Ninety-nine percent of the ocean's plastic is missing
84 replies, posted
[quote]Millions of tons. That’s how much plastic should be floating in the world’s oceans, given our ubiquitous use of the stuff. But a new study finds that 99% of this plastic is missing. One disturbing possibility: Fish are eating it.
If that’s the case, “there is potential for this plastic to enter the global ocean food web,” says Carlos Duarte, an oceanographer at the University of Western Australia, Crawley. “And we are part of this food web.”
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He suspects that a lot of the missing plastic has been eaten by marine animals. When plastic is floating out on the open ocean, waves and radiation from the sun can fragment it into smaller and smaller particles, until it gets so small it begins to look like fish food—especially to small lanternfish, a widespread small marine fish known to ingest plastic.
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What’s more, both Davison and Law say there are a number of other potential places the plastic could be ending up. It could be washing ashore, and a lot of it could be degrading into pieces too small to be detected. Another possibility is that organisms sticking to and growing on the plastic are dragging the junk beneath the ocean’s surface, either suspending it in the water column or sinking it all the way to the sea floor. Microbes may even be eating the stuff.[/quote]
[url]http://news.sciencemag.org/environment/2014/06/ninety-nine-percent-oceans-plastic-missing?rss=1[/url]
Yeah for xenoestrogens!
...[B]Fuck.[/B]
We have a plastic sea monster on our hands. Man the harpoons!
The reefs disappeared, and now the [I]plastic?![/I] Jesus, we gotta get this under control
This must be the work of Plastics Georg.
Well, isn't this some what good news?
crap
I wager that the aliens are at fault for this :v:
That aside, it's curious to know that the fish are responsible, thinking of it as food.
We really fucked ourselves over when we made plastics. It's great for a lot of stuff, but making disposable things out of them was a baaad idea.
If sensible people were in charge, they would outright ban non-biodegradable plastic that's purpose is to be used and then disposed.
[QUOTE=seano12;45260409]We have a plastic sea monster on our hands. Man the harpoons![/QUOTE]
you kidding? let it stick around
[QUOTE=seano12;45260409]We have a plastic sea monster on our hands. Man the harpoons![/QUOTE]
We're gonna man them alright
[quote][img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/AGM-84_Harpoon_launched_from_USS_Leahy_(CG-16).jpg[/img][/quote]
[QUOTE=Funktastic Dog;45260447]We really fucked ourselves over when we made plastics. It's great for a lot of stuff, but making disposable things out of them was a baaad idea.
If sensible people were in charge, they would outright ban non-biodegradable plastic that's purpose is to be used and then disposed.[/QUOTE]
It took too long for people to realize that the environment could be changed irreversibly because of human interaction with the same. It's just coming home to roost in severe damage which is accelerating with the level of pollution being currently put out.
[QUOTE=crazycory65;45260437]Well, isn't this some what good news?[/QUOTE]
fish have been known to eat plastic and it's not particularly good for them.
[QUOTE=Zambies!;45260466]We're gonna man them alright[/QUOTE]
That missile would go right through it.
Maybe fish will evolve plastic digesting organs in the next few million years, it's all good.
Maybe a diabolical super villian stole it?
Damn fish, I was planning on paving over that plastic once it accumulated enough!
[QUOTE=Funktastic Dog;45260447]We really fucked ourselves over when we made plastics. It's great for a lot of stuff, but making disposable things out of them was a baaad idea.
If sensible people were in charge, they would outright ban non-biodegradable plastic that's purpose is to be used and then disposed.[/QUOTE]
There are still a lot of disposable products that otherwise really wouldn't work without plastics of some form. As much as I'd love a return to the halcyon days of glass-bottled sodas, I can't say the same for the days of cardboard VHS sleeves. Also, without plastics, we'd lose any number of pre-packaged food containers, vacuum-sealable sleeves and pouches, laminated paper products, and virtually all of our consumer electronics...
On the cutting board: Most synthetic fabrics, many composite building materials, styrofoam packing material (say goodbye to ever shipping anything in good condition ever again), and all manner of injection-molded toys, automotive parts, home products, hygiene products, medical products, electrical wiring and insulation, and dildos.
We live in a world built on plastics. They're ingrained in our conventions and our societal preconceptions. It's also going to be the greatest pitfall of the next few centuries, unless we can find a way to replace most of it or recycle what's left. Unlike glass, plastic does not recycle easily.
Its all converging to form Plastic Beach.
Murdoc warned us about this.
I would like to take this time to apologize to my great great great great grand children for the horrors of plastic recycling potentially being their full time job.
I took it.
I needed the plastic bits so I could slather them on my body and let the birds pick it off as I lay in the sun naked. I kept running out, but now I have a lifetime supply of good times.
I fucking hate plastic, buncha bullshit. Glass, Metal and Wood is where it's at.
Check Hollywood.
What are the ramifications of microbes eating plastic?
Goddamn poachers
Soon we are going to run out of the oceans beautiful plastic
time to chalk up another species to the endangered list.
Joke's on you, I don't eat fish.
[QUOTE=Gray Altoid;45261321]What are the ramifications of microbes eating plastic?[/QUOTE]
Since the plastic problem has been solved by fish and microbes, petroleum companies can happily create a lot more plastic and profits.
[QUOTE=Gray Altoid;45261321]What are the ramifications of microbes eating plastic?[/QUOTE]
Microbes eating plastic is one of the few good ways that the ocean can dispose of the stuff. Essentially when a microbe eats something it is breaking it down into some of its constituents, and if the microbe can survive when it does that and make use the plastic for energy, then the worst case scenario might be microbes that hold on to some of the more toxic parts of plastics. That said, there are plenty of microbes that already manufacture toxic substances.
It could also possibly contaminate plankton who eat the microbes, but I imagine this process would still cause the toxins to be very dilute, if plankton can eat the microbes at all.
It was eaten by Flight 370.
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