Where your plastic water bottles end up

[Guest]

 

[SciTechPress]

The following images were taken near Roatan, a Caribbean island in Honduras by photographer Caroline Power, and show a sea of plastic glued together, floating like a massive turf in the middle of the ocean. The area where the images were taken is usually compared to paradise, although based on these images it looks anything but that at the moment. Who should we blame? The answer is simple: Society and our way of life. The images show just how bad pollution is, not only in the Caribbean but in many other places around the globe.

 

The worst part is that itÂ’s not only unappealing to the eye, but itÂ’s also threatening to kill off marine life due to irreparable damage done to the environment.

The images taken by Power were taken as she and her dive team set out to explore the Caribbean when they encountered a floating island of garbage that stretches for a staggering five miles.

As they made their way through the patch of floating rubbish, they encountered everything from plastic bottles, soda cans, televisions, and shoes.

Ms. Power went on facebook and posted the images with a post titled: “THIS HAS TO STOP. Think about your daily lives.

“How did you take your food to go last time you ate out? How was your last street food served?

 

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

This same thing happened with ancient civilizations that lasted billions of years on the Earth, before the dinosaurs, and as the entire civilization was subducted below the shifting tectonic plates, their waste products like this, many miles thick, under heat and pressure, became the oil that we use today to power OUR civilization.

...just kidding about that (squints and rubs hands together "Or AM I?.....)

 It looks like this pile of floating trash is ALREADY becoming an island of organic plant life of some kind, which of course will become habitats for all kinds of marine animal life.

Put a pile of trash like this in your back yard and wait a year, and it will be full of leaves, grass, worms, bugs, spiders,  and may even attract a few frogs or two.

Look carefully at the photos ....

1 hour ago, SciTechPress said:

The worst part is that it’s not only unappealing to the eye, but it’s also threatening to kill off marine life due to irreparable damage done to the environment.

This is an unsubstantiated goofy, tree-hugger opinion ONLY.

It's embarrassing to even read, and even more embarrassing that people BELIEVE it.

This may look like trash to the folks who wrote this article, but to marine critters it's shade, a place to eat and live, or a place for  baby fish to hide, just like you see in the grass you buy for a  a home aquarium, so they will not be eaten by bigger fish.

[SuzA]

 

What are your thoughts on the effect of plastic microparticles getting into our food chain via seafood?

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

18 minutes ago, SuzA said:

What are your thoughts on the effect of plastic microparticles getting into our food chain via seafood?

I remember a study done years ago by "distinguished scientists" who were testing to see if steaks cooked on a charcoal grill produced carcinogens.  They grilled the steaks, swabbed them with Q-tips, and took samples, etc. and determined that ... yes... the heat and smoke and meat did produce carcinogens that caused cancer.

... then they ate the steaks.

That told me all I needed to know.

If you had ANY IDEA how fish are caught and stored BEFORE they even get back to shore, you may want to eat the chicken.  Oh Wait!  Nevermind.

I love shrimp, and eat a lot of it at the buffet.    You know, of course that the black stripe on their backs is shrimp poop?

Owls eat mice ... hair, teeth, eyeballs,  fur dirt and bacteria, and all the mouse poop inside of them ... AND OWLS CAN FLY!

[admin]

I think we should aspire as humans to do better than our animal cohabitants of the planet.  

Since we can’t seem to stop the usage of plastics, maybe we could at least find ways to recycle and use this massive garbage pile?

in the end it is energy which we all need and want. We ought to be getting smarter about generating, using and recycling it as the years go by.  

And no. We will never have a zero carbon footprint. (My prediction)

But lets at least clean up after ourselves. 

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

It takes a concerted strategic effort and about 50 years to teach a whole culture very simple concepts.

 Oh... and by the way, "carbon footprints" are totally meaningless.  Atmospheric CO2 is where the trees and algae in the Oceans get the carbon to make wood, cellulose, sugars and plant fiber.

The ONLY REAL "Greenhouse Gas" is water vapor ...... clouds.

All else is a quasi-religious Carbon Credit Broker's fabulously profitable fantasy.

Even with a global thermonuclear war, you could not change the climate for more than four years.

[SuzA]

5 hours ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

I love shrimp, and eat a lot of it at the buffet.    You know, of course that the black stripe on their backs is shrimp poop?

Owls eat mice ... hair, teeth, eyeballs,  fur dirt and bacteria, and all the mouse poop inside of them ... AND OWLS CAN FLY!

1

I'm not squeamish about organic "dirt".  Our systems are designed to deal with it in reasonable amounts; in fact,  our gut flora is actually better off with the occasional innoculation of poop.  I doubt that case can be made for man-made detritus.

 

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

23 hours ago, SuzA said:

I doubt that case can be made for man-made detritus.

If you can get Grant money, and have a mortgage payment overdue, I suspect you would be surprised what cases can be made for anything or any viewpoint imaginable.

[Space Merchant]

The very reason I prefer to drink from glass and not plastic. If I am in a position to drink from a plastic bottle, I recycle it, but sadly no one likes to recycle.

You toss a plastic item of waste into the grass and or sea you pay for it. You put toxic gases into the heavens, your lungs and health will most likely pay for it.

[James Thomas Rook Jr.]

12 hours ago, Space Merchant said:

You toss a plastic item of waste into the grass and or sea you pay for it. You put toxic gases into the heavens, your lungs and health will most likely pay for it.

It is my understanding that plastic, as used in this conversation, is made from oil, and is a long chain molecule hydrocarbon.  I have used plastic liners to line the bottoms of municipal garbage dumps before filling, and radioactive waste burial sites, where the liners are expected to last AT LEAST 10,000 years.

Space Merchant:

Please tell me how waste plastic gets from the solid object, into the atmosphere, and what toxic gasses contaminate from that contaminate the air we breathe.

If there are any, my guess would be the outgassing concentrations would be so small as to be almost un-measurable, and that being anywhere in the vicinity of a car with the motor running ... burning hydrocarbons .... would be several hundred BILLION  times more dangerous.

 

 

[Space Merchant]

59 minutes ago, James Thomas Rook Jr. said:

Please tell me how waste plastic gets from the solid object, into the atmosphere, and what toxic gasses contaminate from that contaminate the air we breathe.

If there are any, my guess would be the outgassing concentrations would be so small as to be almost un-measurable, and that being anywhere in the vicinity of a car with the motor running ... burning hydrocarbons .... would be several hundred BILLION  times more dangerous.

I stated that following: You toss a plastic item of waste into the grass and or sea you pay for it. You put toxic gases into the heavens, your lungs and health will most likely pay for it.

Plastic and or trash will pollute the land and it piles up over time. The other part of that sentence is regarding toxic gases from factories, vehicles and or other things that populate the air, and can cause some damage to people and young children, even infants, i.e. cities, small towns and or suburbs in close proximity to said factories and or anything that is damaging, hence toxic gases.

What I didn't mention is sewage and toxic waste that is, low-key, bring dumped in various areas mainly water sources as well with the whole pipeline issue we have to which Native Americans have issue with vs. government when it comes to protected lands.

 

Which reminds me, if there is one cartoon I use to watch as a kid, it's Captain Planet, for the show is based on a superhero that is encouraging to keep things clean and to recycle. A good show it was.