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Plastic Gyrations: Science Stirring Up Plastic Soup

Source: PynkCelebrity.com
It's been described as "plastic soup" in a bowl twice the size of Texas and 30 feet deep. Or how about a three-story Walmart streaming from the border of Mexico up along the Rockies and out to California all the way up to Canada? Plastic soup -- the Pacific Plastic Gyre/the Garbage Patch/the Trash Vortex -- proof positive that our love affair with disposable petroleum polymers is out of control.

At least it's not being called a stew. Plastics stew implies goo, and that wouldn't be good at all. Go here to the Chic Ecologist and to the Algalita Marine Research Foundation to learn about this awesome manmade miasma. Of course, if
you're a real environmentalist, I'm assuming you know all about this situation.

Source: CafeMom.com
But note something important that's just come up in the past week: recent findings by Oregon State University researcher Angel White point to the actual quantity of plastic being closer to about 1% the size of Texas. In a press release from OSU, she says, “If we were to filter the surface area of the ocean equivalent to a football field in waters having the highest concentration (of plastic) ever recorded, the amount of plastic recovered would not even extend to the 1-inch line.”


See a very interesting and detailed press release on Dr. White's research here.

Dr. White is clearly concerned about the impact of plastic in the ocean, both the positive and negative sides of the equation, but she's also helping create a bit more of a sense of reality about the "plastics problem" in our seas -- which seems kind of important, if you ask me. 

As long as decision makers operate in the realm of myth and hyperbole, it's hard for good policy and practical solutions to get outside of the lunacy of politics. 

Source: TreeHugger.com
Plastics in the ocean, regardless of the actual geography of the problem, are not being studied enough and may represent one of the best examples of "out of sight out of mind" we can find on this earth (don't get me started on space trash). That plastic bag or clamshell salad container you just threw away? Where is it going to be five years from now? Or, check out this wonderful book that goes on sale in the spring, "Moby Duck," that originated in an article for Harper's (January, 2007, in which we realize that Donovan Hohn is one of the best writers in America). The very indestructability and light weight of plastic is a major cause of this plastic soup problem, isn't it? Ah, the trials of ubiquity! 

It's too bad the American Chemistry Council is so busy defending plastic. One of the most impressive and interesting components of this massive, floating river of random debris is that there couldn't be a better lab for understanding how plastic breaks down naturally. They may start off as whole objects, but the effect of intense solar radiation, microbial infestation and the titration effect of sea water -- along with sea life eating and picking at this flotsam -- means a gradual disintegration of the whole object into pieces and specks that can, of course, be further ingested by smaller and smaller members of the ecosystem. 

It would seem, then, that perhaps there is a function of science that gets lost too often. Environmentalists attack so much with hyperbole and overstatement (not always, but far too often), and industry attacks and defends with rhetoric, data manipulation, and lobbying dollars. 

Here we have science, though, looking at this problem and trying to separate out the truth from the twisted. One can only hope that all sides can work together to figure out how to deal with the reality of this situation. It's certainly not good enough to let this toxic situation fester out of sight and out of mind.  

Keep Recycling!


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