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California Votes To Ban Microbeads
New submitter Kristine Lofgren writes: The California Assembly just passed a vote to ban toxic microbeads, the tiny flecks found in toothpastes and exfoliants. Microbeads cause a range of problems, from clogging waterways to getting stuck in gums. The ban would be the strictest of its kind in the nation. As the article notes, the California Senate would need to pass a bill as well, for this ban to take effect, and if that happens, the resulting prohibition will come into place in 2020. From the article: Last year, Illinois became the first state in the U.S. to pass a ban on the usage of microbeads in cosmetics, approving a law that will go into effect in 2018, and earlier this year two congressmen introduced a bipartisan bill to outlaw the use of microbeads nationwide. And for exceptionally good reason; the beads, which serve as exfoliants and colorants are a massive source of water pollution, with scientists estimating that 471 million plastic microbeads are released into San Francisco Bay alone every single day.
yes yes ... but it says "exceptionally good reason" ... there must be harm ... exceptionally serious harm ... right?
471 million potatos is a lot of potatos. .2mm bits of plastic is enough to cover in plastic all of the living rooms in California.
471 million
Wait - no - one living room. Or about a dinner-plates worth a day.
Are the fish capable of digesting plastic? One would think that it would just pass through. It's hard to know whether or not to take the matter seriously, as (sadly) the average environmentalist has no idea what the definition of toxic is. One would think that if there were some interesting data the article would at least link it.
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
This isn't the first time that I've seen mention of this. If I'm remembering previous articles correctly, these beads are ending up being consumed by very small sea creatures, who cannot process them, who then are eaten by bigger sea creatures, who also cannot process them, etc, until they build up in large concentrations toward the top of the foodchain to poison those alpha predators. There's concern for humans that eat those largest animals too.
Honestly I'm surprised that they were legal in the first place, but if there wasn't an explicit law against them then I guess the companies that have manufactured and used them were free to do so regardless of any perceived morality on the matter.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I've read up on this a bit, and it seems that micro beads end up being ingested by a lot of aquatic life, and cause health problems. Along with that, the heaver ones sink and carpet areas of aquatic floor, and smother out aquatic plant life. the rest probably end up in the giant Atlantic/Pacific garbage patches, which we don't need to make bigger.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
So how much pollution do 471million microbeads actually make?
Wouldn't that be 471 beads?
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
yes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbeads
but it is basically putting tiny bits of plastic in the water supply... which is obviously a terrible idea.
It's a little more than that. Studies have shown toxic pollutants bind to microbeads. Other studies have shown fish are eating the microbeads and absorbing the toxins. Humans eat fish. Microbeads are poisoning our food supply, and a number of governments are sponsoring studies to learn more about their impact.
Here's another article:
http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/environmentalists-drawing-a-bead-on-microplastics
it's a little different. The microbeads bind to organic pollutants that were already in the water. Animals that eat the beads absorb the pollutants from every bead that passes through their system. The pollutants then move up the foodchain after leaving the beads behind in feces. Even small to medium sized fish are found to have 10-20 beads in their digestive tract at any given time.
depends on the type of plastic and whether or not a given plastic can be digested by microorganisms.
Microbeads are mostly made out of PE for example which isn't readily biodegradable under many circumstances. However, there are some species of bacteria that can digest it.
The issue is less the beads than what they're made out of and what sort of treatment the water goes through
If the sewage treatment process is letting microbeads in any great quantity into the rivers or ocean then I have to ask what else are we releasing? Because PE has a LOWER density than water, it should float on the surface. Which means in a settling tank, it should get skimmed off the surface. If it isn't getting skimmed off the surface, then what else aren't we skimming off the surface?
If your water treatment system is anything short of a complete joke... how are microbeads even getting through the system at all?
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
I don't think these beads are toxic to us. Especially if they have been put in toothpaste. PE plastic is not digestible by our guts and our gut bacteria.
Maybe they are broken down into something nasty by oceanic zooplankton? I know some small fish eat them, and achieve no nutritional value of them, expending energy to catch up with them in water and therefore starving as a result.
I also read an article about a company experimenting with the idea of using microbeads to lower the caloric levels of food, basically serving us flavor/food colored blended beads that would taste like cake but slide right through? I don't think these beads should be let into the oceans, but so many things we put down the drain shouldn't either. So sewage treatment should already fix this.
You explicitly make it impossible for anyone to determine your contribution to the community.
You just make mindlessly hostile comments to random posts on the site.
Kill yourself.
If your words were source code, it wouldn't compile.
lucm, indeed.
The article doesn't support the statement that the microbeads are toxic.
Is there any information that the microbeads are actually toxic?
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
Wow, that's a night in!
Sounds like someone needs to produce a line of McMicroBead burger, with extra PE.
They're so small and light that their denisty doesnt really come into play, even in the settling tanks. the lightest of currents can keep them from settling out. the part of the WTP most likely to catch them is the filtration.
the biggest problem is significant amounts manage to still make it through the plant and into wildlife, where they are small enough to collect in tissue and fuck em up.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
The problem is not that microbeads are a issue in themselves, but more like that thy are a great absorbent of other chemicals. So it makes it a lot easier for chemicals to neter the food chain since many animals would eat fish or drink water that's contaminated with microbeads. And these are chemicals that would otherwise either dissipate or disintegrate from the water treatment cycle or UV rays outside.
Less than four liters, not 400 liters.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I won't take you seriously until I see some unit tests.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
There are organic alternatives to microbeads that have been in use for decades. sugar salt sand and even ground shells of walnuts and apricot pits.
That's why I eat only organisms without a digestive tract.
Well again, yes it will sort out if you give it enough time. The question is how long does it take?
again is there some special reason why we need to spend billions and billions to upgrade our sewage treatment plants to accomodate the idiots out there who are too lazy or stupid to use a proper washcloth to wash their faces?
The density of the microbeads is actually slightly less than the water, though that can change if they attract dirt. As for settling out, yes hypothetically if you put them in an isothermic tank of completely still water then maybe over the course of a couple months they would all float to the top. However, there is no time for that. In actual treatment processes there are always currents, both from the flow through the system and from thermal gradients, that will keep them mixed in the water column. The treatment process is just not designed to remove them.
So if you're not filtering out microbeads one can assume you're also not filtering out oils...
well if you bothered to learn how sewage treatment plants remove oils from water, you would see that the process does not involve a filter.
I dare you to tell us the cost of fitting tanks and skimmers into every sewer in California. Or every other body of water it flows into .. like apparently 471 million plastic microbeads are released into San Francisco Bay alone every single day.
Filtering the inputs to San Francisco Bay would be ridiculously expensive. Outlawing this plastic crap makes far more sense.
What you describe is theoretically possible, but utterly absurd in reality.
It's not a nothing issue. It's huge amount of crap dumped into waterways which acts like silt, doesn't break down, and otherwise serves to give people whiter teeth (or whatever the hell it's used for).
California has decided that's a dumb idea.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
However, I am questioning the quality of your water treatment process if this is actually a problem.
Have you ever heard of "Ocean Spray"? They grow lots and lots of cranberries. The crush the cranberries to make juice. They flush the dead cranberry skins down the drain. The local sewage treatment plant has terrible issues because the massive amount of cranberry residue screws with the chemical processes in the sewage treatment plant so that none of the sewage gets treated properly.
The moral of the story is that sewage treatment plants are designed to handle the standard sewage that we all dump down the drain and they are not prepared to handle stuff that is not expected.
Maybe YOU are willing to put up with a big increase in your local taxes to pay for the extra equipment needed?
I had these stupid microbeads in my hand-soap, and I found them really irritating.. I didn't know they were in it, and don't understand what they're supposed to do - other than be some sales-gimmick to paranoid "Soccer Moms". The less plastic we pump down the drain and into the environment - the better. Plastic is poisonous to wildlife and it always needs to be recycled, there's no such thing as a "healthy" level of plastic in the environment - unless it's "none". I can't even imagine this crap in toothpaste... wtf? Save the plankton!!!
Microbead manufacturers will reform and will start manufacturing non-toxic naturally dis-integrable microbead.
Yeah just like how the oil companies reformed and started using safer methods to transport oil after they learned their lessons from massive spills.
oh wait, they didn't
My understanding of the process is
wrong
because the average american takes that long to decide on a new brand of toothpaste
The problem isn't necessarily the beads or whether or not they're toxic (though obviously, if they're made of a toxic material and being ingested that's a big problem).
What's of concern is that it could potentially contribute, in a huge way, to a problem referred to as "plastic soup," a conglomeration of plastics from various sources, microbeads, regular trash being dumped at sea and so on. This isn't a small problem, either. The largest of "patches" of plastic debris could potentially be twice as big as the entire landmass of the U.S. as you can see here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The exact size of the patch is hard to estimate for another reason, a lot of these plastics are _extremely_ difficult to see, particles that are essentially suspended just below the surface of the water. There are a lot of big, solid items in these patches that can be identified, but it's the former "soup" of plastic particles that's the real issue...they're hard to identify, they're hard to clean up and in the case of microbeads, they're hard to filter out of the water supply. Considering they offer little to no benefit in any of their commercial applications that I can see, I'm wondering why they haven't been banned already. I could easily see these cosmetic companies producing a fine-grained sand from any tropical beach and calling that "all natural microdermabrasion," it'd do less harm and people would probably buy the hell out of the stuff.
Frankly, I think it is weird that they're even throwing it out.
So they decided to plead guilty to 21 misdemeanor criminal charges and pay a $400,000 fine instead of finding a use for it. If there was a use for it they could have avoided all of that.
And guess what, the microbeads have a lower density than water. So they should be filterable by that method.
guess what, the beads don't get a chance to settle to the bottom.
"should", what a lovely word. As a computer person you should know full well that it is not the same word as "shall"
Recently switched to a face wash that uses peach pits or apricot pits or whatever instead of the stupid little plastic beads that's don't actually scrub.
You've probably been in a prolonged coma. because the budget deficit problem was solved many years ago. Even when it was a problem, it was a problem because only because a combination of laws and court rulings requiring certain amounts of money to be spent on things while simultaneously forbidding (or making impractical by need for 2/3 public vote etc) most ways to collect revenue to pay for it.
This space intentionally left blank
I don't care
Yeah that's why you have taken the time to write so many posts
Not the OP here. Anonymity was not his/her point. An audit trail was the point. You can read all of Kamashock's "record." That would be their previous posts. AC on the other hand...oh wait, did I just throw a crust of bread under a bridge?
[UID-HeinzIntel]
sometimes I wonder how we managed to crawl out of the mud and become humans without having an effective exfoliant
They're not toxic really to anything, not even zooplankton. The biggest problem comes from the stuff lower in the foodchain that can eat it and block up their digestive system, or collect in there causing the creature in question to starve to death.
One of the big problems with sewage plants is there is a capacity limit to them, and when they hit capacity they dump directly into rivers/oceans/etc. That most happens in places where waste water and sewage are still on one system aka most of the world and they get rain.
Om, nomnomnom...
What I am saying is that if that is getting through the system there are probably a lot of other things in there that you don't even know exist. A better system would not only deal with this bead issue which is irrelevant to me. But it would also deal with a wide variety of other contaminants that you don't even know are in there.
Consider further we're looking increasingly to closed loop sewage treatment facilities that output water INTO your tap directly from the sewage treatment facility. They're already strongly considering that in California.
My point is that the stupid beads don't matter and what this really indicates is that the water treatment systems needs to be upgraded.
There are a lot of things that we DO know about. Prescription drugs for the most part are not filtered out in sewage treatment plants.
Some like birth control pills are actually in high enough doses that they are starting to affect the wildlife. I agree that the sewage
treatment plants need to be upgraded and a closed loop via distilation or reverse osmosis would be expensive but might be the best
way to make sure 100% of the bad stuff doesn't make it out.
I think most large companies just voluntarily quit putting these into things. I used to use a few products that used them which eventually disappeared from the shelves. I even remember the big name corporations that own the subsidiaries that make up most of the market in these sectors announcing the voluntary phase out. So is this new law even necessary?
Sig: I stole this sig.
I agree that the sewage
treatment plants need to be upgraded and a closed loop via distilation or reverse osmosis would be expensive but might be the best
way to make sure 100% of the bad stuff doesn't make it out.
Maybe you can try going to poor towns in West Virginia and tell them that they have to spend millions of dollars on new sewage treatment plants because of toothpaste and skin soap.
Oh, my, but I bet you'd squeal like a pig.
You're a whiny little punk with nothing intelligent to say.
But, hey, you can tell all the other whiny little punks at your playdate tomorrow how tough you were on the intertubes.
I'm sure your mom will be impressed.
Childish little asshole.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
omg, panic!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
that's enough to almost fill an 8mm cube :/
Requiem for the American Dream
Even small to medium sized fish are found to have 10-20 beads in their digestive tract at any given time.
Which is a remarkably underwhelming number.
Not if he's talking about all fish everywhere. That's probably like... thousands of beads total.
Nothing posted to
So you make a habit of eating the intestinal/digestive tract of these aquatic creatures?
Disgusting.
Captain Planet Explains.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I won't take you seriously until I see some unit tests.
I'm pretty sure I don't want to see anybody on Slashdot testing their unit.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
However, I am questioning the quality of your water treatment process if this is actually a problem.
"Quality" and "design cases" are two very different things. Water treatment processes need to be carefully designed for the exact things that get flushed into them. A lot of assumptions are made for local municipal waste streams, and you often see advertisements taking care of the rest (i.e. don't flush cooking oil down the sink). Hence you end up with interesting cases like refinery waste water treatment plants producing water so clean you can drink it despite having inputs of arsenic, mercury and all the nasty bits of crude oil, but muicipal waste treatment plants producing stuff you don't necessarily wish to discharge anywhere near your drinking supply.
In short, you can treat out microbeads. But it would require a lot of investment into upgraded / changed water treatment plants across the world. It's easier to just ban the things that have very little benefit in the first place.
This isn't the first time that I've seen mention of this. If I'm remembering previous articles correctly, these beads are ending up being consumed by very small sea creatures, who cannot process them, who then are eaten by bigger sea creatures, who also cannot process them, etc, until they build up in large concentrations toward the top of the foodchain to poison those alpha predators. There's concern for humans that eat those largest animals too.
Honestly I'm surprised that they were legal in the first place, but if there wasn't an explicit law against them then I guess the companies that have manufactured and used them were free to do so regardless of any perceived morality on the matter.
I'm kinda disappointed, the Crest 3D toothpaste in the blue tube was the first one that actually manages to maintain teeth whiteness for me
ugh its too hard to type what I was going to say
You speak about Ocean Spray in the present tense. From a quick Google it seems that this was happening around 1988 and that the company got in trouble for it.
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
Can you explain? Or are you just a lying asshole?
Learn to love Alaska
Could they possibly be a politician?
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Although the beads aren't toxic, they can and do adsorb hydrophilic pollutants such as PCBs and other oily pollutants such as dioxins. Normally these chemicals settle out into the lake/river bottoms (or evaporate from the surface), but when they attach to microbeads, which being small and similar density to water, they can stay dispersed in the water. Small creatures eat the beads and the PCBs or whatever enter the animals flesh through the gut, and it is supposed that predatory fish at the top of the food chain will have higher levels of the pollutants due to bioamplification in the same fashion that mercury is found in higher levels in top of the food chain oceanic predatory fish.
PCBs and dioxins in the food are bad news for humans in even very tiny quantities.
However, although they are finding and counting the beads in fish, I have not seen anyone doing measurements of captured fish to see to what degree fish are capturing pollutants.
OTOH, it doesn't make sense to wait until things get really bad to decide to solve the problem. Once these beads get into lakes and rivers, there's no way to get them out.
Rivers for example filter water yet contain no "filter" as you term it. Oceans filter water yet also contain no "filter".
These are not true statements.
I can't imagine it is really a big water treatment issue since they have a different density than water and you could separate them with settling tanks and skimmers.
Separating really small objects of almost the same density as water (0.91â"0.96 g/cm3 - they are made from polyethylene) is not easy, and the fact is that they pass through all existing water treatment works. Plastics are in fact a serious environmental issue, 1) since they often leak hormone-like chemicals, and 2) because plastic objects are mostly not broken down into their chemical constituents, but instead break up to form very small plastic splinters and fibres. These are now found everywhere in our food chain; certainly in anything that starts life at sea: fish etc. We still don't quite know what harm they cause - the great worry is that thei will turn out to be as harmful as asbestos. Is it a good idea to allow the industry to pump these largely unnecessary products out, when it seems likely that it will cause massive problems for society down the line? Health problems cost society money, not just in form of hospitals, doctors etc, but also in lost productivity - prevention is better than cure, and it is also better for business in the long run.
And I don't see it matters for industry really because they'll just go back to using what they were using before which is mostly - sand.
You use this stuff as an abrasive and maybe the microbeads are mildly less abrasive? I don't know... anyway, they'll just replace this with very fine sand.
Sand is a natural material, and the environment already knows how to deal with it. I don't know exactly why they prefer to use plastic, but I'll bet it has to do with thei short term profit. Maybe it is a selling point, or was - I remember when it was first introduced and you suddenly heard a lot about how harsh the old kind of toothpaste was to your teeth. In reality it is probably no more than a selling point, like the current craze for putting triclosan in everything - which doesn't actually kill bacteria, but is likely to harm our health in the long run (both directly and by breeding resistent bacteria; when will we bother to learn?)
If they are 1 mm beads it is a lump of plastic, per year, that is about the size of the volume of a blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus) approx 86 m^3
Which is a remarkably underwhelming number.
Really! How many proportionately sized particles (say matchhead sized) in your own gut at any time would also be underwhelming?
Quite right for the government. It is better to make the polluter remove pollutants than accept them in the system and process them.
Maybe you can try going to poor towns in West Virginia and tell them that they have to spend millions of dollars on new sewage treatment plants because of toothpaste and skin soap.
Lay off the appeal to the poor and other forms of appeal to emotion and look at your question again.
Then, consider that the article itself argues how California (due to its economy's size) banning this particular product (which article claims is being used because it is cheaper) will FORCE the industry to stop using it altogether.
Meaning that instead of "poow witwe tows iw Wewst Wiwviwia" (Isn't appeal to emotion retarded?) it will affect the economy of the ENTIRE USA and thus indirectly the world - because "estimated 38 tons of plastic pollution in California".
On the other hand...
Why are you OK with California influencing both world economy INCLUDING Wewst Wiwviwia evowowy (OK... I'll stop) in one dictatorial form - but not in another which would be ameliorated by various federal and state grants and caps based on quantity of produced/treated sewage, AFTER it gets voted in on a federal level?
How many poow wi... how many small towns outside California would be influenced by regulations for stricter filtration INSIDE California?
Which would produce cleaner water all-round, and not just from that one form of particles.
And really... California, the 10th economy by nominal GDP, IN THE WORLD, surpassing India and Canada, can't afford better treatment of its water - so it has to shift the cost of its inhabitants fear of plastic onto everyone else's wallets?
On a side note...
Can't wait until it dawns on Californians that glitter is made out of the same stuff, only covered with various shiny metals.
I wonder if they'll ban Mariah Carey?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Sand is a natural material, and the environment already knows how to deal with it.
Every time you get the urge to say "it's natural so it is OK" - REMEMBER CYANIDE.
Or Ebola. Or AIDS. Cancer too...
All perfectly natural.
Just like sulfuric acid - which is used to unclog pipes once they accumulate too much sand.
Or even "apricot shells and cocoa beans" suggested by the idiotic article.
Both of which soak up water, sink to the bottom and clog up pipes - calling for more perfectly natural chemicals to poured down the drain more often.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I'm aware that there are places that make potable water from effluent, but no major city does that with all their sewage, or even most of their sewage.
Then how do cities like New Orleans do it? The get at least some of their water from the Mississippi, and there's a lot of waste added to that along the way.
Dallas pulls from the Trinity River (less now than when it was founded, at least percentage-wise). It does pump the water into some city resevoirs, which are then used as settling tanks. The only problem with that is White Rock Lake needed millions of dollars of dredging, as the lake became more and more shallow. Though that wasn't the Trinity. They dammed that and used Lake Dallas as the settling tank (now known as Lewisville Lake, though the naming isn't always consistent). And Lake Ray Roberts is upstream of that. Not sure what the percentages of drinking water from each, but it's well filtered after. White Rock Lake is less filtered than Lake Dallas. Maybe that's because Gainsville dumps waste into the river, which needs more filtering, or maybe it's related to the rules that allow motor vehicles on Lake Dallas, but not White Rock Lake.
Toilet to tap is common. Most of the water I've drunk was toilet to tap. Only when I moved to Alaska were the main sources of water pure mountain streams that are more pure at the start of the purification process than the ideal tap water in most places. The main treatment is to clean the natural organisms out of the water.
Learn to love Alaska
Maybe because when they ask, all the luddites are jackasses about it and can't articulate a single problem with them. So far the only complaint I've seen is that they help concentrate other pollution. If there was no other pollution, they'd be harmless is the implication. So why focus on a catalyst, and not the problem? IF they have a negative, why can't the luddites share it, rather than insulting anyone who asks about them?
Learn to love Alaska
Doesn't that show the water isn't being cleaned well enough?
The problem is, sewage treatment systems have a lot of trouble (at present, let's just simply say "can't") filtering them out. They go into the sewage, they will go into the sea.
Setting up filters for particles as small as 1 micron for all sewage going out into the ocean is obviously going to be a massive expensive. Who wants to pay for that so that people can keep sticking bits of plastic in cosmetics?
Seriously, whose bright idea was it to make bits of plastic, bite-size for plankton, looking like fish eggs, whose very design intent is to wash out into the ocean? And no, while they're not harmful to us, they absolutely will be to plankton - if not immediately (how healthy do you think you'd be if you wolfed down an entire meal-sized chunk of plastic?), then with time. Plastics act as chelators for heavy metals and a number of organic poisons, to such a degree that they might even be economical to mine. There's simply no way that this isn't going to have an impact.
And it's so stupid when one can just use soluble crystals (salts, sugars, etc) instead of plastic.
POTUS Witch Hunt tracker: 75 charges filed against 19 witches, 4 witches cooperating and 5 witches have pled guilty.
Its the seafood you eat that's the problem, small organisms are eating this stuff and then the fish are eating them and then you'll be eating it.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
then the fish are eating them and then you'll be eating it.
Do you eat fish guts ?
http://conbio.org/images/conte...
Microbead contamination and harm Although their small size makes them difficult to detect, microbeads have been found in inland and coastal aquatic habitats 4,5 and in fish 6 . Experiments have demonstrated harm in fish 9,10 from plastics that are the same type, size and shape as common microbeads. Microbeads pass through water treatment facilities, are released into natural wat erways and become microplastic debris. Microplastic is ubiquitous in aquatic habitats , including bays 11,12 , estuaries and shorelines 13,14 , coral reefs 15 , the deep - sea 15 , freshwater lakes 16 , rivers 5 and Arctic Sea ice 17 . Microplastics persist in aquatic and terrestrial habitats for decades where they accumulate hazardous chemicals. Microplastic has been reported in hundreds of species globally, including marine mammals, turtles, seabirds, fish and invertebrates 18 . Microplastics cause physical and chemical ha rm to animals 9,19 . Physically, micro plastic can cause cellular necrosis, inflammation and lacerations in the digestive tract 20 . Chemically, microplastic is associated with a complex mixture of chemicals, many of which are priority pollutants under the US E PA Clean Water Act for being persistent , bioacummulative and/or toxic 21 . C hemicals associated with this âcocktailâ(TM) can accumulate in animals that eat them 9,10,19,22 - 27 and cause liver toxicity and disrupt the endocrine system 9,10 .
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Between any anonymous stranger's lack of record and karmashock, I'd choose the goodwill and integrity of the person without a record every time.
False dichotomy. You can distrust both Karmashock and ACs.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Do you eat fish guts ?
Not only do lots of people eat the guts of small fishes every day, but fish sauce is made by putting whole fishes into pots and letting them ferment. There's lots of people eating fish guts. Also, fish guts normally don't just get thrown away, they get made into fish meal which is then used for food production. Also, guts don't just sit there, they digest stuff. That includes pulling toxins attached to the beads into the blood stream of the fish. Lots of toxins are bioaccumulative. All this stuff is Junior High school level science, I shouldn't have to draw you a fucking map.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Well, without knowing the language I suppose it might compile, but I'm pretty sure it'd croak on the third statement.
Log in or piss off.
The only thing compiled here is a smug sense of superiority and possibly entitlement.
Please do not execute with the --verbose argument any more.
Silence is a state of mime.
How many proportionately sized particles (say matchhead sized) in your own gut at any time would also be underwhelming?
10-20. It's probably TMI, but I have more than that in my gut right now.
for someone who doesnt care, you sure do argue a lot while sticking to and defending the same points of ignorance.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
http://ewao.com/a/1-microbeads...
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
http://randiragan.com/wp-conte...
http://ewao.com/a/1-microbeads...
seriously, your post history makes it clear you exist only to troll.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
they're hard to clean up
They'll clean up by themselves, either biologically, chemically, or abrasively.
Also, guts don't just sit there, they digest stuff. That includes pulling toxins attached to the beads into the blood stream of the fish.
The toxins are the problem, not the beads.
Lots of toxins are bioaccumulative
No, only a few toxins are, most notably PCB and mercury compounds.
So, the only bad part about the microbeads is that they concentrate the toxins in the beads ? How much of a difference does that make ?
The toxins are the problem, not the beads.
And the toxins don't get into some of these organisms without the beads, which is why the beads are a problem. You don't get to pretend the toxins don't exist. Also, the plastics themselves produce toxins when they decompose.
No, only a few toxins are, most notably PCB and mercury compounds.
These are the bioaccumulative compounds of primary concern, you are full of shit as there are plenty more.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Are there not sands that are a fine enough grain that they can be used instead? That would at least mean we're putting something that is commonly found in the water back in it instead of plastic microbeads.
Dallas pulls from the Trinity River (less now than when it was founded, at least percentage-wise).
Dallas doesn't pull any water from the Trinity River. It pulls water from reservoirs, and not all of them are fed by the Trinity.
It does pump the water into some city resevoirs, which are then used as settling tanks.
Dallas doesn't pump water into any reservoirs. Dallas pumps water *from* reservoirs into treatment facilities and then to customers.
The only problem with that is White Rock Lake ... [snip]
White Rock Lake hasn't been used for drinking water in decades.
Toilet to tap is common. Most of the water I've drunk was toilet to tap.
The vast majority of re-claimed water in the US is used for irrigation and industrial uses, not drinking water. Unless you've lived in a few specific communities in CA or FL, you have probably never drank any re-claimed water. Toilet to tap is not common in the US, and it is non-existent in Dallas.
Dallas doesn't pull any water from the Trinity River. It pulls water from reservoirs, and not all of them are fed by the Trinity.
It pulls primarily from reservoirs that are man-made dammings of the Trinity River.
Toilet to tap is not common in the US, and it is non-existent in Dallas.
Where does Gainsville put its waste? Where does Dallas draw most of its water (previously nearly all)?
Yes, I'm over-simplifying slightly when I consider a wide, slow section of the Trinity River to be the Trinity River, but Louisville Lake is the Trinity River, just dammed and slowed. And waste is thrown in that river, and drinking water is take from it.
You've not contradicted me, just argued with me. Why are you being contentious over something you didn't even really disagree on?
Learn to love Alaska
Congratulations. You've misinterpreted the "the only complaint" that you saw. It's more than just man-made "pollution". It's more accurate to say they concentrate other toxins.
First of all, a number of natural toxins exist and are produced every day by organisms (e.g. cyanide) and natural phenomena like volcanic activity. Just like man-made pollutants, those natural toxins are being passed up the food chain via microbeads when they should be resting harmlessly outside the reach of our food chain.
Second, pollution exists and cannot be "undone". It's ludicrous to bring up the fantasy of "if there was no other pollution" because we've been making very large and very permanent deposits ever since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Currently, the only real solution to this problem is time and patience, and microbeads interfere with our ability to bide that time without inflicting harm upon the majority of animal life on this planet.
You've not contradicted me, just argued with me. Why are you being contentious over something you didn't even really disagree on?
Because pulling water from reservoirs, treating it, and delivering it to customers doesn't fit the definition of "toilet to tap". You may want to define "toilet to tap" that way, but the rest of the world doesn't.
Neither of those actually point to any harm.
Seriously, your post history makes it clear that you are a blind partisan, incapable of independent thought.
The main claim to harm is based on references 9 and 10. However, the pamphlet misrepresents those studies, implying that they show liver toxicity and endocrine disruption; in fact, all those studies show is that very high levels of contaminated dietary microplastics (not microbeads) result in increased liver activity, not necessarily harmful. There is no evidence at all for any kind of harm to humans, either from direct ingestion or eating fish.
More importantly, though, that paper is about microplastics in general, not microbeads. Microplastics are generated by lots of plastics wastes, and banning microbeads is unlikely to reduce the amounts of microplastics in the ocean or food chain appreciably.
"Harm" is not a question of "can it produce harm under some circumstances", but "does it increase risk demonstrably and significantly in the real world".
Then give a definition, rather than telling me mine is wrong. 99% of the jackasses who do that would argue with any definition I give, so there's no point in me wasting my time.
I get it, you are the self-appointed guardian of "toilet to tap" and argue with anyone who uses that phrase.
Learn to love Alaska
Why not use silicon dioxide? IIUC that's what they used to use, and it's a cheap industrial chemical. AND it's heavier than water.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I guess your wish to remain ignorant is interfering with your ability to perform a simple internet search. Here, let me help you. What you describe as "toilet to tap" is:
"Cities take water from rivers or wells, contaminate it as they use it, and send it to wastewater treatment plants for sufficient cleanup to return to the rivers, where it heads downstream to the next city."
Your definition of "toilet to tap" is the same water cycle that's been going on since municipal wastewater treatment facilities came into existence (in other words, long before the term "toilet to tap" was even coined).
What the rest of the world describes as "toilet to tap" is a system where a community's sewage is processed through "highly engineered, well-monitored, advanced treatment processes that remove contaminants", typically involving microfiltration, reverse osmosis, and ultraviolet disinfection. The processed water is then reintroduced to the environment upstream of the community that originally created the wastewater.
If you like, I can further help you become better educated on the subject of reclaimed water...I've got all day. But if you can't see the difference in the definitions above, there's little that can be done to help you.
The processed water is then reintroduced to the environment upstream of the community that originally created the wastewater.
So "toilet to tap" is the same thing we've been doing for a very long time. It's just a new word for the same thing, to make people hate their tap water, and adds no useful dinstinction or information to the conversation.
Got it. Thanks for confirming it's a useless buzzword used by pedants and markeing departments, with no technical meaning.
It means "wastewater into a shared waterway that's used for municipal water supply", the same as we've had for a very long time. Nothing new or useful.
Though it makes me wonder why some idiots are so passionate about a word with no meaning.
And yes, there's no functional difference when I'm drinking the water from a toilet in Gainsville, vs from a toilet in Dallas when I'm in Dallas. Both are drinking toilet water. Both are from a toilet to the tap.
Learn to love Alaska
Then give a definition, rather than telling me mine is wrong. 99% of the jackasses who do that would argue with any definition I give, so there's no point in me wasting my time.
I get it, you are the self-appointed guardian of "toilet to tap" and argue with anyone who uses that phrase.
Here's your definition.
"Toilet to tap" programs are those in which the treated sewage is directly used as the input into the water treatment plant.
The phrase "toilet to tap" is pejorative; the intent is to make people opposed to the process of recycling water directly from the sewage treatment plants. The phrase is also used by journalists hoping to attract attention to their article.
Less disparaging terms are those like "recycled water", "water re-use", "water reclamation" and so on.
Some people consider discharging the treated water upstream to the cities water intake to be "toilet to tap", or also the process where the treated water is put into holding ponds that also serve as water intake. Those are called the same terms with the word "indirect" added, such as "indirect recycled water".
No one calls the case of upstream cities sewage (treated or untreated) being dumped into a river that downstream cities use for their water intake to be "toilet to tap". That's just traditional practice, and is called "pollution" in the case of untreated sewage.
Here is a journal article that discusses it in more detail.
http://journal.sjdm.org/14/141...
I don't see the actual harm that microbeads are supposed to cause.
Have you tried looking? Or thinking?
Screw it. You're probably being deliberately stupid in an effort to annoy people. Mission accomplished.
I recommend you switch your diet to foods contaminated with microscopic bits of plastic.
They bind other toxins. That is not necessarily a bad thing.
Quite right. And pollution continues. Microbeads are negligible compared to other plastic pollution, pollution that nobody even remotely considers tackling.
That statement is pure FUD, starting with he fact that "the majority of animal life on this planet" isn't even a well defined concept.
First, they "concentrate" toxins by passing them up the food chain into continually larger organisms after the toxins were ingested by smaller ones. By the time the toxins have moved a ways up the food chain, they've been concentrated into the larger organisms. Second, it's not FUD because "the majority of animal life on this planet" resides in the ocean, by far. Also, higher concentrations of toxins inflict demonstrable harm.
That's true for mercury compounds and free fat soluble organic compounds. Microplastics bind the toxins (in fact, similar processes are used for cleaning up pollution because binding toxins like that removes them from the environment).
Those are just platitudes, not arguments.
I guess the take-home lesson from all the non-responses is that there is next to no evidence of actual harm, and no plausible way in which the ban will significantly improve the marine environment.
You can't study microplastic beads directly because once they reach the environment, they quickly become indistinguishable from other microplastic pollution.
http://www.beatthemicrobead.or...
I'm not an expert in this area but it looks like enough serious people are investigating it that I'll back them when they say to stop.
--- (from the link).
I R.C. Thompson, et al. âLost at Sea: Where Is All the Plastic?â(TM), in: Science, 304 (May 2004).
II P.K. Roy, et al., âDegradable Polyethylene: Fantasy or Realityâ(TM), in: Environmental Science and Technology, 2011, pp. 4217â"4227.
III M.C. Goldstein et al., âIncreased oceanic microplastic debris enhances oviposition in an endemic pelagic insectâ(TM), in: Biology Letters published on line 9 May 2012; C.J. Moore, âSynthetic polymers in the marine environment: A rapidly increasing, long-term threatâ(TM), in: Environmental Research108 (2008), pp. 131-139.
IV L.S. Fendall, M.A. Sewell, âContributing to marine pollution by washing your face: microplastics in facial cleansersâ(TM), in: Marine Pollution Bulletin, 58 (8) (2009), pp. 1225-1228.
V W.J. Sutherland et al., âA horizontal scan of global conservation issues for 2010â(TM), in: Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 25, pp. 1-7.
VI Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Scientific and Technical Advisory Panelâ"GEF (2012). Impacts of Marine Debris on Biodiversity: Current Status and Potential Solutions, Montreal, Technical Series No. 67.
VII Chr.M. Boerger et al., âPlastic ingestion by planktivorous fishes in the North Pacific Central Gyreâ(TM), in: Marine Pollution Bulletin 60 (2010), pp. 2275-2278.
VIII Y. Mato et al., âPlastic Resin Pellets as a Transport Medium of Toxic Chemicals in the Marine Environmentâ(TM), in: Environmental Science & Technology, 2001, 35(2), pp.318-324.
IX H. Takada, et al., âAccumulation of plastic-derived chemicals in tissues of seabirds ingesting marine plasticsâ(TM) in: Marine Pollution Bulletin69 (2013), pp 219-222.
X E.M. Foekema et al., âPlastic in North Sea fishâ(TM), in: Environmental Science & Technology, 47 (2013), pp. 8818-8824.
XI P. Farrel en K. Nelson, âTrophic level transfer of microplastic: Mytilus edulis (L.) to Carcinus maenas (L.)â(TM), in: Environmental Pollution 177 (2013), pp. 1-3.
XII D. Lithner et al., âEnvironmental and health hazard ranking and assessment of plastic polymers based on chemical compositionâ(TM), in: Science of the total environment 409 (2011), pp. 3309â"3324.
XIII STAP. Marine Debris as a Global Environmental Problem: Introducing a solutions based framework focused on plastic. In A STAP Information Document, p. 40. Washington, DC: Global Environment Facility, 2011.
XIV L. Van Cauwenberghe, âOccurrence of microplastics in mussels (Mytilus edulis) and lugworms (Arenicola marina) collected along the French-Belgian-Dutch coast, in: J. Mees, et al. (ed.), Book of abstracts - VLIZ Young Marine Scientists' Day. Brugge, Belgium, 24 February 2012. VLIZ Special Publication, 55.
XV Cole M., et al., âMicro-plastic ingestion by zooplanktonâ(TM), in: Environmental Science & Technology, 2013 47 (12), pp. 6646-6655.
XVI G. Liebezeit, F. Dubaish, âMicroplastics in Beaches of the East Frisian Islands Spiegeroog and Kacheloplateâ(TM), in: Bulletin environmental contamination and toxicology, 89 (2012), p. 213-127.
XVII http://5gyres.org/how_to_get_i...
XVIII Leslie, H.A., Microplastic in Noordzee zwevend stof en cosmetica. Eindrapportage W-12/01, IVM Institute for Environmental Studies, Amsterdam, 2012.
XIXM.A. Browne et al., âAccumulations of microplastic on shorelines worldwide: sources and sinksâ(TM), in: Environmental Science &
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I'm not saying that microbeads are less harmful than other microplastics, I'm saying that there is so much microplastics around that it is unclear that banning microbeads will have any effect.
So you're saying that we should ban anything that a lot of people seem to be publishing papers on, no matter what those papers say? Or what? That's basically the environmentalist equivalent of the privacy-violating anti-terrorist measures and security theater at the airport, or the "ban gay marriage because it destroys traditional families" crowd.
Really, is it too much to ask people to demonstrate that a new law (1) addresses harm that is actually observed (i.e., animals and/or humans getting sick in the real world), and (2) actually will reduce the harm?
So "toilet to tap" is the same thing we've been doing for a very long time.
That's not what I said. That's what you keep saying, and it's incorrect. As you requested, I laid out an accurate definition of toilet to tap showing significant distinctions from what "we've been doing for a very long time" compared to how toilet to tap systems actually function.
But hey, you don't see any real differences between reservoirs and rivers - and you spout complete nonsense about Dallas pumping water out of the Trinity and into city reservoirs. So it's hardly surprising that you can't see any distinction between a system that passes it's treated waste water downstream and a system that uses hundreds of millions of dollars in additional advanced technology infrastructure in order to pass potable water back upstream for a community to reuse.
But hey, you don't see any real differences between reservoirs and rivers - and you spout complete nonsense about Dallas pumping water out of the Trinity and into city reservoirs
So, what feeds Lewisville Lake? Does Dallas pull drinking water from Lewisville Lake? Where does the waste from Gainsvile go?
You don't stick to facts, and don't answer direct questions. So I assume more distraction and smoke and mirrors, and no answers or discussion.
Learn to love Alaska
Sigh.
Gainsville's treated waste water flows into the Trinity, where it then flows into Lake Ray Roberts, then flows into the Trinity, then flows into Lewisville Lake. Dallas pumps water from Lewisville Lake into treatment plants, then to customers. After the water is consumed, the sewage is sent to waste water treatment plants, and back into the Trinity to be used by communities DOWNSTREAM. This is the traditional process that for some bizarre reason you really really want to call "toilet to tap".
There, did I directly answer your question? Did I stick to the facts?
Here's another fun fact: the above outlined traditional process is not "toilet to tap" (which is simply a euphemism for the more accurate term of "water recycling"). Water recycling uses completely different infrastructure and technology, and implements a completely different resource flow. Ultimately, water recycling systems allow a community to re-use it's own waste water, instead of simply flushing it downstream - which is what Gainesville does to Dallas and ever other fucking municipality DOWNSTREAM from them.
There are no water recycling facilities on any part of the Trinity River watershed, so nobody that drinks water from the Trinity River or any reservoir fed from it is drinking "toilet to tap".
I've given you the definition you asked for three times now, and nobody is so stupid that they could fail to see any distinction between the systems in question. I'm guessing you suffer from some pathological need to be right coupled with low self esteem. When someone points out your mistakes, you feel intellectually threatened and react with childish denial. Kinda sad, really.
Cheers!
So if a town dumps their toilet water into the stream, and downstream someone drinks it from the tap, that's not toilet to tap. Got it. Toilet to Tap has nothing to do with toilets or taps.
Learn to love Alaska
What we've got is evidence of a mechanism that can cause harm by concentrating compounds into our food chain that shouldn't be there. That is to say, we know compounds bind to the surface of these plastics. We know animals are consuming the plastics. We know these harmful compounds are absorbed into the animal when the plastics are consumed. If that's what you call, "next to no evidence of actual harm", then I a guess we agree.
First, you shouldn't mistake my simple recognition of the facts as tacit support for the ban. I'm happy to acknowledge more research is needed before taking a drastic step like banning the microbeads, but I don't think this perspective should impede a rational discussion about the potential impact of these beads on our enviornment and food supply.
Second, it's most definitely plausible that banning the beads could ultimately result in less of the compounds we've been discussing entering our food chain. Maybe that doesn't fit your definition of significantly improving the marine environment? Fine, I'll also agree with you on this one.
Finally, I don't agree that 'significant improvement of the marine environment' should be the singular criteria for enacting bans on pollutants.
Yes, that's no evidence of harm, because it's all a matter of quantity and effect. All it says is that there is a theoretical possibility of harm. Why are you beating around the bush? Why are you not stating clearly what your definition actually is?
Yes, it does not fit my definition of "significantly improving the marine environment". "It is plausible that..." is not sufficient reason to ban potentially useful substances. All it says is that there is a theoretical possibility of improving the marine environment. Why are you beating around the bush? Why are you not stating clearly what your definition actually is?
California votes to ban microbeads. I ask for evidence of harm. People get abusive and hostile.
The only scientific publications anybody can point to in support of the ban demonstrate no harm from microbeads, only slightly elevated liver activity at the highest doses of microplastics, and provide no evidence or data suggesting that banning microbeads has any effect whatsoever.
And you are trying to have it both ways. Fact is that if your (implied, you're hedging your bets by being evasive) definitions of "harm" or "significantly improving the marine environment" were true, the ban would be justified. But because you don't want to be perceived as anti-environmentalist by questioning environmentalism or as anti-scientific, so you are vague and evasive.
I do care about the environment. But the kind of unscientific fear mongering and bans that this represents are actually hurting the environment, because if you waste your time and political capital on things that don't matter, those things that do matter don't get addressed.
I joined this conversation specifically to address the broad accusation that folks participating in this conversation "can't articulate a single problem with them." I'm really not interested in the semantic distinction or argument for/against banning that you're focused on, but since you've asked; I think the way you're calling it a theoretical possibility is overtly dismissive and stifles rational discourse. You asked the same question twice, so I'll ask you to re-read everything up to this point. Fair's fair.
Don't take it out on me. I'm not fear-mongering, and I'm not being evasive. I just didn't join this conversation with the intention of addressing your argument. I'll wait here while you go back to take another look at my original post in this thread.
Since you've asked, even though I don't really give a shit that they've enacted a ban, it's fair to say the ban is definitely not supported by the environmental science we've discussed.
All of that environmental science aside, it seems to me that selling plastics intended to enter our wastewater systems and likely unable to be captured by many such systems amounts to basic littering. I can't think of a good reason to allow that in consumer-level products other than to avoid inflicting economic harm on the industries that sell those products. Maybe you can help me out there...
Well, in that case, perhaps you should have read the whole conversation, since I had already responded to the arguments you made.
Small plastic particles with large surface areas have huge numbers of applications, from medicine to material science, batteries, and water purification. In fact, the very problem people see with microbeads, namely that they concentrate toxins out of the environment, is itself a huge potential application. Consumer-level applications is what drives research into better and cheaper production methods, investment in high volume production facilities, and new applications.
I also think the distinction between "consumer-level products" and other products is invalid. Microbeads may well be the best solution for some (or even many) consumer-level products, and the choice should be left up to consumers when there is no clearly demonstrable harm and prohibition would be ineffective anyway.
Finally, I think the dichotomy you pose is a false one; there are many other choices between prohibiting their sale in "consumer-level products" and letting microbeads enter every environment on the planet. For example, water treatment plants could be changed to be more efficient.
You're insufferable in your willingness to mis-characterize my commentary. Once again, I wasn't making arguments. I was helping another poster with a misunderstanding by sharing a few scientific facts with him. You don't own the entire discussion thread just because you made an elderly post, so in that case you should mind your own business or at least pay closer attention to the contextual basis of mine.
This is very true, but it's a straw man. I didn't draw that distinction. My post included a qualifier constraining my commentary to products whose existence amount to "basic littering" because they are intended for our wastewater systems. I can't believe you wasted 3 paragraphs of text explaining something so painfully obvious. The only thing missing is a citation about how pornography drives advanced technology development and adoption.
Ahh, finally, something relevant... Is it realistic, though? Getting there is probably gonna require federal regulations and a lot of government spending. We'll see a lot of litter before we get anywhere close to that ideal. Maybe a tax on these companies to raise funding for these efficiency upgrades, eh? No, that's more ridiculous than a ban. Tough one, I guess... I'm sure you'll come up with something.