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Since this is just salted, fermented fish, which the scientist in the article claims he would like to taste, why does it need to be buried in plastic? Why not
by Symbiote 2mo ago
Since this is just salted, fermented fish, which the scientist in the article claims he would like to taste, why does it need to be buried in plastic? Why not slowly pour it into a sewer, over the course of several months?
- sneak 2mo agoSewers go places, and it is nearly a million liters of extremely concentrated stinky. If you do this, you take a single location source of stinky and smear it over a much larger set of locations that will then ALL be extremely stinky, in a way that isn’t easily cleaned with water as the fats and oils (also extremely stinky!) are of course not soluble.
- chuckadams 2mo agoI'd say dump it in the ocean, but I don't guess any boat will take it. Still, sounds like they're going to make the area around the landfill stink forever.
- anon84873628 2mo agoInstead the stinky will be spread through time. The solution to pollution is dilution, and the ocean would metabolize it away fairly quickly.
- cwal37 2mo agoThe solution to pollution is dilution was a philosophy prior to modern environmental protection laws, which were a reaction to the fact that we were absolutely destroying all kinds of ecosystems, even when we thought we were just diluting toxins down to nothing.
- buellerbueller 2mo agoIs fish sauce a toxin?
- falsemyrmidon 2mo agoIt's the dosage that makes the poison. If you dumped it all in the ocean in a single spot then yes, it would probably kill the local ecosystem.
- wang_li 2mo agoThis stuff is barely pollution. Everything there is a natural part of the environment and biological processes. Literally the only issue here is the concentration of it. Dumping it in the ocean is an ideal course of action. Failing that it should be dumped out in the wilderness, not in bags, but just on the ground. It may have a short-term change in the local environment, but long term it's fertilizer. The risk of dumping it in the ocean is that some asshole will see that happening and think "gosh, i should slip my barrels of hazardous toxic waste in with that dumping activity."
- Reason077 2mo ago> ”It may have a short-term change in the local environment, but long term it's fertilizer.” The fish would make for great fertilizer, but the salt would not. High salt concentrations will kill many plants and probably would stick around in the soil for a long time.
- wang_li 2mo agoThere's not enough salt to sterilize the land where dumped. The salt in fish sauce preparation may be as high as 20% initially but by the time it's done, after having been drained and refilled multiple times, it's 2-4%. To sterilize land requires 5-10kg/m^2 of salt applied repeatedly.
- Reason077 2mo agoI’m not talking about sterilizing land. Just that salt is not a desirable ingredient in fertilizer. Most plants will not thrive in salty soil, even if it doesn’t kill them.
- fooster 2mo agoThe ocean seems to contain a great deal of salt though.
- Reason077 2mo agoAbsolutely. So the ideal solution would be to return it to whence it came, but presumably that’s easier said than done if they’re going to all this trouble to bury it in a plastic sarcophagus instead.
- gruez 2mo agoThat just sounds like it's a knee jerk reaction from regulators. For decades their reaction to pollution was "yeah just dump it in the ocean", then we figured out it was bad. So now the pendulum swung the other way where we can't dump anything in the ocean, even if it's probably benign, because if it turns out to be not benign, it'll super bad on you. "You did what? Approved dumping pollutants in the ocean? Haven't you learned anything from us dumping radioactive super-mustard gas in the oceans decades ago?" Better to play it safe. After all, you're not picking up the tab.
- hluska 2mo agoThis sludge was actually tested and analyzed- it’s not compatible with marine life and would in fact cause an ecological disaster. It’s why they’re mixing it with peat moss and also why they’re doing the work now - the factory itself has been battered by waves and the vats are in danger of being washed into the sea.
- gruez 2mo ago>it’s not compatible with marine life and would in fact cause an ecological disaster And this can't be solved by dilution?
- xboxnolifes 2mo agoDo you really think the super basic idea of diluting it wasn't considered by anyone involved? Why are you so hung up on this?
- stickfigure 2mo agoSomeone bounced from "let's dump 40 vats at once" to "we can't allow even a slow leak". No, I don't think we're seeing rigorous scientific competence.
- inigyou 2mo agoIt's not like we humans have any aversion to killing individual wildlife, as long as the ecosystem is okay.
- dylan604 2mo ago> as the fats and oils (also extremely stinky!) are of course not soluble. Just use a lot of Dawn dish detergent
- alwa 2mo agoSo, but… where do most fish go when they die?
- edoceo 2mo agoInto other creatures that eat them?
- bigfishrunning 2mo agoSo give those creatures a bit more Umami!
- xboxnolifes 2mo agoUsually not salt baths and fermentation. Well... with modern levels of fishing most fish might end up in human stomachs, but im not really sure on the numbers.
- anon84873628 2mo agoFrom the linked Eater article: >Perhaps the most promising and most discouraging event for the factory happened in 2016. That year, the provincial government approved a cleanup plan, and a private company began the process. But the cleanup was halted soon after it started when it became clear that the contractors were dumping several dozen vats of rotten fish sauce directly into the ocean. According to Ryan, the provincial government ordered the factory’s drains to be blocked to prevent any more sauce from seeping into the ocean. https://www.eater.com/2019/5/23/18634704/st-marys-irish-loop-newfoundland-smell-fermenting-atlantic-seafood-sauce https://www.eater.com/2019/5/23/18634704/st-marys-irish-loop... I think dumping it slowly would be better than a hazardous waste landfill, but government bureaucracy is not capable of handling this situation.
- Tepix 2mo agoPut it on a boat, navigate to an area with a current away from any land and then slowly release it
- Waterluvian 2mo agoTake it outside the environment.
- rekoil 2mo agoWhat's out there?
- Lalabadie 2mo agoMore environment
- cucumber3732842 2mo agoThe only winning move is to pay for an academic lab to crank out enough papers that the government can agree with your lobbyists and declare your preferred dumping ground "not the environment" while retaining plausible deniability.