. Plastic would to if you get the levels that hugely high, but you won't. But it still should have been measured before.
- 08-15 7y agoBy what kind of logic does one get from "some of the contamination may have come from ships grinding against the ice. [...] some may have come off wind turbines." to "do we need so much plastic packaging?"
- mjevans 7y agoCould we please get paper bags back by default in stores again? Ban the plastic checkout bags. I can see having a fee for 'luxury' versions of the bags (EG handles) or for an oversized bag (compared to small single items)... However I'm pretty sure the stores loose more on the bulk of credit card transactions than they do on the item bagging fees.
- todipa 7y agoI think we should ban the use of plastic where there are viable alternatives. Kids toys are mostly made of plastic when they could easily be made of wood.
- coolaliasbro 7y agoI dream about one day opening a non-profit/co-op grocery chain called "Tarable Grocery". The capital outlay would be considerable of course, but ultimately and optimally, the chain would lease containers to members who would fill them with bulk products, returning to refill them or return them as appropriate. My vision here would be to make available quantities of essentially any bulk food option that would be consumed by the local market before spoiling. The stocking system would be a hoot and there would definitely have to be some sort of central purchasing apparatus, but I think it's doable.
- FrozenVoid 7y agoPretty sure future generations will treat microplastics as asbestos or leaded fuel today. Especially since its widespread in the air. https://www.nature.com/articles/srep46687 https://www.nature.com/articles/srep46687