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Trillions of Plastic Pieces May Be Trapped In Arctic Ice
sciencehabit (1205606) writes "Humans produced nearly 300 million tons of plastic in 2012, but where does it end up? A new study has found plastic debris in a surprising location: trapped in Arctic sea ice. As the ice melts, it could release a flood of floating plastic onto the world. From the article: 'Scientists already knew that microplastics—polymer beads, fibers, or fragments less than 5 millimeters long—can wind up in the ocean, near coastlines, or in swirling eddies such as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. But Rachel Obbard, a materials scientist at Dartmouth College, was shocked to find that currents had carried the stuff to the Arctic.'"
Instead of aeons needed to turn glass to microparticles, humanity has managed to litter the seas with plastic bits in only around a century. If humanity goes extinct, perhaps one day visitors from another planet would know there was once sentient life here from the remains of our PET bottles and beer six-pack rings in the ice?
nearly 300 million tons of plastic in 2012 [...] reaching 288 million tonnes in 2012
http://bash.org/?2999
Estimates of how much of that production has been trapped in Arctic ice provided in the article:
- "[some of] much of [the total amount of plastic produced]"
- "more than 1 trillion pieces of plastic"
- "abundances of hundreds of ['fragments less than 5 millimeters long' selected using a microscope] per cubic meter"
Would have really hurt to estimate the weight of those fragments? One plastic bag could easily end up as a million pieces of plastic. About one plastic bag or 10 grams of plastic per 10.000 cubic meters sounds a lot less dramatic, I guess.
these tiny bits exist for a few reasons.
1. Natural photodegradation permits older plastics to disintegrate into smaller pieces. new plastics impregnated with photo-inhibitors resist this for a seemingly infinite span of time unfortunately.
2. industrial processes like bead-blasting and resurfacing may sometimes rely on plastics instead of formed metal shot as its cheaper in many cases. plastics are also often fluid-formed from tiny pellets or beads shipped across the world, so naturally losing a conex full of them would contribute.
3. cosmetics. Pomace, apricot and peach pits used to act as surfactants in many soaps however seasonal limitations of production and particulate dimension were always a factor. They also didnt perform well in gelatinous suspensions like body washes. reprocessing and shredding waste plastics from other manufacturing processes however proved far more economical and reliable. As a result, the "micro beads" in your bottle of Gillette body wash are likely made from reprocessed Gillette body wash bottles that were damaged or defective during the injection moulding process.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I recall reading somewhere - and I hope a historian can come along and correct this - that most modern settlements are at a significant elevation because they're on top of the middens and trash of all the previous settlers on that site. If we actually dug out the areas we currently stand on, we'd find all sorts of interesting trash.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
When it gets cold, water turns to ice. When it gets warm, ice turns to water. The fact that both of these things occur naturally is not a statement on climate change.
Most of the current sea ice is less than 10 years old, as the ice regular melts in the summer, and is replaced by fresh ice in the winter. It's hard to imagine that there are significant amounts of plastic trapped in the ice compared to plastic that is free floating in the ocean.
Firstly a disclaimer: I am not the historian you asked for (i.e. no expert). But I do have 2 cents to add to this comment.
I think cities/towns were often built on high ground as a prevention against flooding. People want to live near fresh water for irrigation, but still keep their houses dry.
Therefore, the main elevation of the town centers is not a giant pile of old trash, but a natural elevation (also known as a "hill"). But it is true that people would discard old items into a canal or river, or just in the mud, and in old cities you will almost always find something if you dig down.
Plastics that are still in visible pieces are nuisance, and all oceans have tons and tons and TONS of plastic based flotsam - I worked as a sailor before and even in the middle of a big ocean we saw plastic garbage floating
But the real danger are those teeny tiny plastic particles
Most plastic breaks down after prolonged exposure to sunlight, and they kept breaking apart as time goes by, until they became teeny tiny plastic (polymer) particles which inevitably end up in the food-chain (sea creatures - little fishes - bigger fishes - entrees in restaurants - people's stomach) and sooner and later all of us start eating food containing plastic particles
Yes, even those so-called bio-degradable plastics only degrade until they become teeny tiny polymer particles, and then stop degrading
What kind of problem will those plastic particles do to our health ? Anybody knows ?
I do. Just go back to the last century like the 60s and 70s.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
It is already known that new microbes evolved which can consume plastic and disintegrate it
While it is known that scientists have found microbes in landfill sites and plastic floatsam in the sea that can consume / digest plastics, it is still an unknown whether those microbes could break down the many types of toxin that are embedded inside the plastics, such as phthalates, or merely pass the toxins intact, on to the next higher level organism on the food chain
http://www.nature.com/news/201...
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I recall reading somewhere - and I hope a historian can come along and correct this - that most modern settlements are at a significant elevation because they're on top of the middens and trash of all the previous settlers on that site. If we actually dug out the areas we currently stand on, we'd find all sorts of interesting trash.
Chicago is about 3' higher than it's supposed to be and juts out into the lake quite a ways because it's built on top the great fire of 1871. There are still a few buildings left from before the fire that sit significantly bellow street level. They look odd when driving through the area.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
The current that comes up past Europe from the Atlantic sinks and flows back beneath the surface. Plastic that floats will accumulate at the surface around Greenland, and may spread around the Arctic Ocean.
Wait...as it melts?? It melts every year, then freezes again. It's not like some barrage of plastic that's been sequestered in ice for billions of years is suddenly going to be dumped into the ocean because of the Arctic sea ice "melting", a thinly veiled reference to global warming as if the melting isn't happening every summer. And if it was created in 2012, then gets released, then a little bit freezes in the ice next year...it doesn't sound like this is even a story!
As an aside, what happened to Slashdot? What happened to our ability to critically think in general? Crap like this should never see the light of day on the main page, it's almost as if we're just expected to consume whatever the headline is alluding to, truth be damned, and subsequently have the proper level of outrage as is determined by the +5 comments. What happened to active discourse, agreeing to disagree, and civility even amongst people with different ideologies? Every day, I read more and more comments along the lines of "If you disagree with me, you should be executed." It makes me really, really sad and angry at the same time that we've been effectively reduced to the mental capacity of neanderthals when it comes to our science/religion of choice (and really, what's the difference anymore?)
We aren't even nearly as warm as we've been in the past via the flora and fauna record and we've stalled for the past 6 years, actually cooled the last couple of years, which no models predicted. It's theory, not fact because there are holes that can't be explained in the theory. Societies have grown and collapsed due to climate change in the past so what we need to focus on is dealing with climate variation. Check out the snow pack in the Colorado Rockies right now, runoff hasn't even taken off yet due to cold and snow, it is just starting to build now, in late May. Arapahoe Basin ski area is still open with a 73" base. It stays open until early May through early June usually but might even make it to July 4th this year like it did in 2011 when the base was in the 90" range in May. So twice in four years the snow pack is well above median and average.
Most of the current sea ice is less than 10 years old is suspiciously in need of references.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I gotta say, are we talking about the same Parthenon? The one built at the top of a hill overlooking Athens as pretty nearly the sole structure on the hilltop?
It doesn't precisely show the elevations, but:
https://maps.google.com/maps?o...
is one view, or perhaps this will do better:
http://www.greatbuildings.com/...
As you can see, it is pretty much on top of a mesa. So I'm not sure where your "slight dip in the terrain" could possibly be.
I only point this out not because your argument is implausible in general, but your specific example is one of my favorite places on Earth and although I've only been fortunate enough to visit it in person twice in my lifetime (so far) I remember the walk up from Athens proper quite well, including stopping in some of the many small taverns that are along the trek for octopus and retsina.
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Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.