Guest ridicule by David Middleton
The Grauniad: The gift that keeps on giving!
A British-led expedition has discovered sizeable chunks of polystyrene lying on remote frozen ice floes in the middle of the Arctic Ocean.
The depressing find, only 1,000 miles from the north pole, is the first made in an area that was previously inaccessible to scientists because of sea ice. It is one of the most northerly sightings of such detritus in the world’s oceans, which are increasingly polluted by plastics.
A team of scientists drawn from the UK, US, Norway and Hong Kong, headed by marine biologist Tim Gordon of Exeter University, said the discovery confirmed just how far plastic pollution has spread. It has prompted fears that plastic waste is flowing into the Arctic as the ice melts because of climate change. The thaw is simultaneously releasing plastic that has long been trapped in the ice.
[…]
Honestly… I stopped reading the article right there. I’m sure that the article goes on to provide a logical explanation… But… After that headline and first three paragraphs, I was already going into a full-fledged Tim Allen grunt fest.
The area was “previously inaccessible to scientists because of sea ice” and “plastic waste is flowing into the Arctic as the ice melts because of climate change. The thaw is simultaneously releasing plastic that has long been trapped in the ice.” So… The plastic somehow got into an ice-free Arctic, only to be subsequently frozen in ice and then released as the ice melted?
Well… I guess since plastic dates back to the Medieval Warm Period… Oh wait… Plastic only dates back to the 1860’s…
I suppose the plastic could have drifted into the ice-free Arctic during the 1930’s…
Or, maybe ice isn’t so impenetrable to plastic.
While the Arctic sea ice may have been impenetrable” to “scientists” due to the sea ice that was supposed to have vanished in 2013… Schist (not the rock) crosses the fracking Arctic all of the time, irrespective of sea ice conditions.
Driftwood takes the long route from the Pacific to the Atlantic because it follows the prevailing circulation patterns. The transit time from the Bering Strait to the Labrador Sea is about 6 years.
So… It shouldn’t be either shocking or depressing that ocean currents treat plastic no differently than they treat driftwood.
Let’s hear it for PLASTIC!!!
The planet can handle plastic just as well as its handled all that other schist that it’s had to handle over the past 4.5 billion years.
Any and all sarcasm was purely intentional.
Speaking of plastic, I’m a big fan of it, when used to best effect. But I’ve noticed, over the years, that some things break a lot faster than they once did, because critical components in critical areas of stress are made of plastic. Consequently, shoddy manufacturing inspired by cheaper plastic parts seem to cause us to throw away large items at an increasing rate, because they are no longer designed to last, but designed to fail and designed to be trashed.
Just the other day, a patio umbrella got lifted out of its stand by a freak updraft, causing the umbrella to crash on its side and, to my surprise, seemingly magically breaking the mechanism that secured the tilt hinge that lets you tilt the umbrella. This critical component was made of plastic that LOOKED like metal.
Metal would not have broken like that, because it could have taken the sheering stress that the plastic could not. Everything else about the umbrella was fine, but this one, small, plastic part rendered it unusable due to breakage. What a waste!
Look at smartphones as an engineering nightmare. I believe it was the Nexus 5(?) that had a glass backing that would crack merely dropping a set of keys on it.
I had a clothes washer break. Just like your umbrella, one critical piece that connected the motor shaft to the tumbler was rubber encased in plastic. The manufacturer was well aware. How do I know? Factory replacement part was rubber encased in, metal.
I also see an increase in bad design and poor manufacturing but I don’t think it’s all driven by planned product obsolescence. Some of it is poor communication with overseas manufacturers and in some cases unauthorized substitution of cheaper parts not discovered until the product hits the market.
Some of it also over optimistic engineering estimations.
“Metal would not have broken like that”
I give you MIM, metal injection molding. A way to get metal to break under stress. Low cost “metal” parts.
“Noyle was shooting Indonesian surfer Dede Surinaya in a remote bay when he and Surinaya discovered the water to be covered in garbage, according to GrindTV. The bay was miles from any town, yet strong currents had carried the trash of the world’s most populated island, Java, to its once pure waters.
“It was crazy. I kept seeing noodle packets floating next to me,” Noyle told GrindTV. “It was very disgusting to be in there; I kept thinking I would see a dead body of some sort for sure.”
In addition to the sea of plastic, large objects like tree trunks were being tossed around in the waves.
Indonesia, a country comprised of more than 17,000 islands, suffers from a terrible trash problem that is polluting its waters. Some of the population centers have little to no trash collection infrastructure, leading locals to dispose of their waste in the street or in river beds, after which it inevitably is washed out to sea.”
The Indos are very loose about ocean pollution. True in many similar places around the world, once one has exited the bubble lands of Europe, North America, Japan, Australia, NZ, etc.
I agree with Kernodle: litter is infuriating. My part of the countryside is relatively pristine but if I see a discarded fag packet or drinks can I feel compelled to bring it all the way home to throw it away. I don’t know what people think as they jettison this stuff through their car window but I work on the principle that rubbish attracts more of the same. A couple of crisp packets today, a heap garbage next week and landfill next month.
Yep, waiting around to watch my kid play soccer, had to wait for an adult league of health professionals and college types to finish a game. When they were done and left my wife and filled a small trash bag with all bottles and trash they left behind. Same group of people who would not think twice about preaching to me about how we are destroying the planet.
http://Www.plasticishere.wordpress.com
This pathetic offering from the Grauniad deserves all the ridicule and sarcasm that David Middleton lets it have.
Apropos plastic-particulate pollution, I am a Climate Skeptic sans pareil, but when it comes to trashing our World, I am a passionate advocate of mitigating, if not outright preventing the threats to our World eco-system.
I understand that there are ‘dead-zones’ in the oceans …. vast vertically entrapped cylinders of plastic-micro-particulates with concomitant Oxygen depletion and depletion of marine life.
Please tell me this isn’t so, but report after report adduces the fact….. such as, e.g., the residue from dredging the St. Lawrence River. It would seem to me that we are headed to living in a pervasive plastic-soup.
I have HUGE respect for the accumulated wisdom on this — an other — websites, but PLEASE can we look at equally (??) threatening risks?
Why didn’t they pick the trash up, instead of making political hay from it? Typical leftards.
It’s like the Save the Children commercials… Spend thousands of dlloars to send a fat guy or Gloria from All in the Family to videotape starving children. Why didn’t they just spend the monry on food? Or moving vans?
Yep, my thoughts exactly as I was held at gun point by UN “peacekeepers” in Zaire and had to watch several hundred women, children and old people be hacked to death by LRA. Couldn’t have stopped it, damned well could have killed a pile of those subhuman f*cks before we went down.
I read Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire’s Shake Hands With the Devil… The movie Hotel Rwanda was tame in comparison.
The things people do to each other. Guys been across the water in combat zones always mention “the smell”, even after all these years I wake at night in a cold sweat with that stench. And the shakes.
Sometimes it is not about the waste. It is about information that has to be out there in front of people
http://Www.plasticishere.wordpress.com
These people are morons. They have the mental capacity of a bucket full of sh*t. Please tell me you are not this f*cking stupid.
Now it seems u r one
OK, so, show us a pic of the trash, then a pic after they pick it up. Tired of soft handed whiners constantly telling me I am the problem while they do absolutely nothing to help. Every time I see one of these leftist envirowackjob rallies the place it is held looks like a trash dump afterwards. Each Tea Party event I attended, 18 in 4 states and Washington DC, the place was cleaner than when we arrived. Same goes for music events, offroad races I go to. Same is not true for all these environutcases, everywhere they have a get together they trash the place. Want a perfect example, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/1/dakota-access-protest-camp-crews-haul-48-million-p/ and http://www.theamericanmirror.com/photos-fields-trash-left-environmentalists-pipeline-protest/ I will take the enviroloons seriously when they stop blaming me and clean up their own messes.
Well, at least Kenya is cutting back on plakky bags…what will women wear on the back of a motorbike after a hairdo?
If it was not for the CO2 lobby we would be burning plastic waste in plasma furnaces for energy so instead of waste it would become a valuable resource.
Yes. That would be better alternative.
http://Www.plasticishere.wordpress.com
Let’s now start talking about a PLASTIC PLANET. Most countries are still completely unbothered about the amount of plastic in the environment and there needs to be a lot more citizen pressure put on governments to start doing more about it. Otherwise the politicians will continue to sit on there broad, rather well-heeled arses. There is no way recycling efforts are keeping up with current plastic production levels.
https://mankindsdegradationofplanetearth.com/planet-plastic/
I completely agree with you
http://Www.plasticishere.wordpress.com
Great site. Very informative information. Keep up the good work.
Thanks a Lot Ivan. Really appreciate
But did they find any ducks?
https://www.amazon.com/Moby-Duck-Beachcombers-Oceanograp-Environmentalists-Including/dp/0143120506
Buuu …. buuuu …. buuuut …. micro particles …. we’re DOOOOOOOooooooooooomed …. whoaaaaaa ……. William!
And we doomed our selves. Haven’t we?
http://Www.plasticishere.wordpress.com
David;
I honestly believe the issue isn’t really pollution in truly negative or dangerous sense, instead it outrage that there really aren’t any places on earth the person complaining about this finds pristine and “unexplored”. It’s the desire to be somewhere no one has been before, which is a vanishing prospect on our planet, and the most likely reason there are people willing to chance a one way ticket to Mars.
These folks are trapped on what they consider an overpopulated world and it would be cruel to make fun of them. They have legitimate concerns and they’re the entire reason people spent their lives discovering new worlds.
I’m sure that’s true for many people… but it’s still fun to ridicule people who think plastic in the Arctic and hurricanes are getting stronger due to climate change. And it’s really fun to ridicule people who think plastic, or anything people do, is a threat to the planet.
Hi from New Zealand .This might be of interest to you .A company in Auckland is turning plastic waste into concrete .The name of the company is EnvirioPlaz and the product they make is Plazrock and when mixed in concrete the weight is reduced by 20% and the concrete is stronger than conventional concrete .We do have quite good recycling programmers in most places in New Zealand but they can all be improved .Used tires for example are being stockpiled but the government has to take a positive lead and enable them to be shredded and burnt as fuel .
Here in the States this idea has been put forward a couple of times, it gets shot down by EPA and OSHA. The claim it would be environmentally and materially unsound. We are allowed to use ground up old tires for landscaping mulch! Ya take progress where you can get it.
Hello from India.
That’s amazing idea to utilise waste. Really impressed
In state of Karnataka, India government using plastic scraps to make roads.
Just want to know your opinion. What do you think about the plastic. As material??
http://Www.plasticishere.wordpress.com
Well, I think planet.is not meant to take any bit of.plastic at all. And people can.not live without plastics also. What I believe is plastics is most wonderful material found in the history of mankind.but the problem is mankind is not able to take control of it. Remember always sweet causes diabetes.
http://Www.plasticishere.wordpress.com
There is a way as how we can use plastic waste without any harm.to any one. http://Www.plasticishere.wordpress.com
OK. You are just a bot pushing a leftarded blog site. We get it.
No. I m me. Not a bot and it’s my blog site
So, just a bot, got it.