Slashdot Mirror
Plastic Bag Found at the Bottom of World's Deepest Ocean Trench (nationalgeographic.com)
The Mariana Trench -- the deepest point in the ocean -- extends nearly 36,000 feet down in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean. But if you thought the trench could escape the global onslaught of plastics pollution, you would be wrong. From a report: A recent study revealed that a plastic bag, like the kind given away at grocery stores, is now the deepest known piece of plastic trash, found at a depth of 36,000 feet inside the Mariana Trench. Scientists found it by looking through the Deep-Sea Debris Database, a collection of photos and videos taken from 5,010 dives over the past 30 years that was recently made public.
But if you thought the trench could escape the global onslaught of plastics pollution, you would be wrong.
Why would I, or anyone, think that?
That's the important takeaway here. Even at crushing depths and pressures, gravity will still pull a plastic bag all the way to the bottom.
Probably like most people they commented about it but left it there for someone else to deal with.
taking samples much easier since paper bags would get waterlogged and tear.
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
But gravity, it's only a theory !
Teach the controversy!
#IntelligentFalling
---
(Sorry couldn't resist to make the joke)
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I've been looking all over for my Zune receipt. Is it in that bag?
Table-ized A.I.
I wonder how long some of this plastic will survive? It's going to be weird when millions of years from now, our layer in the geologic records is marked by plastics, chemicals and a mass extinction.
Well, given the dimensions of the trench, and the average mass of a grocery bag is around 9 grams, and the density of LDPE is around 0.94 g/cc, it would take about 1.87 * 10^22 bags to fill the trench to the surface of the ocean.or about 2.4 trillion bags per person on the face of the Earth.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Because their delivery service is AWESOME!
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Like... whatever happened to the paper bags we used to get out groceries in? You know, environmentally friendly, renewable, cheap, QUICKLY biodegradable, strong, reusable paper bags.
Those paper bags are still there, in every supermarket. You just have to ask for them.
Not at the supermarkets where I live. Plastic or carry it yourself. I bring my own cloth reusable bags.
I really hate how this world has gone plastic crazy, plastic bags and bottles. I would much rather us return to paper bags and glass bottles. To me drinks just taste better out of glass bottles. An glass is infinity recycle. An even if glass gets in the environment it is not as big a deal as plastic. Glass will eventually get broken down into is components, sand, much more quickly than plastic.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
I don't remember who thought it up but that is actually one of the safest possible ways to dispose of a lot of nuclear waste. The plan was to mix the waste in with glass, temper and mold it into a big torpedo looking thing and drop it from a surface ship into the ocean sediment at a subduction zone. Such an object would bury its self deep in the sediments which should prevent it from posing a radiation risk to anything alive in the vicinity. Over the eons it would end up encased in sedimentary rock, and then eventually melted into the mantle. By the time it might resurface it should be so diluted and decayed as to pose no discernible risk to any people that might be left around. We don't do it apparently because of international treaties which generally ban disposing of nuclear waste in the oceans.
...which is about 3.7 billion years of plastic bag consumption at present-day rates, if we deliver each one to the trench, and if you assume no biodegradation which does become a factor on such a timescale (especially if a plastic-eating bacteria were to escape the lab).
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
There are a few of them, here and there in the what-if section, and two also in the main section, and also there, if you hover with the mouse. I wouldn't be surpised if others appear, however: it is such a deep argument, after all.
Finding plastic bags in the underwater trenches of an exoplanet would actually be fairly remarkable on a number of fronts.
On the other hand, I've seen plastic bags of trash almost completely disappear from rot and other stuff tearing it apart.
Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean its gone. Plastic molecules don't degrade so easy. They are finding molecules of plastic in soil bacteria. The longevity of some of the most dense plastics is measured in thousands of years. Glass exposed to the environment will eventually get broken down. Even glass on beaches will eventually be taken care of over time.
Some plastics are also poisonous, pure glass isn't.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
I just read an article where some glass in the right conditions can last a million years. That condition being a landfill. That is actually pretty cool. I had no ideal that glass could last that long before breaking down.
But those where perfectly stable conditions. I still think that glass in the environment will break down a lot faster.
On another note. Does anyone else feel that in the future we will be mining our current landfills for valuable resources? So much shit we have tossed into landfills, steel, glass, gold, and other precious metals. Maybe in a few hundred years there will be a gold rush to the local dump.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.