A big patch of plastic garbage has been discovered in the Arctic • Hacker News Board

Re: A big patch of plastic garbage has been discovered in the Arctic

#81

Post by sn9 » Sun, Apr 23, 2017, 1:05 AM UTC

spodek wrote: post #18

Let's talk personal responsibility and what we can change. What percent of readers of this site drank water from a plastic bottle in the past, say, 24 hours? ... in places with potable tap water making bottles unnecessary... Or nalgene containers... Or soda, juice, etc in bottles... I recycle what I can, but I've taken to treating recyclables as landfill garbage, since most of it ends up there, which means I avoid co…

I bought a steel Kleen Kanteen several years ago and haven't had to purchase a plastic water bottle since.

I just refill it. It's food grade steel so I've never actually had to clean it.

I honestly can't imagine how much plastic I've avoided purchasing because of this simple investment, not to mention how much money I've saved.

Re: A big patch of plastic garbage has been discovered in the Arctic

#82

Post by PhasmaFelis » Sun, Apr 23, 2017, 1:21 AM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #17

readams wrote: post #8

I think when people imagine these "garbage patches" they picture a floating garbage dump you could set a lawn chair on. The reality is that they are regions of slightly increased concentration of plastic. Here, the worst areas are between 100-500 grams of plastic per square kilometer. That is 5 empty water bottles in a square kilometer. This doesn't mean that having this debris is a good thing but it's important to g…

Exactly right. I skimmed the link looking for photos of trash island until I thought critically about it. Especially embarrassing as I majored in geography and remote sensing and know exactly what these studies are like :)

Bear in mind that the major garbage patches can be dense enough to cover the surface from horizon to horizon: http://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/great-pacific... It's still just bobbing trash, nothing like an "island", but we're not always just talking about a few grams per square kilometer.

Re: A big patch of plastic garbage has been discovered in the Arctic

#83

Post by DanBC » Sun, Apr 23, 2017, 1:32 AM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #48

readams wrote: post #8

I think when people imagine these "garbage patches" they picture a floating garbage dump you could set a lawn chair on. The reality is that they are regions of slightly increased concentration of plastic. Here, the worst areas are between 100-500 grams of plastic per square kilometer. That is 5 empty water bottles in a square kilometer. This doesn't mean that having this debris is a good thing but it's important to g…

I was wondering why there were no pictures. Hard to get to concerned about what seems like extremely minimal amounts of rubbish. I'd be surprised if it's particularly dangerous or troublesome for wildlife.

Hang on, in some places the plastic fragments are more numerous than food.

The plastic also tends to gather up other pollutants - PCBs for example - and for smaller creatures that's a problem. And these concentrate through the food chain.