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Plastic bag found at the bottom of world’s deepest ocean trench
- kyle_martin1 3y ago[dead]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- blamazon 3y agoSo where is the referenced study? Or the actual picture? I did not see a link from this article and the photos are unrelated. Edit: I think they are talking about this? [1] The depth, location, and description match. The observation is from 1998 which I believe has relevance that would be curiously missing from the article? Edit 2: I think I found the referenced study: "Human footprint in the abyss: 30 year records of deep-sea plastic debris" [2] [1] https://www.godac.jamstec.go.jp/dsdebris/view/metadata?key=JEDI_KAIKO0073_00010V&lang=en&lang=en https://www.godac.jamstec.go.jp/dsdebris/view/metadata?key=J... [2]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X17305195 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X1...
- hh3k0 3y ago> The observation is from 1998 which I believe has relevance that would be curiously missing from the article? What you're missing is that it's not an article, but an educational resource for kids in grade 3–12.
- blamazon 3y agoThat only makes me more upset! Why stifle the curiosity of kids that want to investigate the original sources of such information?
- ta1243 3y agoIt literally says it comes from the Deep-Sea Debris Database, it doesn't spoonfeed it by listing the specific reference, but a search for "mariana trench" and I can see a large variety of debris, including Plastic bag/sheet (Several), Unidentified debris Can Beverage can Other plastic product (Several) etc
- vorticalbox 3y agoI feel educational writing would be a better resource by listing their sources.
- xwdv 3y agoCrazy that one of those generic THANK YOU plastic bags you get at a store could one day end up at the bottom of the deepest ocean trench.
- codersfocus 3y agoMore like one of those reusable ones that contain 100x as much plastic
- archsurface 3y agoI think this old. That aside, if I'm not mistaken it should be expected - beyond a certain depth free divers get pushed downward, so presumably rubbish would too.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ofrzeta 3y agoAs seen in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoEVezcE0k0&t=726s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoEVezcE0k0&t=726s
- SeanAnderson 3y agoThis information is fairly old, but the article is recently updated. Does the post warrant (1998) or (2018) in the title? Or is it appropriate as is? There was definitely a flurry of reporting on this plastic bag half a decade ago (e.g. https://www.science.org/content/article/plastic-debris-found-deepest-part-ocean https://www.science.org/content/article/plastic-debris-found...)
- downWidOutaFite 3y agoScientists have found plastic in rain water, in clouds, in the most remote wilderness, in underground caves, highest mountains, deepest trenches. We've permanently covered every inch of our little planet with plastic.
- almost_usual 3y agoWe live in the age of plastic.
- jayceedenton 3y agoThe Plasticine?
- dpedu 3y agoThe other day while eating food I had delivered from a restaurant, I found a small piece of plastic mixed into it, about half a square centimeter. Pretty lucky to have spotted it, mixed in amongst multi colored rice and whatnot. It almost certainly would not have caused me issues, but I still do not like the idea of eating it. Encountering things like this makes you think about how many similar cases you don't notice.
- frutiger 3y agoIf the human body reacted badly to ingesting indigestible items, we'd have been (rightfully?) extinct a long time ago.
- 1024core 3y agoPhilippines is the world's largest source of ocean trash. Even more than China. The UN should start censuring countries which just throw their shit into the oceans.
- logifail 3y ago> Philippines is the world's largest source of ocean trash [...] Here's a nice (well, actually horrifying) visual of the problem: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/visualized-ocean-plastic-waste-pollution-by-country/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/visualized-ocean-plastic...
- SUPERCOMMENT123 3y ago[flagged]
- fuzzbazz 3y ago> The Philippines—an archipelago of over 7,000 islands, with a 36,289 kilometer coastline and 4,820 plastic emitting rivers—is estimated to emit 35% of the ocean’s plastic. So how can we even start tackling this problem? they need about 4820 garbage collection services, it's going to be expensive...
- cornfutes 3y agoHow much of that originates from rich / developed countries?
- echelon 3y agoComparatively, very little [1]. And with developing nations quickly moving up the economic ladder, there's perhaps hope this comes to an end within a few short generations. [1] https://www.plasticethics.com/home/2019/3/17/the-countries-polluting-the-oceans-the-most-with-plastic-waste https://www.plasticethics.com/home/2019/3/17/the-countries-p...
- somenameforme 3y ago
- manicennui 3y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB0th8vNLxo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB0th8vNLxo
- xyst 3y agoThe merits of the writing itself are dubious as many commenters point out. However this doesn’t mean the overall message of the article is wrong. We are truly the worst stewards of this planet capable of sustaining life. Every year we slowly kill the planet, harm local ecosystems, pollute the planet with GHGs/plastic/microplastics/… and continue to do absolutely nothing about it.
- vjk800 3y agoThe planet will survive just fine. Over enough time, whatever species manage to survive this, will evolve to thrive in the environment we have created. See e.g. the plastic eating bacteria. However, humans might not survive the major alterations we are introducing to the ecosystem. Or at least, we probably don't want to wait long enough time for the human physiology to adapt to it.
- wyre 3y ago>The planet will survive just fine. Such a tired and nihilistic take. to call it survival is a stretch when we are artificially creating and contributing to the sixth mass extinction while we leave the planet full of plastic and cement, and devoid of the old growth forests that used to live here and help life flourish.
- mikhailfranco 3y agoYou know about ice ages? Snowball earth? You know what 1km depth of ice does to old growth forests? Cement is just human rock. Almost all of it will eventually be subducted. The planet will survive just fine.
- vjk800 3y agoAs long as there is even a tiny patch of living stuff somewhere on the planet, things living on it will slowly evolve and take over everything else. Sure, it's a slow process and we will not live to see it, but I find it pretty arrogant to think that we are actually capable of completely ending all life on earth. We are not; only our own lives.
- southernplaces7 3y agoMeanwhile, one day some Japanese fisherman on some rust bucket trawler unknowingly passing over the Mariana Trench is unpacking his lunch on deck when a gust of wind comes along and blows it over the side.... The point being that though there's definitely lots of plastic in the oceans, an incident in one place doesn't necessarily make a pattern, and random trash being swept into a place that naturally takes in debris from the surrounding shallower ocean possibly makes for better headline drama than a realistic assessment of anything particular.
- pvaldes 3y agoI have found a packet of cigarettes in a pelagic odontocete so, why not? I can't think about one single reason why plastic would be unable to reach this places eventually. Is just a few Km sinking after all Is not like if we would lack an abundance of proofs. Sea debris database here. You can browse photos by type and minimum deep: https://www.godac.jamstec.go.jp/dsdebris/e/index.html https://www.godac.jamstec.go.jp/dsdebris/e/index.html But not everything that looks like plastic in the ocean is really plastic.