
Trillions of plastic pieces found in Arctic ice - lelf
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/05/23/arctic-ice-trapped-plastic/9507653/
======
GuiA
What's terrifying to me is that the more our science moves forward, the more
we're realizing that we've fucked up the Earth in ways we had no clue about.
It's likely going to get worse and worse as time goes on, and it's reaching a
scope where undoing the damage is more and more unlikely.

It'll be interesting to read follow up studies about the impacts this has on
the ecosystems. It's freaky how interconnected oceans are.

~~~
camus2
We fucked up our own survival,and future generations will hate us for that.

Earth will go on for billions of years after we are gone.

~~~
toleavetheman
Do you find some kind of solace in your (unfounded) assumption that the earth
will outlive humanity?

~~~
mistermann
> Do you find some kind of solace in your (unfounded) assumption that the
> earth will outlive humanity?

I'm struggling to come up with an even remotely likely scenario where that
wouldn't be the case....getting sucked into a black hole would be one I
suppose.

~~~
toleavetheman
If we achieve interstellar travel, we will spread to other planets. I see no
reason to assume that none of our future colonies could outlive this planet.

~~~
mistermann
Hmmmm....which is more likely, hard to say.

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arcticPeril
Maybe I'm missing an important detail about the lifecycle of arctic ice,
but...

If the arctic ice contains plastic particles...

And the particles are man made...

And man has only been making small plastic particles for roughly 100 years...

That would mean that the arctic ice was, at some point in the recent 100
years, ordinary sea water polluted with small plastic particles.

If this ice... was sea water in the recent past, then it must be superficial
ice.

If superficial arctic ice is young enough to contain plastics, and is now
melting, then this marks the return of sea water from as recent as 50-100
years ago...

If melting polar ice, polluted with plastics, is a new and disturbing event,
then...

Does this mean that this is the first time polar ice of that age is melting?

If 50-100-year-old polar ice is only melting just now, for the first time,
then, in terms of rising sea levels, does this mean that sea levels have, thus
far, only risen to their state as they existed at the end of the 19th century?

Or, is it that the arctic polar ice cap completely melts every summer and
refreezes every winter?

If so, then won't a similar amount of plastic be recaptured when the arctic
polar ice cap refreezes? Or are we now fretting at the idea that the arctic
polar ice cap will fail to refreeze?

And doesn't that mean that 2 years ago, and 10 years ago, the polar ice cap
was capturing just as many plastic particles when it refroze?

And if this plastic-bound ice has also melted during the past few summers,
didn't it redistibute its captured plastics back into the ocean?

If the arctic ice cap is (or was) trapping large quantities of man-made
plastics, then the sea ice doesn't seem to be the real story here.

The real story seems to be the horrendous amount of plastics in the ocean. The
arctic polar ice cap, on the other, hand seems to be an unfortunate additional
detail.

~~~
flavor8
Yes it melts, yes it refreezes. But more is melting each summer, and less is
refreezing each winter. That's why there's excitement about opening of the
northwest passage - shipping and oil drilling in the arctic that wasn't
previously possible.

[http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2014/05/Figure3.png](http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2014/05/Figure3.png)

[http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/](http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/)

[http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/08/climate-
chang...](http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/08/climate-change-
northern-sea-route)

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/opening-of-
northwe...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/opening-of-northwest-
passage/)

~~~
omilu
_" That's why there's excitement about opening of the northwest passage -
shipping and oil drilling in the arctic that wasn't previously possible."_

That's a glass is half full way of looking at it!

~~~
flavor8
I was leaving the obvious unsaid; the shipping/resource-exploitation aspect
isn't as well known. I guess we'll be finding out what happens when an oil
spill gets caught up in arctic ice in the next decade or so.

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001sky
Linkbait headline.

0.00394 inches = 1 trillion per cubic meter.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbeads#Controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbeads#Controversy)

It is still a huge environmental problem

But then we continue:

"Rayon was the most common synthetic material discovered -- 54%. Though rayon
is not a plastic (it's made from wood), the authors included it"

Only to later find this is all about global warming (?)

"Global warming releases microplastic legacy frozen in Arctic Sea ice"

[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014EF000240/abst...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014EF000240/abstract)

------
deftnerd
I wonder how all these pieces of plastic in the ice will affect its melting
temperature and it's strength. There is a good research paper there with data
that could affect estimates on freeze and melt rates of winter ice, formulas
used to calculate when ice packs start to break up, ship hull strength
requirements for different depths of ice, etc.

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jmathai
It mentions pieces smaller than 5mm and talks about fibers from clothing
that's been washed. Perhaps that's why the concentration is 1,000 greater than
the Great Pacific garbage patch?

I'm curious if the comparison is apples to apples or not. Regardless it's
terrible.

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Zigurd
Leaded gasoline, testing nuclear bombs in the atmosphere, plastic everywhere,
chemicals in plastic that interfere with the endocrine system, massive use of
antibiotics in farming, Roundup-resistant weeds... All these malpractices have
large, measurable, global impacts. It's a wonder we have not caused a mass-
poisoning crises or disease outbreak that has an obvious effect on lifespan or
fertility.

~~~
barkingcat
It just means that sooner or later we will have mutations occurring in the
general population.

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vixin
We spend billions on supposedly averting a crisis predicted by lousy models
but appear to ignore grotesque pollution of the oceans of which this is one
example. Mercury and other nasties being another. But the list goes on and on.

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aaron695
> Though the finding is surprising and worrying, the possible harm to marine
> life is so far unknown, the authors concluded.

Sentences like this is not science. It's FUD.

And as such I find the entire article dodgy. I can't see Arctic ice containing
massive amounts or plastic compared to the oceans. Nor have I seen evidence
that plastics in the oceans can cause any large scale harm anyway.

As compared to over fishing which we do know is causing harm. I don't really
understand they people divert from real known issues to these end of the world
style made up catastrophes.

~~~
yeukhon
It isn't the large scale harm we are looking after. If we know such harm
exists then it would be too late to step in.

Here is a documentary of what happen to the millions or even trillions of
plastic flooding around the ocean.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulkY7mOkdqs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulkY7mOkdqs)

Is this a small harm or big harm? What if an entire population on some distant
island gets wiped out because of that? How would we know? Even for a small
number of death, we are responsible to help clean up the ocean as much as
possible, just as we are responsible for cleaning up all the space debris. Is
it right that we just blow up a satellite and not worry about the orbital
debris?

If it's not right, we don't do it, regardless of how small the harm is. If we
overfishing, we ought to mark certain part of the ocean free from fishing.

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brianbreslin
So since this is an entrepreneurial community (supposedly), who knows the
wholesale value of this material? One could probably wrangle a government
grant to clean this stuff up, collect it, and then sell it to wholesale
recyclers at a profit.

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orionblastar
If there a trillions of plastic pieces in Arctic ice, then what about our
oceans and rivers?

Think of life with plastic bits in our water supply. How will life survive
with plastic bits in water?

~~~
userbinator
_Think of life with plastic bits in our water supply._

Filters work really well to remove those, but most of the other life on Earth
doesn't use filtered water... regardless, these plastic bits seem pretty
inert.

~~~
DanBC
Inert, yes. But they can fill the digestive system of some creatures who then
cannot eat enough food to survive.

I'm not sure how relevnt it is here though. [http://ocean.si.edu/laysan-
albatross-plastic-problem](http://ocean.si.edu/laysan-albatross-plastic-
problem)

~~~
ars
You know those pictures are faked right? (Maybe it says that there, I didn't
check.)

This microparticles would not have that affect anyway though.

~~~
DanBC
As far as I know the poctures are real. If you xan find any source that
credibly shows he did anything but photograph carcasses then I'll accept the
images are faked.

Here's a video where he claims to disect a corpse. Is this also faked?

[http://www.midwayjourney.com/2010/07/10/midway-journey-ii-
ju...](http://www.midwayjourney.com/2010/07/10/midway-journey-ii-junk-food-ii-
our-first-dissection)

You say that these microplastics would not have this effect.

Here are some articles suggesting that microplastics may be killing fish and
other wildlife: [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/microplastic-
pollu...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/microplastic-pollution-in-
the-great-lakes/)

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-
environment-16709045](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16709045)

~~~
ars
I can't find it. My understanding is he posed the birds to show how how much
garbage would be found in them.

I'm not saying birds don't have plastic in their stomach though, just not that
much.

I can believe microplastics would kill tiny animals, but not larger ones. It
doesn't belong in water either way.

~~~
DanBC
I'm not sure what you're saying - did he add plastic? (That would destroy the
credibility of the photographs) or did he take a bird corpse and pose the
corpse but without adding any plastic? (That would be a stupid thing for him
to do but is irrelevant to the plastic argument)

Birds can survive with some plastic, they swallow stuff for their gizzard
anyway, but they mistake plastic for food and die from eating too much which
prevents them eating enough food to get nutrition. I think this is accepted
and not controversial.

Microplastics are eaten directly by many animals. As shown hy the links I
provided some of those plastics migrate from the stomach to the bloodstream.
The plastics are then part of the foodchain. The plastics absorb contaminants.
So it's not just inert plastic, it is the PCBs and DDT and etc that the
plastics contain that are problematic.

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DougN7
With all of the concern for the environment, why aren't rich people of the
world (home owners in the U.S. for example) covering their roofs with solar
panels? To me, this is the best solution because we still get our comforts
(computers, air conditioning), but decrease coal, gas and oil usage.

It's still expensive, but would be a good option if we figured all of the long
term costs in.

------
Natsu
Not to mention the Great Pacific Garbage patch:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch)

~~~
barkingcat
The article makes mention to the Pacific Garbage patch as a comparison

"The concentration of plastic debris [estimated from core samples of arctic
ice] is 1,000 times greater than that floating in the so-called Great Pacific
Garbage Patch."

~~~
zaroth
Wikipedia says GPGP has about 5kg of plastic suspended per square kilometer of
ocean.

1 cubic meter of water is 1000 liters and 1000kgs. 1 square kilometer, and
let's say all the plastic is within 1 meter of depth would be 1 million cubic
meters of water, or 1billion kilograms.

So another way to think about it is dilute plastic molecules at about 5 parts
per billion. The big assumption is 1 meter depth, because if it's actually
concentrated more like within 1cm of depth then it's 500 ppb.

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clubhi
This is the worse thing I've read since they spelt all that salt into the
ocean.

