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.

Comments

Why?

[cascadingstylesheet]

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?

Re: Why?

[olsmeister]

I would expect things to COLLECT in the deepest portions. As current moves things around, they will eventually tend to settle in the deepest portions as it's much much likely that currents will sweep debris up and out of these places.

Re:Why?

[chispito]

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?

You wouldn't. But the story sounds more sensational if it's implied somebody would.

Re: Why?

[petermgreen]

Polyethelene is less dense than water so if it's clean and empty then it will float. However an item in the bag or even a bit of sand washed inside could easilly push it over the edge into sinking.

Re: Why?

[cascadingstylesheet]

This particular plastic bag is not a problem, because sitting on the bottom of the ocean means that it will eventually become petroleum once again.

What we need to find is a way of making the rest of the floating plastic sink to abyssal depths.

Submarines compact their trash (along with weights) and deliberately send it to the ocean depths.

Re: Why?

[Applehu Akbar]

That's why if we required that plastic be denser than seawater, that would get rid of most of the problem - not because it would sink in the ocean, but because it would sink at the first place where it was dumped into water, in telltale accumulations. Currently, no one knows where all this plastic is being dumped.

Re:Why?

[vux984]

"I never understood why people thought this was funny, Chewbacca doesn't live on Endor."

I mean, i don't think its the greatest joke ever told. But whether or not Chewbacca does or does not live on Endor is completely irrelevant. I mean you realize that right? To call that error out, to suggest THAT is the sticking point for you??? --- because what? If Chewbacca DID live on Endor then this argument would have somehow worked ?

The fact the idiots hearing the argument were convinced by an utter nonsense argument was the joke.

The fact that, no Chewbacca doesn't even live on Endor is an inside joke for star wars nerds on top of that; because anyone who only saw RotJ once back in the 80s and doesn't remember it scene by scene could well accept that premise that Chewbacca was from Endor too -- but it doesn't even matter whether its true or not; its just the icing on the cake.

Re: Why?

[DigiShaman]

Hawaii is has a gift of sorts, an active volcano. Why are we not throwing are non-recyclables and e-waste into the volcano? Next eruption, the lava will consume and break it down to it's basic elements anyways. Since it's going to be throwing tons of pollution into the atmosphere anyways, might as well take advantage of natures incinerator.

And yes, I'm being very serious. Perhaps it's more of a safety issue even in periods of relative inactivity?

Re:Why?

[GameboyRMH]

Humans are very prone to magical thinking about even the most practical matters. For example, a small but meaningful fraction of the world population thinks that their fossil CO2 emissions magically don't contribute to climate change.

Re:Why?

[ShanghaiBill]

You can consume less plastic. You can start now.

I started back in 2012, when my city, San Jose CA, banned single-use plastic bags.

Hawaii bans bags statewide.

Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda ban bags.

China doesn't ban bags, but they cannot be free. Shops have to charge extra for them, which greatly decreases their use.

Re: Why?

[Sarten-X]

While the volcano is busy breaking down the plastic to elements, it'll still release a lot of those half-broken molecules as debris and ash, many of which will float on the air over to populated areas. In Hawaii, those areas are also the places that bring in that lovely tourist revenue.

You're essentially suggesting we use a volcano as an incinerator, without bothering to put any filtration or scrubbers on the exhaust. Granted, the heavy stuff will be completely destroyed... but the lighter stuff will be just as bad as any other incineration. It might be possible to capture the released gas and try to filter it, but I suspect the higher heat of the volcano will make building such a structure rather difficult.

Re: Why?

[Nidi62]

An animal could have ingested it then died, sinking to the bottom and bringing the bag with it.

Re: Why?

[Hognoxious]

African or European?

that should make

[mandark1967]

taking samples much easier since paper bags would get waterlogged and tear.

Re:Gravity works!

[guruevi]

I think at those depths, buoyancy and currents has much more forces on the bag than gravity. Even above water a plastic bag is quickly overtaken by those.

Hope

[Tablizer]

I've been looking all over for my Zune receipt. Is it in that bag?

Age of Plastic

[foxalopex]

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.

Re:How long?

[LynnwoodRooster]

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.

Re:Paper.

[Applehu Akbar]

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.

Re:Paper.

[jwhyche]

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.

Re:mod parent up

[Whorhay]

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.

Re:Relevance

[Wulf2k]

Finding plastic bags in the underwater trenches of an exoplanet would actually be fairly remarkable on a number of fronts.