Home Forums FineTunedMac Community Lounge Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Wiki this one. This is one of the most shocking things I have seen in years and had no idea it was going on. I just feel like I have to share this. If you think this is an inappropriate posting, please take it down.

if you see any macbooks mixed in with the flotilla, then I think you may be onto something.

otherwise, no.

I was thinking about my Appletalk Laserwriters that Apple has obsoleted along with all their environmentalist-speak. We used to call this old stuff 'boat anchors.' If only they were being repurposed, but they're not.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is quite scary.

I recall hearing that the problem is mostly plastic because of the fact that it isn't biodegradable and that every piece of plastic ever made still exists, unless it was recycled. And, every piece that is just thrown away will, at some point, end up in place like the garbage patch.

Sort of makes it clear why we should recycle, doesn't it?

ryck

While I agree with your exhortation to recycle, the above statement isn't entirely true. Plastics are subject to both physical and chemical degradation, and even with one or both being very slow, that does constitute degradation. But one way or the other, the plastic still exists, like everything else...

Not entirely true. There are a few bacteria that can break down plastics. Also, once it finds its way to say, magma or fire, it's going to break down. So saying that it's "forever" isn't too accurate. It just isn't as affected by the more common things like sunlight, water, and common bacteria.

I also recall that crocodile stomachs can dissolve steel nails. I bet they'd take care of plastic. And that's a fair comparison, comparing man's extreme materials with nature's extreme destructive forces.

This only came to my attention because an employee of my cousin went to a secluded area as part of Habitat for Humanity to build water infrastructure and it was an area where there was a rare type of turtle that had it's last or next to last breeding area on earth and in the water that washed up on the beach were these tiny flecks of plastic so, obviously, the turtles were doomed. I use a Brita filter and a beach water bottle with a shoulder strap instead of bottled water and I brew iced tea in my coffee maker using tea bags instead of buying it in bottles and put it in Tupperware. And I wanted my Laserwriters because they cost almost nothing to run. Saving turtles also saves $$$ I'm not big on causes, the species I'm trying to preserve is me.

........hmmmmmm. Maybe we're onto something here.

If we just think of the people who dispose of plastic directly into the environment as one of "nature's destructive forces", the crocodiles may be the solution. One destructive force could be the way to get rid of another destructive force. The tricky part is, of course, figuring out how we get these people into the crocodile cage.

ryck

Saving turtles also saves $$

1. Reduce
2. Reuse
3. Recycle

Your description only covers options 2 and (slightly) 1. Still plenty of room for improvement

1. I buy my pepsi in 2L instead of smaller packages.
2. Then I fill up four Gatorade 20oz bottles to 16oz per 2L and use those daily
3. At the end of the month the empty 2L's go back to the refundables and any unnecessary Gatorade bottles go into the plastics recycling container.

It's not too much added trouble, gets you more for less, and is a closed loop.

Does anyone else find it unusual that a lot of the smaller bottles like those small plastic bottles have labels on them that say "do not reuse"?

2. Filling the 20s to only 16 leaves air space into which the carbonation boils off. (Edit: I've invented a contraption, made of dowel sticks with screws in the ends and held together with devices made from wire-hanger sections, that squeezes the bottles shut after they reach a certain point of emptiness and prevents that from happening.)

Ahh but I go on bike rides. That headspace is absolutely required or things get messy! and make sure the cap's on tight!

Don't things get messy even with the empty space? (Or is "less messy" the answer?)

The headspace is required because the pepsi is carbonated. I don't know the physics of what limits the carbonation's change to gasious CO2, but it appears to be a factor of the pressure already in the airspace, and also the quantity of the pepsi.

In any event, if you don't leave a good 1/2" gap at the top and try to go on a bike ride, it will spray out the cap no matter how hard you crank it on. If you leave the pepsi level at or below about the middle of the Gatorade logo stamped into the neck of the bottle, and screw the cap on tight, usually by the time you pull out the bottle the headspace is cut in half and the dimple on the underside of the bottle is reversed outward, but it hasn't leaked. Had one of these in my bag today. 41 mile ride. And I'm bushed. Not anywhere near back in shape from winter, AND rode an additional 8 miles at the start way fast to get to the meet in time, and tack on another 8 going back, PLUS had to cut some trees down that had fallen over the path. Ya, I'm gonna sleep sound as a rock tonight.