Everyone’s going to Trashlantis!
in Earth and Space Science, The Water Cycle, Weather and Climate, Energy Transformations, and Forces of Nature
Somewhere, beyond the sea: Somewhere, a plastic continent that you're missing out on.
Courtesy teapicPack your bags, Buzzketeers, because you don’t want to be the last person to make it to the world’s newest, creepiest continent. (Don’t worry, Australia, I’m not talking about you.)
Trashlantis! The new frontier! The Texas-sized plastic layer floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean! Why would you not want to go there? The answer, of course, is that you wouldn’t not want to go there… ever!
Yet another scientific expedition is on its way to the fabled plastic continent. But while the last group of researchers mentioned on Buzz was at least partially motivated by the potential to turn Trashlantis back into some more useful hydrocarbons, it looks like these folks are more interested in seeing how the plastic is affecting sea life.
The Yahoo article linked to above sums up the expedition with:
”The expedition will study how much debris -- mostly tiny plastic fragments -- is collecting in an expanse of sea known as the North Pacific Ocean Gyre, how that material is distributed and how it affects marine life.”
I’m guessing what they’re getting at has to do with how plastic affects very very small organisms as it photodegrades. We understand how chunks of plastic in the ocean are no good for larger animals—marine life can choke on them, or fill their stomachs with trash—but the problem goes further than that. See, eventually those larger pieces of plastic start to photodegrade. (That means they get broken down by the energy in sunlight.) But photodegredation doesn’t seem to actually get rid of the plastic, it just breaks it into increasingly smaller pieces. When a plastic bag turns into a million little tiny chunks, it no longer poses a risk for, say, a sea gull choking on it. But smaller organisms are still likely to gobble some up, and if they can eat anything bigger than they can poop (it happens), they’re in a lot of trouble. And when small organisms die off, so do the slightly larger creatures that eat them, and the larger creatures that eat them, and so on. (You remember this from grade school.) So how will Trashlantis fit into this plasticky food-path?
And then there’s the huge real estate potential for Trashlantis. So get there now.
Tags : The Journey to Trashlantis
in Earth and Space Science, The Water Cycle, Weather and Climate, and Scientific Enterprise
The HMS Fiddlesticks will also be sailing to Trashlantis: Where it will promptly be abandoned, with all the other garbage.
Courtesy hexodus...You all remember Trashlantis, right?
In case you do remember, but still feel like reading a summary anyway, here: Trashlantis was only named “Trashlantis” in early 2008 by one marginally-informed science blogger, but—considering how the fabled floating garbage continent is made of your trash, and your parents’ trash, and your grandparents’ trash—it has been around for a good while longer than that. Trashlantis, also referred to as the “Eastern Garbage Patch” and the “Plastic Vortex,” is a floating mass of plasticy waste from Asia and North America, which has sort of congealed in the center of the Pacific Ocean. Ocean currents have brought our plastic there and kept if there since we realized how much fun it was to throw plastic into the ocean, about 60 years ago. Today the floating mass is continent-sized in surface area. (It’s the size of the Lower 48, or twice the size of Texas, or just really, really, really big, depending on who you believe.)
There hasn’t been a whole lot of research done on the Eastern Garbage Patch—oh, shucks, let’s just call it Trashlantis—partly because it’s way out in the ocean (about 500 miles off the coast of California), but mostly, according to scientists, because it’s “super yucky.”
However, a group of scientists and entrepreneurs is now planning to sail to (through) Trashlantis aboard the 145-foot-tall sailboat, the Kaisei, accompanied by a fishing trawler. The scientists intend to study the plastic mass to determine the extent of its toxic effect on the sea and sediment beneath it, while international business man and pectoral enthusiast Doug Woodring hopes to see if the waste might be able to be collected to be recycled or used as fuel.
Part of the problem with Trashlantis is that because the plastic has been floating out in the sun for decades, it’s starting to break down. It’s not necessarily breaking down in a good way—think soda bottles turning into poisonous goop, not banana peels turning into fertile compost—and scooping it up in nets is going to be difficult, if we don’t want to snag too many fish and too much plankton along with it (we don’t want to). Trashlantis, sadly, is very much what many people refer to as “a hot, sticky mess.”
The expedition looks like a good step towards understanding the problem, and maybe developing a solution. And don’t anybody even think about taking the voyagetotrashlantismovie.kz url, because as soon as I can scrounge up ten dollars, that sucker is mine, and I’m going to be taking Paramount to the cleaners next summer.
Ultra plastic: Just think - a Lunchable that you could see, but never get to. (Image courtesy of the University of Michigan)Using a technique similar to the natural processes involved in the formation of seashells, scientists at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor have created a plastic based material as thin as a sheet of paper, but as strong as steel.
What’s the secret? It has to do with that magic word that we love so much around the science museum: nano.
Nano-sized sheets of plastic are stacked by a robotic arm, and stuck together with a mortar made of “clay and a non-toxic glue similar to that used in school classrooms.” The plastic layers are so thin that even after 300 of them are stacked, the resulting sheet is still paper-thin and transparent. The reason why the material is so strong is because the layers are stacked in alternating patterns, and because the glue/mortar immediately creates new bonds as soon as others are broken. Again, this is all very similar to the way that abalone shells (known for their strength) form – in the case of the shells, crystals are stacked in alternating patterns, and cemented together with an organic mortar.
Currently the material is only being produced in pieces a few centimeters large, but the Ann Arbor researchers are already building a machine in their lab that could make pieces as large as one meter by one meter.
Although it’s still several years away from commercial applications, the material has potential uses ranging from microtechnology to creating stronger, lighter body armor.
Plastic is a ball: Look how far plastic technology has come. We wouldn't have these cool balls without its invention 100 years ago. (Photo by Liethwalker)Benjamin Braddock, Dustin Hoffman’s character in the film “The Graduate,” should have listened to that sage piece of advice…that the wave of the future was plastics.
It’s proven to be quite a resilient substance. This year marks 100th anniversary of the creation of the plastic. Can you think of a day in your life that plastic hasn’t played some important part of?
Inventor of the process of making plastic – Leo Baekeland – created the process of developing phenol-formaldehyde polymer resin in 1907. The new material found new uses over the quickly as rayon, cellophane, PVC and polyethylene, to name just a few.
Sticking around: New and new uses are being found for plastic, even in its 100th year. These hay bales in Ireland are wrapped in plastic to keep the moisture out. (Photo by bigeoino)And it’s probably going to be around for a while longer. New coming uses for plastic, things that are still in the development stages, include plastic hemoglobin-like material that can be used in human blood and airplane parts that can change shape depending on the weather and air conditions that a plane is flying through.
With all that development, however, there are still some big challenges. Only about 10 percent of all plastic is recycled, which means a growing supply of plastic wastes that have to be dealt with in a reasonable fashion.
So if you’re looking for a reason to have a party, why not celebrate plastic’s 100th birthday!
New and new uses are being found for plastic, even in its 100th year. These hay bales in Ireland are wrapped in plastic to keep the moisture out. (Photo by bigeoino)
Please contact us if you have questions about the rights on this image.
Look how far plastic technology has come. We wouldn't have these cool balls without its invention 100 years ago. (Photo by Liethwalker)
Please contact us if you have questions about the rights on this image.
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