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Paint Dust Covers the Upper Layer of the World's Oceans
sciencehabit (1205606) writes Even when the sea looks clean, its surface can be flecked with tiny fragments of paint and fiberglass. That's the finding from a study that looked for plastic pollution in the uppermost millimeter of ocean. The microscopic fragments come from the decks and hulls of boats, and they could pose a threat to zooplankton, an important part of the marine food web.
We're slowly poisoning ourselves. At one point, there will be NO turning back. Scientists have warned us enough!
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Do you remember your amazement when hearing about the pacific garbage patch? And then how you felt when you actually looked it up?
This makes Sherwin-Williams and their "Cover the Earth" logo look a lot less like a paint seller/manufacturer and a lot more like some kind of Bond villain.
Maybe there's some sort of protective coating that we could put on the ocean surface to prevent this from happening...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
It wouldn't be a threat to zoo-plankton if there weren't so fucking many people who need so fucking many boats.
Take a gander at the Sherwin-Williams logo: https://www.google.com/search?q=sherwin-williams+logo
Hint for the lazy: slogan reads "Cover the Earth (in paint)"
On average, a liter of water from the microlayer contained 195 particles—this concentration is 10 to 100 times higher than microplastic particles in water collected by other methods.
One litre of water is 1,000,000 cubic millimetres. Given a depth of 1 mm that would cover 1 square meter. So therefore 195 particles per square meter. They don't go into how big these particles are. The issue is that these particle float and therefore would be concentrated in the upper 1 millimetre of water. They have not shown it is a problem.
Driving by a S-W a few months ago I wondered if that was the least "green" logo in use today, perhaps ever.
Nominations, anyone?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Fish from helicopters. There, problem solved.
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
It's important not to accept any input as pure fact on its face. It's equally important to accept facts that are verified, even if inconvenient. Far too often, "healthy skepticism" is another way to say "inconvenient so LA LA LA LA LA (fingers in ears)".
Fact is that micro pollutants are just now entering the threshold of human understanding - and it's a bigger problem than just about anybody guessed.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
If your food ends up with components of the paint in it that turn out to be mildly carcinogenic... there's this thing called the food chain.
There is also a problem with plastics entering the food chain in a similar way.
Presumably, this paint and fibreglass has higher reflectivity, thus reducing climate change?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Also it doesn't seem like a long term solution. These helicopters would need to be carefully and sustainably fished.
~200 particles vs ~3*10^25 molecules of water in liter seems pretty small. Especially since these plastics aren't very reactive. Seems pretty small scale of a problem.
remember how kids eating chips of lead based paint ended up with physiological damage because of the chemials dissolving and entering their tissues?
same concept.
just smaller chips.
and a much larger affected biomass.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
If you look for it you will find it. These stories of people who purposely search out the most bizarre always claim to be correct. I believe these narrow minded, sanctomonious liars are a dime a dozen and /. is their haven.
that stuff is the Worst. ,Resin , Topcoat, Gelcoat and other stuff and you've got yourself a great workplace. yehaw
I work in a big German Yacht building business, so i've got some experience with that stuff.
Avoid that shit at all costs. If you get in on your skin it will itch and sting you.
If you try to wash it of you might have some temporary relief, but put some clothes on or lay down in your bed and it will sting terribly.
If you're new to the stuff, it sometimes will last for more than a day.
I know people who got so used to it, the sometimes don't even wear the safety overals. These guys are seriously hardcore.
I myself, always wear all the protection i can.
Add to that the health hazzards of Epoxy Resin
Just Avoid it. Seriously.
Every republican / right leaning human in the world looked at those pictures and said, "Well, thank God it's not in my back yard, or near my vacation house. Oops - better go check the baby seal steaks on the grill - don't want to burn them!"
The world is a filthy place, indeed. I never thought of it before, but how many shoes have you worn thin in your life? A lot, I bet. Well, all that rubber you leave behind on roads and sidewalks gets washed into the ecosystem when it rains. Oh, and let's not forget about tire rubber! That stuff is everywhere!
Not only that, but clothing leaves bits of plastic all over your house and human skin cells float in the atmosphere and get inhaled when you breathe.
It's a dirty, dirty world.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/34/Sherwin_Williams.svg/150px-Sherwin_Williams.svg.png
remember how kids eating chips of lead based paint ended up with physiological damage
Corellation, causation, etc, etc. Perhaps people who eat paint chips do so due to pre-existing physiological damage.
If 'the science' said it, it must be true. Leonardo would probably double check anyways.
Already figured out and no. When Lead was legislated out of paint, the resulting damage lessened greatly.
Kids gonna kid, and still eat paint chips.
Wiki: Because the major components of an alkyd coating, i.e. fatty acids and triglyceride oils, are derived from low cost renewable resources, this has kept the cost of alkyd coatings very low despite ever increasing cost of petroleum, which is the predominant raw material source of most other coatings such as vinyls, acrylics, epoxies, and polyurethanes. Typical sources of drying oils for alkyd coatings are: linseed, tung, sunflower oil, safflower oil, walnut oil, soybean oil, fish oil, corn oil, DCO. (made by dehydrating castor oil, which creates a semi drying, conjugated, oil/fatty acid), and tall oil (resinous oil by-product from pulp and paper manufacturing). Non drying/ plasticizer resins are made from castor, palm, coconut oils and cardura (a synthetic fatty, versatic acid). Dehydrated castor oil was at one time the only oil allowed to be used in resin manufacture in India, no edible oils were allowed to be used.
The irony in this post is delectable!
Scientific theories are disproved... How many scientific theories have lasted 500 years? 100 years? Or even 50 years?
The three cases in question (evolution, global warming, and vaccines) have all been around for more than 100 years. The practice of science (or natural philosophy) is not 500 years old, so it is unlikely that any of her findings are older. Even so, none of the three examples will be overturned after 500 years. It is implausible that we will eventually find out that vaccines actually don't work, or that evolution isn't really happening, etc. We have observed all of these.
If you think that's bad think about all the rubber particles in our environment from tires wearing down from use on roads. They all get washed into our water ways. I think if you pick any highly used substance you could do some research and find it in the ocean in abundance, especially if it floats.
The upper millimeter of the ocean is a very sunny place to be.
Thanks capitalism, infinite growth in a closed system ideas.... and all the 'screw this planet we going to enjoy endless singing in the rings of heaven when we die anyways' bandwagon... we are in a damn closed system, we should start to LIMIT things... think 10 times over before we embrace some crazy 'lets move 1 billions containers full of replicable goods trough the globe because we can'.... (and because the 1% just get wealthier ).... fuck all this.... we are playing Russian roulette with our heads everyday.... .. fucking sad human race...
This is just a display of a phenomenon that has enabled many scams at the EPA. As time passes, we are able to build better and better instruments, which in-turn enable us to detect smaller and smaller amounts of things. When you couple that with the statistical studies that show that nearly everything has a statistical chance to contribute to the shortening of your life, you get: hyperbolic headlines, activist mantras, and regulatory overreach
The oceans are filled with (and coated with) LOTS of nasty stuff (think of all the critters and people who've died at sea, all the critters that poop there, all the ships and planes that have sunk, plus all the volcanic vents, etc. If you get the right instruments and look for the right stuff, you can write a screaming headline to scare a whole boatload of soccermoms into supporting bans on dihydrogenmonoxide...
Caveat: I spend 6-10 months a year out beyond the continental shelf in a "haze gray and underway" vessel.
TL;TA;DREA (Too Long; Too Asinine; Didn't Read Entire Article) "16 KM" of the coast of Korea is still within the "Bob and Betty Bayliner" area, and localized pollution. International waters, but still localized. Sure, they are describing a floating pollution, but it is incredibly minor compared to the sheer amount of trash in that area - plastic water bottles, shopping bags, etc. I've been in Pusan/Busan Harbor after the rains, and there are rafts of plastic bottles floating close to the shoreline that have been washed down from the land. Fishermen around the world still aren't paying attention to international maritime law - which pretty much states "don't throw any trash overboard" - and you can pretty much spot the routes that the cruise ships/ferriers take by looking for the styrofoam cups (about one every mile) chucked over the side by lazy passengers. And the "big boys" out here are incredibly clean compared to Joe-Shmoe-Fisherman. But it's the "Bob and Betty Bayliner" types who are the dirtiest.
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Reading James Ballard's "The Burning World" I found the scientific premise difficult to believe.
But apparently it's not that ludicrous...