Nurdle Patrol • Hacker News Board

Re: Nurdle Patrol

#31

Post by mrspuratic » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 4:03 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #19

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #4

Imagine a beach completely consisting of nurdles. Imagine an ecosystem of bacteria, microorganisms, fish and other seafood creatures adapted to living on it. I feel like as humanity we could totally reach a point where evolution to that kind of ecosystem becomes the only choice. Same for our immune, digestive and lymph system. We could end up at a point where most of life NEEDS microplastic to survive! Then we can fi…

I mean sure, with issues like plastics, global warming, ozone layer hole, melted polar caps, extreme weather events, bug collapse, etc etc etc, life will find a way. It's not a "final" extinction event per se, nor one as catastrophic as the meteor strike from back when. But we are living in a mass extinction event. Billions of crabs died. Bug population has collapsed. Biodiversity has nosedived. Humanity hasn't suffe…

Harvest in England the second worst on record because of wet weather https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/10/harvest-...

Re: Nurdle Patrol

#32

Post by quietbritishjim » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 4:12 PM UTC

doctorhandshake wrote: post #24

jdietrich wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A plastic pellet is typically 3-5mm in diameter. I think I'd notice that in my food. Even if I did enjoy swallowing fish guts whole, a plastic pellet is just going to pass straight through my digestive system. Additives can leach out of plastics and enter the food chain, but pellets lost at sea are a completely insignificant factor because the total volume of waste produced by this route is so small. The majority of…

>> a plastic pellet is just going to pass straight through my digestive system Through the mechanical grinding action of weather and tides (the same mechanisms that make sand out of rock and coral), these chunks can become much much smaller, small enough to cross the intestine into the bloodstream and small enough to cross the blood brain barrier or pass up your nose, lodging in your brain. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.g…

It's a pity the parent commenter led with that point. Their second point, that the overwhelming majority of ocean plastic pollution comes from those two sources, remains valid (albeit I'm not sure if it's actually true but it certainly seems feasible).

Re: Nurdle Patrol

#33

Post by doctorhandshake » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 4:33 PM UTC

quietbritishjim wrote: post #32

doctorhandshake wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> a plastic pellet is just going to pass straight through my digestive system Through the mechanical grinding action of weather and tides (the same mechanisms that make sand out of rock and coral), these chunks can become much much smaller, small enough to cross the intestine into the bloodstream and small enough to cross the blood brain barrier or pass up your nose, lodging in your brain. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.g…

It's a pity the parent commenter led with that point. Their second point, that the overwhelming majority of ocean plastic pollution comes from those two sources, remains valid (albeit I'm not sure if it's actually true but it certainly seems feasible).

To their second point, blaming the Philippines for dumping our ‘recycling’ in the ocean is a little bit like blaming African countries for burning our e-waste. We can’t pretend you can generate pounds of single-use plastic waste per person and have the problem disappear when you put it in a blue bin. Recycling is a lie invented by the packaging industry, and the reality is that we export the problem in bulk to the developing world, who inconveniently happen to share a planet, physics, and economy with us. We’re the ones buying the plastic to begin with, and it’s only right it washes onshore back here so we can’t pretend it doesn’t exist when it hits the bin.

Re: Nurdle Patrol

#34

Post by rc_kas » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 5:34 PM UTC

In sprite of all the Trumps and Putins and Netanyahu's out there. This project is just that reminder : There really are good humans in the world.

Re: Nurdle Patrol

#35

Post by amar-laksh » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 6:26 PM UTC

amatix wrote: post #27

There's a similar UK initiative which has spread to a number of other countries. Nurdles are everywhere... https://www.nurdlehunt.org.uk/nurdle-finds.html

Oh thanks! I was looking for something similar when I posted.

Re: Nurdle Patrol

#36

Post by jdietrich » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 6:36 PM UTC

doctorhandshake wrote: post #33

quietbritishjim wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pity the parent commenter led with that point. Their second point, that the overwhelming majority of ocean plastic pollution comes from those two sources, remains valid (albeit I'm not sure if it's actually true but it certainly seems feasible).

To their second point, blaming the Philippines for dumping our ‘recycling’ in the ocean is a little bit like blaming African countries for burning our e-waste. We can’t pretend you can generate pounds of single-use plastic waste per person and have the problem disappear when you put it in a blue bin. Recycling is a lie invented by the packaging industry, and the reality is that we export the problem in bulk to the de…

The Philippines accounts for 0.16% of the world's waste plastic imports. Switzerland imports 10x more plastic waste and the Netherlands imports 100x more. Your explanation is very wrong.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-plastic-waste-impor...

Re: Nurdle Patrol

#37

Post by dTal » Fri, Oct 11, 2024, 8:31 PM UTC

flir wrote: post #21

dTal wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Evolve" here is a neat word for "countless trillions of creatures die preventable deaths or otherwise fail to reproduce over geological time". If your terminal goal is to "finally stop caring about micro plastics" rather than "protect Earth's existing ecosystem", why wait? Just nuke the planet to glass. Microplastic worry over. (A similarly nihilist viewpoint comes from the people who pontificate that "the planet wi…

> Low bar for your ethical framework Or highest. Puts overall species diversity ahead of the future of a single species (us).

That would be a defensible (if unpopular) position - see VHEMT - but usually the people saying this are arguing against the ethical consequentiality of anthropogenic ecosystem damage ("the planet will be fine") which is very harmful to biodiversity. Nobody's really offered a sane ethical framework in which it's a good thing for humans to wreck the planet, killing themselves and most everything else in the process.

Re: Nurdle Patrol

#38

Post by fao_ » Sat, Oct 12, 2024, 12:05 AM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #36

doctorhandshake wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To their second point, blaming the Philippines for dumping our ‘recycling’ in the ocean is a little bit like blaming African countries for burning our e-waste. We can’t pretend you can generate pounds of single-use plastic waste per person and have the problem disappear when you put it in a blue bin. Recycling is a lie invented by the packaging industry, and the reality is that we export the problem in bulk to the de…

The Philippines accounts for 0.16% of the world's waste plastic imports. Switzerland imports 10x more plastic waste and the Netherlands imports 100x more. Your explanation is very wrong. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-plastic-waste-impor...

I don't see how that contradicts the above poster's point that if there wasn't demand there would be no supply, and then to deal with it we ship it back to said third world countries so it can be "somebody else's problem", essentially exporting our waste and the ensuing health issues to other countries.

e.g. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-48444874

And to just back up one of their minor points — "Recycling is a lie invented by the packaging industry"

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/24/1131131088/recycling-plastic-...

https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-...

Re: Nurdle Patrol

#39

Post by userbinator » Sat, Oct 12, 2024, 4:37 AM UTC

doctorhandshake wrote: post #24

jdietrich wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A plastic pellet is typically 3-5mm in diameter. I think I'd notice that in my food. Even if I did enjoy swallowing fish guts whole, a plastic pellet is just going to pass straight through my digestive system. Additives can leach out of plastics and enter the food chain, but pellets lost at sea are a completely insignificant factor because the total volume of waste produced by this route is so small. The majority of…

>> a plastic pellet is just going to pass straight through my digestive system Through the mechanical grinding action of weather and tides (the same mechanisms that make sand out of rock and coral), these chunks can become much much smaller, small enough to cross the intestine into the bloodstream and small enough to cross the blood brain barrier or pass up your nose, lodging in your brain. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.g…

...and where they'll just do absolutely nothing.

Re: Nurdle Patrol

#40

Post by gitaarik » Sat, Oct 12, 2024, 5:26 AM UTC

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #18

cglace wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not necessarily true. There is an ecosystem for breaking down wood, and my house is framed in wood.

Termites are a good example. They are a natural way to break down wood. And they can eat your house. Thus we have come up with ways to mitigate them. Now there is an entire industry around preventing termites, fixing termite damage, etc.. So, the problem is, we find some microbe that eats plastics. Boom, now we have a new problem, we need an entire industry to prevent them from eating the plastics we don't want them…

Well wood also doesn't rot away within a day. You have to unmaintain it for years, or spray termites over it, if you want it gone fast. So that is nice, if you have that flexibiliy. Once a plastic part is thrown away it will be processed at the composting company.