Posted on 10/20/2019 6:31:33 AM PDT by Renkluaf
Science is beginning to win in the long battle over misinformed anti-plastic advocacy. It has been a long time coming. The most recent paper on the subject of pelagic plastic (plastic floating in the oceans) is from a scientific team at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, Mass., and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The study is “Sunlight Converts Polystyrene to Carbon Dioxide and Dissolved Organic Carbon” by Collin P. Ward, Cassia J. Armstrong, Anna N. Walsh, Julia H. Jackson and Christopher M. Reddy. It is good basic science.
We are all familiar with polystyrene — it is prevalent in modern packaging, both as a solid, such as yoghurt cups, or in expanded form used for disposable foam drink cups. Much of the plastic flotsam found on the worlds beaches and floating in rivers is this ubiquitous plastic, particularly the expanded foam.
The new abstract of the new study starts with this: “ABSTRACT: Numerous international governmental agencies that steer policy assume that polystyrene persists in the environment for millennia. Here, we show that polystyrene is completely photochemically oxidized to carbon dioxide and partially photochemically oxidized to dissolved organic carbon. Lifetimes of complete and partial photochemical oxidation are estimated to occur on centennial and decadal time scales, respectively. These lifetimes are orders of magnitude faster than biological respiration of polystyrene and thus challenge the prevailing assumption that polystyrene persists in the environment for millennia.” [ bolding mine — kh ]
It is about time that someone scientifically challenged the activist position held and promulgated by many environmental, anti-plastics and anti-corporate groups that “Plastic is Forever”.
Plastic is not forever. Glass, both natural and man-made, is forever, but not plastic.
(Excerpt) Read more at wattsupwiththat.com ...
That is interesting information.
Regardless, my thought ... a wise political move by Trump would be to have a program to clean up plastics in the oceans to exploit the entrenched fears of young voters.
And pay for it with money already pilfered from Globull Warming funds that wouldn’t have had as much immediate impact on our environment.
If Trump cleaned up the ocean plastic, the militant environmentalists would complain he is destroying the ecosystem for the ocean life living under the plastic.
So... could plastic makers add an ingredient that would make plastic dissolve faster? Say, in a year or so?
Yes, but what about polyethelene?
Straws and shampoo bottles are not styrene
Yes, the world will be destroyed by straws and shampoo.
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.
The advice to the “Graduate” was sound, “Plastics!!!”.
Build a plastic wall.
Straws and shampoo bottles are not styrene
As a responsible community member I go around parts of my neighborhood picking up trash once a week or so. Some gets blown out of trash cans and trash trucks but some is just litter like the little empty plastic booze bottles; mostly Fireball.
If left to lay out in the sun they become brittle then crack apart until they break down and eventually go away. Now this isn't a scientific study; just my own observations. It may take a year or two for this process to happen. I think it deserves its own study.
I do see all the floating plastic and other garbage floating in the oceans to be a problem though. Two thirds of that nonsense comes from the rivers of Asian countries where they treat their canals, streams, and rivers as their trash dumping area. Of course it does go away from them but eventually ends up in the oceans so until that behavior is stopped; there's no way to fix that problem. What we do here in America will have little effect on that problem. Besides; we use landfills but some trash does end up in the ocean from littering which goes through storm drains then into the oceans. This is only coastal cities causing this.
In the deserts of the Southwest a lot of trash is dumped or flows out to the beautiful deserts when it rains via the washes (dry rivers until it rains). I imagine mountain communities, the Midwest, and other areas have their own problems with this trash ending up in rivers or settling ponds and lakes. Still; it's nothing like what the Asian countries are doing.
My personal opinion is a lot of people are just trashy pigs with no regard for the environment they live in. I think a harsh sentence should be placed on those who get caught with high fines which will take them many years to pay once they are released from prison and picking up trash on weekends for at least a year as part of their probation/sentence.
Note: No offense to animal pigs intended. There is no comparison to the ugly human type.
How ‘bout y’all just stop dumping it in the ocean?
The possibility that plastics breakdown in decades or centuries instead of millenia or never is indeed good news, but we really still need to stop throwing plastic trash in the ocean. It’s disgusting and a long term threat to the global ecosystem. You don’t need to be a hippy to recognize that.
Whatever happened to the endless supply of sand to be made into recyclable bottles for ever and ever?
The industry bitching about plastic is bigger than the plastics industry.
Make them out of hemp?
President Trump has already done more for the environment then any president before him. If china doesn’t come around to the president’s trade terms their economy will continue on its downward trajectory. Just by his strong negotiating tactics he single handily did more to stop pollution then anyone in history.
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