Opinion by Kip Hansen – January 1st 2022
Just in time to ring in the New Year – a New Crisis!
CRISIS / ˈkraɪ sɪs / :
”a situation that has reached a critical phase”
or, alternately,”specific, unexpected, and non-routine events or series of events that [create] high levels of uncertainty and threat or perceived threat to [a society’s] high priority goals.”
And, of course, this crisis is man-made. Man-made in two senses:
1) Caused by something that mankind is doing
and
2) is a situation that ordinarily would be considered an interesting problem that has been declared a CRISIS! by a couple of dozen well-positioned single-issue advocates.
These crisis-creating advocates are endowed with societal clout by the fact that they are Scientists™. Not only scientists but scientists who have been (self-) appointed to an important committee of an important scientific organization. Which of the all-so-important scientific bodies? The august, venerated, always absolutely correct and perfectly reliable U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, more regularly referred to simply as The National Academies.
They, not the National Academies itself, but the members of the “Committee on the United States Contributions to Global Ocean Plastic Waste”, have stated plainly and upfront:
“In the United States, ocean plastic waste has become a top public concern, but the developing plastic waste crisis has been building for decades.”
And of what is this crisis of ocean plastic waste made up of?
“Sampling on the ocean’s surface has allowed scientists to assess the large-scale accumulation of floating debris across ocean basins, which occurs in ocean gyres in both the northern and southern hemispheres. These accumulation zones, commonly referred to as “garbage patches,” are mainly composed of microplastics that have broken apart from larger items, although large floating debris (especially derelict fishing gear, including nets, floats, and buoys) is also found.” [ source ]
You may be confused by the language used, even if you are a native English speaker. The “large scale accumulation” is not “of floating debris across ocean basins” at all, though the report expressly makes that claim, while simultaneously clarifying that the non-existent (but ever so popular in advocacy propaganda) garbage patches “are mainly composed of microplastics that have broken apart from larger items”.
Just what are these dangerous microplastics? They are bits of plastic that are 4 to 120 micrometers in size.How big is that in inches (it is, after all, the U.S. National Academies)
From one and a half ten-thousandths of an inch all the way up to five one -thousandths of an inch.
To see microplastics, you generally need a microscope. Your eye can discern a grain of fine sand, if you place it on a sheet of paper with a contrasting color and you would be able to see a bit of microplastic at 120um if similarly displayed (well, you younger people could, I could not). But even the young cannot see something only 4um in diameter without the aid of a microscope.
Almost all of the created-crisis-creating plastic pollution in the oceans is so small that you cannot see it. This admission aligns well with my personal experience. Like Nils-Axel Mörner, I am a dedicated fan of the “Oh yeah? Let me see for myself”-school of evidence. Until I retired five years ago, I had spent one half of my adult life living on the sea on boats and ships, both as a professional mariner and as Captain of my own vessels. I have a lot of sea miles under my belt. To actually see something floating on the surface of the sea is so very rare that it invariably calls for closer inspection at least by binoculars or at other times by a brief divergence from one’s intended course to “go have a look”. Failing to investigate an object large enough to be seen at any distance was considered negligent by the Captains I have served under and I have followed suit when I was the Captain. The “garbage patch” is a fraudulent invention – a fantasy.
Here is a view of the worst area of the pacific Garbage Patch:
You can read the entire 211-page National Academies’ report “Reckoning with the U.S. Role in Global Ocean Plastic Waste (2021)” in .pdf format by downloading it here.
The truest thing in the report is represented in this image (originally from Law 2017):
It at least shows that oceanic plastic, where found, fragments into smaller and smaller pieces and then undergoes (albeit with a “?”) biodegradation. Bio-what? Plastic are not forever as they wish you to believe, but are broken down into smaller and smaller pieces and then into simpler and simpler chemical compounds, they are literally eaten by microbes and itty-bitty living things in the sea.
The image below explains the repeated findings of trolling sieve nets through the sea to search for pelagic (ocean going) plastic – under a certain size, the number of plastic bits, which should be increasing exponentially as larger bits break into many smaller bits, sharply drops to zero as size decreases. Like ice chips in a glass of water, as size decreases, the ratio between surface area and volume increases. The biota eating the plastic bit from the outside in eventually end up consuming the entire little bit.
In every ocean basin, as particle size decreases through natural fragmentation, especially when the size drops below 0.5 mm, the number of findable plastic particles rapidly approaches zero. Plastic Waste Crisis advocates simply don’t mention this glaring scientific fact – it doesn’t contribute to their agenda.
The trumpeted crisis of Microplastics! involves bits of plastic that are 4 to 120 micrometers in size – 4um is 0.004 mm and 120um is 0.12mm – both below the vanishing point on the graph above.
If you read the Academies report, you will discover that the whole crisis is based on the new and developing ability to detect such small bits of plastic – the amount of plastic entering the oceans used in the report are, even by the most lenient scientific standards, mere wild-ass guesses. These SWAGs are then used in over-confident computer models to create further alarming estimates of total number of microplastic bits and potential harms, despite very few documented cases of any real harm at all (Creatures can become entangled floating masses of discarded fishing nets and the like, but not with microplastics). As with other invented crises, the presence of a thing alone is defined as harm.
Bottom Lines:
1. There is no crisis of any kind whatever involving plastics. Any claims to the contrary are fantasies.
2. Plastics are just another type of hydrocarbon compound, many created and used because of their ability to survive intact under many conditions and survive for long periods of time. Both are features not bugs.
3. It is not true that “Plastics are Forever”. Plastics degrade, breakdown, and are literally consumed by Earth’s lifeforms, which are all carbon based.
4. Plastics are made from petroleum and its byproducts. The petroleum converted to plastics instead of being burnt for energy sequesters that carbon for long periods of time just like trees ….and eventually is broken down by Nature into other chemical compounds, such as methane.
5. However, Kindergarten Rules apply at all stages and areas of life: Pick up after yourself — clean up your own messes. Thus, we need to do all we can to keep every sort of trash, including plastics, contained and disposed of in a responsible manner – this keeps it out of the oceans and the rest of the natural environment.
6. Plastics are valuable and should be recycled whenever possible into useful and valuable commodities, such as replacements for lumber in decking, shipping pallets, etc. Plastics that cannot be recycled are valuable sources of energy when burnt in properly designed clean Waste-to-energy plants.
# # # # #
Author’s Comment:
I have written a lot about plastics over the last decade. You can find many of these essays using this link.
None of our society’s waste belongs in the ocean – or on the roadside or in the woods. But creating a crisis from almost nothing is not helpful.
Lady Bird Johnson taught my generation to “put your trash in the trash bin” and I have had a life-long habit of placing candy wrappers and other bits of trash in my back pockets – often to the annoyance of my wife.
The oceanic plastic waste hobby-horse is an outgrowth of all the other anti-petroleum madness.
By the way, while floating masses of discarded fishing nets and plastic ropes are a hazard to maritime shipping because they can become entangled in ship’s propellers – which I know from sad personal experience – they are also floating reefs and make wonderful habitat for innumerable sea creatures on the high seas.
Hoping you all have a prosperous, productive and healthy New Year.
Thanks for reading.
# # # # #
“In the United States, ocean plastic waste has become a top public concern, but the developing plastic waste crisis has been building for decades.”
HOW TO FUDGE LANGUAGE TO SCARE THE S#\T OUT OF PEOPLE (or at least try):
In a 2020 poll by the World Wildlife Foundation, only 16% of respondents ranked ocean plastics as a “Top 5 Concern.” Top public concern? No
A “developing plastic waste crisis” is, by definition, one that has not developed yet. That it has been “building for decades” suggests it may continue building for more decades before it can reasonably be measured as a “developed”, i.e. existential, crisis.
Top takeaway from this excellent article: Don’t foul your own nest. Put candy wrappers in your back pocket. And have a great, happy New Year!
Indeed another great take from the Skipper Wills.
Mind you over here in Grupen Furer Sturgeons Scotland, there are so many discarded Dog Muzzles (Chinese made face nappies) floating around that we could well have “a developing plastic crisis”
In any case A Happier New Year to all.
“here in Grupen Furer Sturgeons Scotland”
That made me laugh! 🙂
We call those pointless face muzzles nappies here in the U.K.
With that in mind.
Nappy New Year to all wearers!
The term bed wetter never seemed more appropriate.😀
No need to worry about the great pacific garbage patch, it seems this blog is infested with us Jocks. 🤣
Well Hottie if living among (and loving) Jocks for 42 years makes me one, then I am more than pleased at the honour.
Thank you
and a happy New Year.
I think Steve Martin put it best when he was quoting what he learned from the great maharishi yogi, “never, no always put a litter bag in your car, when it gets full you can just roll down the window and toss it out.”
when i was riding in a car with a tico in costa rica he told me : always throw your trash in a clean mans yard ….that way you know it’ll get cleaned up .
It’s way easier to find something to “FIGHT” against that people can’t even see. If you have trash laying around in your city, people can see if you’re getting rid of it, thus “winning”. Injustice, Climate, “racism”, CO2 and “microplastics” are all great in this regard, they can’t be seen (global warming will be most notable at the poles), so you can’t really see if they’re getting anywhere, or not, it’s all on their word.
Hey now, Greta can see CO2. Her mother said so.
Ever anxious to blame Americans for the world’s problems, the microplastics alarmists ignore all the obvious and inconvenient details. In the United States, western Europe, and all anglophile countries around the world, dumping of raw sewage and trash into waterways has been banned for many decades. So where are all the microplastics in the oceans coming from?
Poor, underdeveloped countries in Asia and Africa are the primary sources of bulk plastic waste. As they become wealthy they will probably clean up their act as most post-industrial countries have. Large plastic waste seen washed up on beaches in plastic waste posters comes primarily from these countries and are found mostly on their beaches. Also contributing is commercial fishing gear and containers washed overboard from ships.
Plastic waste in waterways and on beaches (think plastic grocery bags and straws) is a non-problem in wealthy countries, except from careless litterbugs. There are regulations and fines, but you can’t catch everyone or compel everyone to be thoughtful. Banning plastics (grocery bags and straws) introduces other, often more consequential, problems that those plastic products had mitigated. Plastic products are often the best (current) solution. Despite regulations, microplastics are found in waterways of pollution-regulated countries. Since plastic waste is primarily incinerated or disposed in landfills, the source is speculated to be polymer beads used as cosmetic product additives.
Sampling instruments are now sensitive enough to detect minute quantities of plastics, raising concerns among the perpetually concerned, though there is no evidence that these cause harm. Undaunted, the worriers are on the attack and “endocrine disruptor” is the new pseudoscience battlefield. If you’ve followed the wackadoodle “science” invoked to try to ban beneficial chemicals like glyphosate (Roundup weed killer) you’ll know what I mean.
Kip Hansen
“(Creatures can become entangled ( in? ) floating masses of discarded fishing nets and the like, but not with micro-plastics).
Great post..
And theses [sic]:
“And of what is this crisis of ocean plastic waste made up of?”
“They are bits of plastic that are 4 to 120 micrometers in size.How big is that in inches (it is, after all, the U.S. National Academies)”
– need a space between “size.” and “How,” and probably a “?” at the end of the sentence.
Sy ==> I can always use a little extra editing….
Kip ==> Lean on me, when you’re not [editorially] strong!
Happy New Year!
Yes, but how big a space? 🙂
Craig, my brother from DownUnder, I’m not sure why but I’m somehow . . . uncomfortable . . . with this question?
Happy New Year!
There is a systematic failure you didn’t mention that has lead to a Lot of plastic “recycled” material being washed into the oceans. Plastic recycling is often not done in the country where it’s generated due to costs to process and the value of the recycled material vs. virgin plastic. It’s sent to third world countries to deal with who have poor storage and containment. Perhaps the developed world simply needs to stop exporting its waste streams.
China won’t take it anymore. Soon enough they’ll be shipping their waste to us.
Why not, we’ve been buying their trash (things with the label “made in China”) for years /sarc
Sean ==> It is factual that most of the oceanic plastic enters the oceans in Asia, Africa and other areas of the developing world. Although there have been claims of ocean dumping of plastic bales being sent to Asia to be recycled, there have not been any confirmed cases — only suspicion and accusations. It is true though that the developing world does not have the infrastructure to properly handle its own waste stream. This means that trash is often found on the streets in and in improperly maintained landfills.
My experience is in the Caribbean, where tropical storms and other heavy rains wash the street trash into rivers and streams and thus into the coastal waters…most of that trash is subsequently washed back onto the shoreline.
All the famous photos of claimed to be of the Pacific garbage patch are really of harbors where storms have washed street trash into the bay.
Crisis is a prominent term in the [climate alarm] style guides Ramp it up
A light breeze becomes a deadly storm etc. Let’s give it a name.
So many words are being rendered meaningless in an attempt to make it seem far worse than it is and keep the crisis narrative going
“ In the United States, ocean plastic waste has become a top public concern”
Yeah, right.
Good report by an actual observer of the marine environment, which type of reporting is fairly rare these days. In my world-wide travels I have witnessed a great variety of cultural tendencies as regards litter. I am sure fishermen don’t want to lose their nets so they are likely self-regulating, but the other portions of some cultures throw stuff away, down, off, up, etc, without regard to consequences. I would like to see some of the “Save the Planet” types go into these cultures and try to make a difference. Probably end up kidnapped for ransom.
Ron ==> Many of the net islands are actually discarded by fishermen (commercial fishermen) when a net is damaged to gets into the ships props and has to be cut away. Deck space is too precious to be wasted on worthless piles of damaged nets so over the side they go.
Spot on, Kip.
Like you I have had to deal with fouled propellers not from discarded lines but lines between pots or creels and their unlit marker bouys.But on beaches the problem looks much greater than it really is and the volunteers who do the beach clean ups do a great job. My experience is that a lot of the stuff found on beaches has blown away in car parks etc, gone into the local river and ended up on an estuary beach.
I see that Dr. Moore agrees with you in his recent book on climate myths.
And lang may a’bodies lums reek.
Oldseadog ==> I did a serious citizen science survey of beach plastic waste several years ago on the beaches of Cape Canaveral — one of my essays here shows the results. The beaches there are not cleaned by the municipality so my findings can be considered pretty accurate. Despite the coast being a major fishing and recreational boating area, very little plastic trash washed ashore, more than half being local “tourist litter”. rare to find actual Flotsam or Jetsam.
In the 70s, I worked a Panamanian vessel — ships trash was stuffed into gunny sacks and net 100 lb potato bags weighted with discarded engine room bits and simply tossed into the sea from the poop deck whenever were we sufficiently offshore. Kitchen garbage was just dumped — much to the delight of the sea gulls.
Awa an bile yer heid unless yer ma tall dark and an hansom first footer wi some drink, fuel and a bit O’Clootie dumplin.
A level headed denunciation of the plastic pollution problem.
The alarmist screams of plastic pollution are a dog whistle response to a non problem. The dictionary definition of pollution includes its use to describe waste and rubbish, which is all it is. This problem can be done away with by simply tidying up.
It only became of interest to environmentalists after China refused to take any more waste plastic if it wasn’t 99.5% sorted first. Some coincidence.
Plastic isn’t poisonous, toxic or carcinogenic. Small particles entering any life form simply go in one end and out of the other. You could eat a McDonald’s plastic toy every day and apart from odd shaped poo, suffer nothing adverse…_
But because a lot of people get their “science” from watching fiction, “everybody knows” that microplastics have saturated the bodies of all living beings. And that must have harmful effects (Dr. Who plot).
While I haven’t paid any attention, I’ve been told by some who are concerned that there are many published reports of actual physical research that finds micro plastic bits in many body tissues. Regardless of one’s feelings or beliefs, this is either objectively true or not true and will not change no matter how loud someone proclaims it to be otherwise.
Likewise, while, if true, this sounds unfriendly as it certainly can’t be a natural state to have internal foreign cell litter. If it exists it is objectively either harmful or irrelevant to proper biological functioning which can only be determined by careful research.
AndyHce ==> And what else do they find in human cells? How many thousands of foreign creatures? Germs, prions, virus? What chemicals not produced by the human body? What dust, pollen, microscopic bits of glass?
The presence of a thing does not equal harm.
Ever pour DMSO through your hand? It literally passes right through your hand and out the other side. Is this good? Bad? Helpful (it was being done under the direction of a doctor for suggested benefit).
Our ability to detect things leads to many surprises.
That wasn’t Dr. Who, that was Dr. Woke.
Kip,
Excellent essay. When you put things in relative context you can see clearly that there is actually nothing to see or be concerned about!
As for “Like Nils-Axel Mörner, I am a dedicated fan of the “Oh yeah? Let me see for myself”-school of evidence.” Well … I can relate to that in a big time way!
eyesonu ==> Nill-Alex Morner — wish I has had the chance to meet him — quite a guy.
The film Don’t Look Up- had a very brief view of “the ocean garbage patch”- which showed large chunks of garbage- so fresh, as if it was just dumped into a swimming pool. No doubt that’s how they filmed it.
Joseph Zorzin ==> Hollywood has always been a fraud. So, a fraudulent view of a fraud?
Long term pollution of science is what we should worry about. That’s where the really problematic garbage patches are.
Uncle Mort ==> Yes, I could nominate a few fields for that honor.
” Long term pollution of science is what we should worry about. That’s where the really problematic garbage patches are. ”
Not patches: islands. Like icebergs, most of them is not seen because it is below the surface.
Joao ==> Nicely put!
June 24, 2016
Remember when Scientific American was an interesting and authoritative publication?
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-huge-floating-screen-will-sift-plastic-out-of-the-ocean/
Barely.
But then again, I’m old enough to remember when Michael Jackson was black,.
IMHO, Scientific American jumped the shark The Strategic Defense Initiative, AKA Star Wars.
Geez I can just remember when he was alive 😀
i think this is dutch kid boyan slat who raised over 50 million $ and succeeded in removing approximately 1 garbage truck’s worth of plastic using two large diesel powered ships to haul his net
Yes.
Like sifting CO2 out of the atmosphere (the “technical” term is “sequestration”, I suppose).
”collect some 68 million kilograms of floating trash”….yes and the special open bottom shallow net design will only collect a few million kilograms of squid, sea turtles, rays, jellyfish, etc….
Funny, US is not the source of this “problem”, Africa, Asia and South America are. What, exactly can we do to force them to stop dumping crap in rivers and oceans? Not much of anything. So this is simply another load of leftarded shyte spew aimed at steal other people’s money.
I was a little surprised to see that it looks like the South Atlantic has the most plastic. I would have thought the North Pacific would have been the highest on the chart, after reading recent stories in the news about plastic pollution in the oceans and how most of it was coming out of rivers in Asia.
Tom ==> The chart used isn’t really meant to represent relative abundance — it is in “number of items” — very small items at that. But the great rivers of South America and Western Africa do all feed into the South Atlantic.
Every couple of months they change where they claim all this plastic is. Each time their claims are debunked they just move to another grid square at the corner of No and Where and just screech their crap louder. Funny thing is oceans are eating plastic waste, just like they eat crude oil and processed oil. These lie spewing clowns have no idea what the environment and climate are doing or are capable of doing.
Thank you. This problem is caused by 3rd world countries dumbing their trash in the water when they could use it as fuel in well controlled waste-to-energy facilities and solve some of their energy shortage and keep the oceans clean.
Thomas Gasloli ==> That is a generally held, but false, view. There is no nation in the world that still disposes of collected municipal waste in the sea. Poor third world countries are responsible for almost all of the plastic waste problem — but due to lack of care and ability to control their waste.
Their dumps are already on fire…bulldozing the burning garbage bags into the river or ocean is how they control the fire….
DMac ==> I have never heard of such a thung — do you have a reference to a real world instance? (I am aware of landfill fires that burn for years, used to pass one almost every day in the DR — but never heard or read anything about burning landfill materials being bulldozed into rivers.)
For how may million bucks per citizen?
Making college mis-educated white women feel guilty about the actions of others is a winning strategy for the left, as this clearly shows.
Everytime you see pictures of the suppose crisis it is pictures from The third world. There is no crisis in the West. Bring back our plastic straws, tired of having paper ones collapse.
Yeah paper straws just suck don’t they, hey wait a minute
something like 90% of floating plastic trash comes from a handful of rivers in asia
That 90% comes from a well-known study that didn’t clearly spell out where all ocean plastic comes from. The study is only for “River-borne” plastic. Marine-borne, lost from ships and fishing vessels, etc., accounts for roughly 20% (estimate) of oceanic plastic, and land-based the rest. Of the “land-based”, that which gets to the ocean only via rivers is the object of the study. While 90% of the river-borne plastic comes from those 10 rivers, the total river-borne plastic is a much smaller percent, anywhere from 5-30% (large uncertainty in the estimate) of all land-borne plastic (80% of all plastic) that eventually gets to sea. While it is still a significant amount, the 90% number is a subset of a subset, i.e., river-borne a subset of all land-borne, which is a subset of all (land plus marine) -borne plastic. Taking a mid-range of the estimates, that “90%” is probably in the 10-25% range of all ocean plastic origins. Still a lot.
BobM ==> Those figures, mostly from Jambeck, as the SWAGs (wild-ass guesses) referred to in my essay. The “ship-borne waste” is by weight and comprises mostly discarded or lost-at-sea nets and ropes. A single tangle of nets, ropes, and traps can weighs a lot, while escaped trash weighs little.
on my way to bermuda last fall south of new england i fouled about 50 feet of tangled poly line attached to a plastic float. damn ! don’t know how it got wrapped on my feathered ( not spinning ) prop but i had to go overboard to clear it .
garboard ==> My rule was “always travel with at least one Teen-20something young man like one of my sons.” Then you send them overboard to clear the prop!
I remember telling a young zealot that paper straws are rubbish and small and not so small children would need about 5 to finish an average size drink.. That provoked a furious reaction. Now that they have practical experience they know what I was talking about
From the article: “CRISIS / ˈkraɪ sɪs / ”
That’s strange. I pronounce it” kri sis. I see no reason for the “a” to be in there. I’m wondering why there is an “a” in there?
Elite Yankee speak?
Tom ==> I don’t understand ANY of the pronunciation guide systems. Modern technology allows me to click on the little speaker symbol and hear someone say the word properly. Of course, my native tongue is Engiush, so I have to listen to both the American and British pronunciations.
It helps to be bilingual in English here on WUWT.
😜
H.R. ==> Quite right, mate! Possibly even tri-lingual in English with all the Aussies and Kiwis that post here.
Like the u in colour, anywhere but the US.
Tyre?
As opposed to Tire, which is exhausting………………..
Try telling a Phoenician that Tyre is a round object with a hole in the middle.
Tom:
The “long I” sound in English is a diphthong – a blend of two fundamental sounds: “ah-ee” or “uh-ee” depending on the following consonant, if any. That is what this formal phonetic description is denoting.
(If a vowel sound is a diphthong, you cannot “hold” it for an extended period, as in a long musical note. Good songwriters recognize this.)
Thanks for that explanation, Ed.
In the international phonetic alphabet, what we in the US call “long i” is represented as “aɪ”, basically ah-ee blended together.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet
It’s a lot more complicated than I thought. 🙂
Aye 😜
remember when that dutch kid “ invented “ a floating machine to clean up ocean plastics . ? to anyone who’d ever spent any time on the ocean it was clearly ridiculous . nevertheless he got massive publicity and millions of dollars . it never did work
garboard ==> That’s the problem if believing a lie. There are coastal areas where one might be able to find some floating plastic big enough to be collected — but nothing like what he expected.
Apparently he’s still going, with a new, improved model.
Well what else can he do after wasting $5 million of OPM? Admit the problem was a hoax?
From the article: “Failing to investigate an object large enough to be seen at any distance was considered negligent by the Captains I have served under and I have followed suit when I was the Captain.”
What do you do if you spot an object big enough to be a hazard to other ships?
Tom ==> Depends on where you are. If one is in the Mona Passage, between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, and comes cross a floating 40-foot sea container that could sink a sailboat if hit, one radios the Coast Guard with a location. Floating derelict boats are machine-gunned by the Coast Guard so they sink and cease to be a hazard to navigation.
On the high seas, an alert would be issued by radio to any other ships in the area giving the GPS co-ordinates and a description of the hazard.
That reminds me of the Falklands War. After it ended, HMS Conqueror was returning via the Caribbean when she came across a wrecked yacht. Having rescued the crew, according to the Daily Telegraph, the wreck was sunk by fire from the deck gun. Only problem was, no British nuclear submarine has ever had a deck gun!
I still read the Telegraph – I just don’t believe all (any?) they write.
Disputin ==> I have spoken personally to a sailor whose 35 footer hit a sea container. He and his wide were rescued by the Coast Guard, which then used their 50 cal deck gun to sink the wreck.
I’m reminded of Sir Francis Chichester and his solo sail across the oceans, and him hitting an object in the water at night that almost brought his trip to an end. He never did identify the object he hit, speculating it could have been a tree washed out to sea or something of similar size.
Tom ==> Everyone should read his book — required reading for crew on my boats:
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/gipsy-moth-circles-the-world_francis-chichester/522797/item/28207933/
It was a good book. It made me want to sail alone around the world. Until I read the part about running into mysterious objects in the middle of the night. 🙂
Tom ==> Also required reading:
Sailing Alone around the World
by Joshua Slocum
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/881902.Sailing_Alone_around_the_World
I have had a life-long habit of placing candy wrappers and other bits of trash in my back pockets – often to the annoyance of my wife.
Me too, and it annoys my wife when I don’t remove them
Ben Vorlich ==> Oh, I’m supposed to remove them?
“…I am a dedicated fan of the “Oh yeah? Let me see for myself”-school of evidence.”
______________________________________________________________
You can Google “Garbage Patch” [Images] and get an entirely different story.
I have elsewhere read that those images dredged up by Google aren’t from the so-called high seas.
Anyone who was in the Navy fifty years ago is familiar with this nightly announcement:
“Sweepers, Sweepers, man your brooms.
Sweep down all decks, ladders and passageways!
Take all trash and garbage to the fantail!”
The fifty year old Navy experience aside, recent ocean cruises don’t turn up miles and miles of floating debris.
Our world is full of so much media exaggeration, cherry picking and propaganda that it’s difficult for the average person sitting in front of their computer screen to discern the truth.
Steve ==> If you ever need to debunk the Garbage Patch for true believers, use this NOAA link:
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/garbagepatch.html
“e name “Pacific Garbage Patch” has led many to believe that this area is a large and continuous patch of easily visible marine debris items such as bottles and other litter—akin to a literal island of trash that should be visible with satellite or aerial photographs. This is not the case. While higher concentrations of litter items can be found in this area, much of the debris is actually small pieces of floating plastic that are not immediately evident to the naked eye. ”
The version several years ago was more blunt.
Thanks, I’ve bookmarked the link. Here’s the LINK to the Wayback Machine version
Typo:
trollingtrawlingPhillip ==> One or the other. “fish by trailing a baited line along behind a boat.
gerund or present participle: trolling
“we trolled for mackerel”
From the article: “(Creatures can become entangled floating masses of discarded fishing nets and the like, but not with microplastics).”
About the fishing nets, do they concentrate in certain areas of the ocean?
You said at another point that nets make good habitat for some life, but is that a reason to leave the nets in the ocean? It seems like to me that it would be better to remove all the fishing nets we could find.
Btw, great article, worthy of rolling out every time we see plastics being hyped as a crisis.
Tom ==> These masses of nets, ropes, traps, etc are usually discarded from commercial fishing vessels or lost overboard in storms etc. The action of wind and waves rolls them into these masses, just like the air currenrs in your house create dust bunnies.
I read an account of an environmentalist who went out to sea collect net-tangles to “save the whatevers” — but when he finally found one and started to winch it aboard he realized that he would be killing sea life not saving it — so set it back into the ocean and sailed on.
If one reads any of the many accounts of being in a life raft at sea, you find that the little floating island (the raft) becomes a mini-reef — life attached to the bottom of the raft and other life — fishes — begin to collect in the shade under the raft as well.
I suspect such masses fairly quickly become so weighted down that they sink to the bottom.
Thanks, Kip.
I just hate to see whales and other creatures caught up in the nets.
The good news is if humans spot such a thing, they usually take some action to try to help the animals.
Nice analysis. ‘Put your trash in a trash bin!’ – it’s amazing the anger and and energy that goes into this – visible trash. I see pictures and videos of someone not picking up their trash, and the comments are horrible. People call for executions for leaving some wrappers behind! I’m all for neatness, but the same thing happens on land! A layer of leaves and wet, sunlight, and in a few years all that trash has become soil!
Rick ==> I have participated in roadside cleanup campaigns for many years. Thins I have learned are; plastic bottles and cups breakdown from the effects of exposure to sunlight. Plastic cutlery breaks down but takes longer. Foam food containers in the sun don’t last long at all. People can be utter pigs, throwing entire bags of “McDs” meals out the car window. Much of the roadside trash comes from stuff that inadvertently blows out the the beds of pickups, including whole black plastic bags full of trash.
And lastly, not everything breaks down quickly enough to prevent it from being an eyesore!
The Trudeau government recently re-announced their list of soon-to-be banned plastic items, in order to keep us Canadians safe and to show how *good* we are and how marvellous they are. A slide from my first-year geology lecture I put together three years ago, from the part where I talk about ocean currents, from a back-of-the-envelope calculation I did one morning. Whether I have actually succeeded to enlighten a few open minds, I don’t know.
Brian ==> Interesting. If they float, they becomes homes to life at sea. The sun quickly causes any floating plastic items to break down. The biota load builds up and the item sinks of its own weight.
The Garbage Patch is a myth, as you know.
99% of the plastic microparticles are made of inert organic polymers. Most of them cannot be discerned by a naked eye among heaps of natural sand. There is no harm to be worried more about touching, breathing or ingesting them inadvertently instead of natural sand or dust.
A lot of human protheses are made with plastics, many of them staying in place in one’s body during a full life. Plastics are an integral and essential part of men’s life.
Contrary to a widespread opinion, once they become the size of a microparticle, there are several natural bacteria which are able to metabolize and degrade them into simple hydrocarbon chemicals up to carbon dioxide and water.
Jack ==> Quite right.
Plastic grocery bags were invented to save trees from being turned into paper grocery bags.
Lets use a product that would otherwise go entirely unused i.e. coal, gas oil etc. to make something to save trees.
Excellent logic.
But the greens would rather America chopped down forests to manufacture wood pellets (using fossil fuels) then transport said pellets on fossil fuelled ships across the Atlantic, to feed the Drax power station in the UK, which emits more CO2 from burning wood pellets than it did when it burned coal.
Not good logic.
This is from memory, from a recent peer-reviewed scientific article: A very high percentage of ocean plastics originates from rivers in third world countries. Recyclers are supposedly paid for recycling plastics but in fact that plastic is let loose in the environment and ultimately ends up in the sea.
The best way to mitigate plastics is high temperature incineration close to the user’s home, to reduce the probability of that plastic getting lost on the way to the incinerator.
Alex ==> This bit “Recyclers are supposedly paid for recycling plastics but in fact that plastic is let loose in the environment and ultimately ends up in the sea.” is an urban legend. It is true that the recycle bales may be landfilled if that are not suitable for recycling, but none is intentionally let loose.
Waste-to-energy is best for most plastics.
There’s some difference between a peer-reviewed scientific report and an urban legend.
90% of Ocean Plastic Disaster Caused by Third World Pollution | National Vanguard
Alex ==> Your reference states no such thing — no plastic sent to Asia is intentionally “let loose” — there is no evidence that plastic sent for recycling is accidentlly “let loose”.
There is good evidence that that majority of oceanic waste plastic come down rivers in Asian and third world countries.
I can’t speak for Asia, but I did a fair bit on the Niger and offshore. The custom in the bankside villages was to pile the rubbish up and let the rising flood (about 10m) wash it away.
Disputin ==> Lack of government, lack of resources, lack of public will….same all over the poorest areas of the world.
Even the poor in the USA will throw hard to dispose of items in the back of a pick up and dump it in an empty lot of along the roadside.
The irony is power stations can burn plastics
ahhhh… sorta. It has to be below a certain amount and mixed in with other abrasive combustion materials or it will literally gum-up the works. It does pyrolyze nicely into combustible gasses but that’s a whole different and heat wasteful process… it’s just about as good as turkey butchering offal in the pyrolyzing process.