Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Julius]

All that floating plastic is presumably providing a new habitat for plankton, which traditionally requires the underside of sea-ice for its development.

Given that said sea ice is vanishing at an alarming rate, the floating garbage might inadvertantly delay the complete breakdown of the oceans ecosystems. Just a theory.

[OneWayTraffic]

[OneWayTraffic]

And here we go...

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/05/teen-decomposes/

I'd like a bit more information on this than a science fair winner though. A search of the primary literature didn't bring up anything obvious, but I may easily have missed it.

If one bred bacteria that fed on plastic, and nothing but, and could tolerate salt water, and then released them into the ocean, we'd see this whole thing go away. It would make using plastic in our cities problematic though. Need to keep plastics dry and clean.

[Julius]

[TheFonz]

I wonder if this could lead to a global red tide. Pollution is the main cause of red tide so it doesn't seem unlikely.

[bacasper]

It may NOT be the largest.

Pacific Ocean garbage patch worries researchers

By MICHELLE RINDELS, Associated Press Writer Michelle Rindels, Associated Press Writer � 2 hrs 43 mins ago

LOS ANGELES � A tawny stuffed puppy bobs in cold sea water, his four stiff legs tangled in the green net of some nameless fisherman.

It's one of the bigger pieces of trash in a sprawling mass of garbage-littered water, known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, where most of the plastic looks like snowy confetti against the deep blue of the north Pacific Ocean.

Most of the trash has broken into bite-sized plastic bits, and scientists want to know whether it's sickening or killing the small fish, plankton and birds that ingest it.

During their August fact-finding expedition, a group of University of California scientists found much more debris than they expected. The team announced their observations at a San Diego press conference Thursday.

"It's pretty shocking � it's unusual to find exactly what you're looking for," said Miriam Goldstein, who led fellow researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego on the three-week voyage.

While scientists have documented trash's harmful effects for coastal marine life, there's little research on garbage patches, which were first explored extensively by self-trained ocean researcher Charles Moore just a decade ago. There's also scant research on the marine life at the bottom of the food chain that inhabit the patch.

But even the weather-beaten, sunbleached plastic flakes that are smaller than a thumbnail can be alarming.

"They're the right size to be interacting with the food chain out there," Goldstein said.

The team also netted occasional water bottles with barnacles clinging to the side. Some of the trash had labels written in Chinese and English, hints of the long journeys garbage takes to arrive mid-ocean.

Plastic sea trash doesn't biodegrade and often floats at the surface. Bottlecaps, bags and wrappers that end up in the ocean from the wind or through overflowing sewage systems can then drift thousands of miles.

The sheer quantity of plastic that accumulates in the North Pacific Gyre, a vortex formed by ocean and wind currents and located 1,000 miles off the California coast, has the scientists worried about how it might harm the sea creatures there.

A study released earlier this month estimated that thousands of tons of plastic debris wind up in the oceans every year, and some of that has ended up in the swirling currents of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Katsuhiko Saido, a chemist at Nihon University, Chiba, Japan, told the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society last week that plastic actually does decompose, releasing potentially toxic chemicals that can disrupt the functioning of hormones in animals and marine life.

The Scripps team hopes the samples they gathered during the trip nail down answers to questions of the trash's environmental impact. Does eating plastic poison plankton? Is the ecosystem in trouble when new sea creatures hitchhike on the side of a water bottle?

Plastics have entangled birds and turned up in the bellies of fish, and one paper cited by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates 100,000 marine mammals die trash-related deaths each year.

The scientists hope their data gives clues as to the density and extent of marine debris, especially since the Great Pacific Garbage Patch may have company in the Southern Hemisphere, where scientists say the gyre is four times bigger.

"We're afraid at what we're going to find in the South Gyre, but we've got to go there," said Tony Haymet, director of the Scripps Institution.

Only humans are to blame for ocean debris, Goldstein said. In a blog entry posted a day before the science ship arrived in Newport, Ore., she wrote the research showed her the consequences of humanity's footprint on nature.

"Seeing that influence just floating out here in the middle of nowhere makes our power painfully obvious, and the consequences of the industrial age plain," she wrote. "It's not a pretty sight."

[bacasper]

At least this mayor is doing something.

Portland Mayor Proposes Plastic Bag Ban

Posted: 2010/07/19
From: Mathaba

(mathaba) Portland, Mayor Sam Adams this week presented the city with a draft ordinance to ban single use plastic bags in the U.S. city. His office says that according to a recent poll, 2 out of 3 Portlander�s support a ban.

The Mayor released a statement to the public on Friday afternoon, July 16th:

When the city of Portland banned polystyrene foam (Styrofoam) in January 1990, it drew immediate attention from the environmental community and the business world. In response, businesses and customers had to learn a new behavior and they did, adapting to the new policy as cities around the nation took notice.

According to a poll conducted last week, two-thirds of Portlanders surveyed support banning single-use, carry-out plastic bags and a 5-cent charge on paper bags.

Today, I�m introducing for public comment a draft ordinance to ban single-use plastic bags in the City of Portland. The ordinance, along with a Frequently Asked Questions document, can be found online at www.mayorsamadams.com/bagban. The ordinance spells out all the important details � which industries are included, when it will go into effect, and what we�re doing to make sure the transition is smooth and successful.

The four key pillars of the ordinance are:

1. Banning plastic bags, prohibiting large grocery stores and retail pharmacies from distributing single-use plastic carryout bags to their customers at point of sale;

2. Setting a mandatory 5-cent charge on paper/compostable plastic bags, regulating the distribution of paper bags and compostable plastic bags to encourage consumers to use reusable bags, and helping defray the cost to stores;

3. Requiring stores to make reusable bags available, either for purchase or at no cost;

4. Calling for an outreach campaign that includes a public-private partnership to provide reusable carryout bags to interested Portland residents; and working with service providers to distribute information and reusable carryout bags to interested senior and low-income households.

The policy is a smart, pragmatic approach to a real and seemingly insurmountable problem. It�s an approach shaped by a coalition of businesses, environmental groups and city staff and informed by lessons from cities and nations that have already taken action. Efforts are underway to ban plastic bags statewide in the next legislative session. I support those efforts. Portlanders are prepared to lead the way to a statewide solution.

cont'd at link

[Senior]

There is a simple solution. Privatize the ocean.

Unwanted litter is impossible on private property.

It simply doesn't happen. It will have a myriad of knock on effects, including saving depleted fish stocks, and ending oil spills forever.

[nautilus]

[Senior]

[blackjack]

[Senior]

[brickabrack]

You really have to ask yourself, "how much do I give a flying fact about the things that I do on a daily basis that contribute to this mess?".

Isn't that what's really going on?

Do you have to wrestle merchants to NOT give you a plastic bag?
Do you think twice about buying something that continues to proliferate the consumption of plastic products?

On a semi-related note:
http://www.alternet.org/water/147295/sorry%2C_ritz-carlton%2C_plant_based_bottles_for_water_are_not_green?page=entire

I'm certainly not advocating bio-plastics.
Who really wants to give up their conveniences for the mere security of the oceanic livelihood?



Reduce/Re-use, recycle as a last resort.

[mises]

[Senior]